František Gabčo

“My two older brothers lived in Přebuz for a while. We experienced the deportation of Germans who lived there. They left their houses there and they went away only with their backpacks. It was terrible for them, because they had to abandon everything and leave. I have to say that they were immensely kind and they liked to have fun. They used to go to a little pub which was also regularly frequented by soldiers from the customs house in Rolava, who were coming there on Saturdays. There was music and merriment in the pub. I enjoyed being among them a lot; they were the kind of people that you can talk to. When they were leaving, they were really unhappy about it and they offered their houses to us to buy them. Almost all the people from Přebuz left at once. It all happened quickly and the village became empty in a short time. People from Přebuz lived like one large family. They used to get together, dances were organized, and there was fun. I really liked it there. One of the reasons they liked to talk to us was that there were not many people to have fun with, and they saw that we liked to have a good time, too. Every time when we were walking to the pub, we were singing and they liked to listen to us. Eventually only few of us remained there. The school was closed down and children then had to commute to Rotava. The village gradually became depopulated. The houses were bought by people from Kladno, who were going there only on weekends. I think that Přebuz begins to get a bit lively again as more people now live there. New people are coming. They are not Germans, but our people.”

“Communication was difficult in the beginning. When I came to work for the first time, the foreman ordered me: ‘Fetch a cudgel.’ I didn’t know what he meant. I brought him a stick, because at home we used the word cudgel for a stick. He told me: ‘What did you bring?’ ‘You wanted a cudgel, so I brought a cudgel.’ ‘No. I wanted this,’ and he showed me what he meant. It was actually a hammer. So this was in the beginning, but a month or two later we got used to it. We eventually became able to communicate well. When we came here, there were many people who also moved here from other places. At first everything here felt quite alien to us. There were many gypsies in Dolní Rotava, but we didn’t meet with them, because we didn’t understand each other. When we went to the pub, there were conflicts because of it. They asked us what we were doing there. I told them: ‘Why should not I be able to sit here only because I don’t talk to you?’ There was a couple of fights. I don’t like to remember this. Then we got used to it and we moved from Dolní Rotava to Horní Rotava, and then everything got into normal.”