Věra Fexová

“But I was afraid that, if I went [to emigration] my parents would suffer. Because my uncle, father of that cousin who left, one of my mom's brothers, then got locked up. He served ten years in prison. Not due to his son, but here in every district... People who are as old as I am, they do remember. This was all through the republic, in each region a group of people, who were uncomfortable for the new regime, were gathered and were made counter-state, those who worked against the state. And they were locked up for several years and worked in concentration camps, such as in Jáchymov or elsewhere. And they worked there in the mines, just like my two uncles did. One was the youngest brother of my mother, and the other one was his brother, who was the second oldest, whose son had escaped. Amongst other things, they worked in the Jáchymov mine.”

“I remember waking up on May 1 in the morning and we were looking forward to being off work. I came down, and looking out of the window and saw that there was snow outside. On May 1, 1945, the snow was falling, I remember it by now. As I looked out of the window, I saw a German soldier walking down the street towards us. And he, when he saw me looking out of that window, he started heading to us. I do not know, what he thought. He came and, of course, spoke German asking, if any of us spoke German. My mother did not; well I remembered something from my German classes. So I tried to talk to him. And he explained to me that he came, because they brought in mainly Russian prisoners, who were lodged in the barns of that courtyard, which was at the castle. And he wanted to cook food for them. And he saw a large electrical boiler in our courtyard, where we were cooking for the hens. He wanted me to go with him somewhere, where he could get another pot, so that he would have some food for the prisoner.”