Josef Kauler

“I started going to school in 1940, by that time we had already been occupied by the Germans so we were the Protecorate of Bohemia and Moravia. The Germans would investigate which Czech nationals married a German national and to these married couples the German authorities suggested that they should join the Germans. Which happened in many cases and their children then either went to separate German schools or stayed in Mšena and went to school with us. It depended on each person how they dealt with it and it also depended on the school children who were differentiated like that how they behaved. Mostly they acted normally, like old friends. But there were also those who really became germanised, and we were sometimes scared of those.”

“In order for them to survive at all, they had to be helped. In Mšena there was a large group of citizens who helped them in various ways. One merchant would even provide them with food every day or two, or three, he would bring them rolls, bread, and other food so they had something to eat… In this way, it was thanks to many of the Mšena inhabitants that these people who were hiding made it to the end of the war without almost any harm, and nobody ever gave them away or told anyone where those caves were. And even though we, young boys, knew it too, the Germans never learnt it from us either.”