František Kotas

"When the Germans arrived and saw the children, they loaded them up and took them fast to the hospital in Kroměříž. The ones who were shot and with a thumb or a little finger injured. And then when [the classmates] came back, we started calling them grenadiers."

"School was cancelled and we used to go for assignments. We were in a room about the size of this one and the head teacher would give us our homework. We would sit in the kitchen, he would sit by the window and he would correct us. We used to go and get them twice a week. If we were collecting cartridges, we were collecting grenades, too. The soldiers used to do exercises as far as Bystřice near the forest. Well, didn't we find a grenade there? I don't know which boy it was. He brought it, threw it into the bushes in front of the school, but when we went to get our assignments, some kid took it, came inside with it and they fought over it. Because ten cartridges were worth one grenade. As they were shoving each other, I was in that room, and our whole class, they probably ripped out the fuse, it started hissing. They got scared, they put it on the table. Before he turned around, it fell on the floor and exploded. Imagine if we'd already had our homework corrected and they were out the door and out of the school. And that's when we heard the bang. So we ran back. There was smoke everywhere, and three of my class, Franta Krutilů, Tonda Olšáků and Stanya Nedbalů, all died..."