Libuše Heřmanská

"When I got to the beginning of the street, I saw that half of our house was gone. That's where the bomb fell. I have a photograph of it here, that half of that house is gone. And it was only lucky that nobody was home because the house was completely demolished. And then we got some financial compensation, but when the communists came to power, we had to pay back the compensation. They said we were not socially disadvantaged, although my father was no longer alive, my mother had us, two children, but the communists said that it had to be paid back, so my mother actually paid back all the money and we paid it back. That was pretty cruel because people were getting compensation but we didn't really get anything."

"They behaved terribly in Mělník. For one thing, women ran away from them and shut themselves in because they were raping, really. And then what they did was that they fished in the Elbe by throwing grenades in. So, our opinion of the Soviet soldiers was not the best, and that's what stayed with me. I admit that."

"We weren't allowed to write to her, we weren't allowed to do anything. We had to wait for her to hear from her. And then she wrote to us that we could bring a parcel once a month, in Pankrác Prison they used to bring parcels like that. Because my father couldn't get out of the doctor’s office, I used to go there. I was the only young girl among those old women. Well, I felt bad because of it, but there was nothing to be done - a handsome but very sharp communist took the parcels there. And when he found out that I was there, he always stopped the whole queue, sat down on the table and started talking to me. How I'm doing, how I'm graduating, and I don't know what all. And the fact is, he always took my package. And when I was doing the maturita exam and I didn't go there, my father went there and he asked what was wrong with me, my father said, she's doing her maturita exam - he gave him the package back and said, until she comes, I'm not going to take it. And he gave him the package back. So, my dad came back completely shocked. Well, I was uncomfortable, but because I wanted my mom to get it, I went there."