Natalija Kolářová

"We always stopped at a station, we had to get water. And they cooked for us there. There was a kitchen somewhere, and they brought us cocoa, for example, and with that - I don't know where they got it - bread, whether it was ours, I don't remember. But what I do remember is that they always came and they had a big pot and they scooped food for us. We had to have our own cups to eat. They also made soup. And then when we lived in Rýmařov, I remember, Vlastík was still a little boy, and when he played with a train, my grandfather had a little stool by the stove, so it was like a train, and he had to have a pot there. He always put this empty pot on top and we always laughed, because that was the experience of the train. They brought us breakfast in the morning and lunch too. When we stopped at the stations, they had to pump water into the locomotive and stuff... When there was a restaurant, people ran there to buy something. And at the back end of the train there were these cars where they had only straw, and there were soldiers. Maybe they were partisans, I don't know. Once they also ran there to get something. And I met somebody there, or somebody just took me with them. My mother knew about him, he told her he was taking me shopping. And he bought me some candy or something and we went back and the train started moving. And we had time only to jump into their carriage at the end, and it was only then when I saw what a terrible mess they were living in. My mother was freaking out, the next station he took me back to her."