Milada Jelínková

"Naši byli na Rudolfově vítat Rusáky. Byl konec války. Večer v noci jdu ven z chaloupky a za plotem byli nějací lidé. Tak to říkám sestře, že jsou tam nějací lidé. Ona německy trošku rozuměla a přišla domů a říká, že jsou to Němci, že byli nějak shromáždění v Linci ve škole, odtud utekli a chtěli by do Rakouska a ptali se, jestli bychom je neschovali. Ségra je tam nevzala, až když přišli rodiče, tak ti je domů vzali. Jenže jsme měli jen jednu místnost a jednu takovou malou komůrku, tak byli schovaní v té velké místnosti. Byla to stará paní a zřejmě její dcera a té dcery holčička, tak tříletá."

"Když byl nálet na České Budějovice, chodila jsem do základní školy ve Zborově, do jednotřídky. Byla přestávka, hráli jsme si na vsi Chodí pešek okolo a přiběhl pan učitel a říkal: ,Děti, běžte domů, bombardují Budějovice, je válka.´ Tak jsme utíkali domů. Ještě si pamatuji, to jsme byly samy s mámou, asi se blížil konec války, že se tam objevili, buď to byli Rumuni, kteří utíkali před válkou, nebo esesáci. Jako dítě si pamatuji, že přišlo asi dvanáct esesáků, kteří měli kolem pasu granáty a chtěli vodu, chtěli se napít. My všichni včetně maminky a nás třech dětí jsme museli ke studni napít se vody a oni se pak teprve napili a vodu si nabrali."

“It was a younger woman with two small kids, the child was really tiny, about two or three years old, an older child, and one old lady so that was one family. Our parents took them in, because we only had a cottage and just two or three rooms, so my mum and dad took them home. I don!t remember what followed since we had to go to bed I think so that we wouldn't see everything. And we woke up in the morning because there was a field and a garden next to us, and Russians were there. And those people were devastated, the Germans, they were terribly scared, so, we had coal, a shed to store coal that had some space, so they went to hide behind the coal and my dad created a sort of a barricade so they were hidden among the coal and there was a dog, a mean wolfdog. And, well the Russians went inside the house and everything belonged to them. But then what happened was that my father took those Germans and drove them to the train station in České Budějovice.”

“In 1964 we got visa thanks to our acquaintance who worked for the police, so my father, my mother, my husband, and I got visa. We were not allowed to take the children, that was forbidden, we could not take our children with us. Well, so we got going. We stayed in the car at the border and my father had to step outside and he had to get completely undressed at the customs and they searched him to check if he was smuggling gold, and so my mother got home in 1964, which is when she saw her siblings but her parents were already dead, she never got to see them again, and the cemetery was already locked down, so my mum stood there by the door and cried because her mother was buried there and she wasn't allowed to go because a new cemetery was under construction.”

“That was in 1945, the SS were running away and the Germans were running away, because we lived in Zborov, which is quite close to Nové Hrady and there's a passage to Austria, so the Germans were running that way. I remember that, I asked my mum about that, about twelve SS members came and I remember that they had these black pouches here. My mum said they were grenades or something. And they wanted to drink some water so we had to go to the well, because the well was outside in the garden, there were no water pipes. So all of us, three children and our mum had to have a sip and only then they would drink the water.”