Jana Hyblerová

“So we got a bunch of lilac and we had to learn the Russian sentence ‘Zdravstvuyte, tovrashchy’. So they taught us that, and then suddenly all the loudspeakers started saying that instead of Russians, there were Germans coming on horses, in tanks, on motorbikes. So I stopped still, imagining I would welcome the Germans, not likely! And suddenly someone caught me by the collar and dragged me away - there was a saving society, post office a bit further along the square, and we all hid there and locked ourselves in. The Germans came, true, but no one appeared in the windows, they’d have shot without hesitation! If we’d have shown ourselves, they would have started shooting. So it worked out okay in the end, the Russians really did arrive after that. And now I’ll tell you something for a laugh. I had a watch on my arm, it was a lovely one, and the watch was visible, and one of the Russians came up to me and said: ‘Davay, davay,’ and pointed. So I gave it to him, and I got nought in return.”

“There wasn’t a soul about, but it was a fine day, and then suddenly we heard shooting. So [my friend and I] were curious, instead of legging it, we went on and came to where the forest started, to where the shooting was happening. And what we saw - back then I didn’t pity them, but as one grows older - it was ugly. It was actually after the war, I don’t know, they probably shouldn’t have done that. There were our people there, they called themselves, said they were partisans, but then I found that they weren’t partisans at all, but they were wild enough to be able to shoot at people. The Hitlerjugend boys were there, and a long dug out pit for a grave. They had them line up there six at a time, shot them, the boys fell down. So we watched for a while, and suddenly the one Czech roared at us to get the hell out. So we walked away quickly. So that wasn’t a thrill, at that point I really couldn’t care less after all that, but later I said to myself: Jesus, those were just boys!”