Siegfried Heil

"I did not see Henlein. As children, we had to collect potato beetles in his fields and harvest beets. There was a black pond where two Americans drowned. Then they blew up the dam and stretched their nets to pull out their bodies. The ponds were full of fish. There were floods in Milíkov. They pulled out the drowned Americans. One of them called, 'Help, help!', He got a cramp or something, and the other wanted to help him, but in the end they both drowned. The Americans wanted to help them and they were diving with a hose. It was bad enough. Water flowed everywhere, there were puddles full of fish everywhere. There were carps, trout and tenches. I had such a stick with a walnut wood fork and I put it on it. I went home and always had six or seven fish. Then I didn't even want to see the fish, it was too much."

"At the end of the war, there were mainly Americans here, about a hundred men. First, they threw a few shots with a grenade launcher, then they parked the grenade launchers on the meadow. There is Těšovský vrch near us. At that time there were German soldiers from the RAD, they also had guns. So, they were shooting each other. We, the young boys, were standing next to the Americans, of course they chose us away, so we took a few steps away, but we were still trying to get there. The grenade launcher, it was an experience. In May, Germany capitulated. They were all far away. The Americans then wanted to take the tank up the hill. It was the Slavkov Forest, the roads were not paved, so the tanks got stuck there and could not continue. I watched it from the window as their wheels spun. The road was narrow and the tank was wide."

"We stayed on the farm and tried to be helpful. We continued to sleep in the hay, my grandmother and my stepmother helped with the beet harvest, I went to pasture cows. However, my most beautiful experience of this time is when I had to tread the cabbage in the cellar. For me, this time was very adventurous. I was still speculating about what would happen next day."