"It simply came to our notice then. My children were just sick and they were with my mother. We lived in Suchdol nad Odrou and it was five kilometres to Kunín, so my mother looked after them, she was already a widow. We lived in Suchdol and we worked in Mankovice. We went home right away so we could still buy something in the store, but there was nothing left, the stores were empty. I went to the children in the afternoon, kept them at home for four days, then went to kindergarten. We were all worried about what it would be like, but life went on. ”
"I just remember when the tanks arrived, one was aiming at our factory, the Tatra. It was aimed directly at the factories. We had to put the posters, everything that was, away with the participation of those Soviet officials. They came and it always had to go away in those beginnings. There should be no poster against the Russians. As for the soldiers, they were young boys, without experience, they were good. Some groups went to the factories for inspection, otherwise, I don't remember much. But tanks were everywhere. "
"It's an old school now, but it was such a small, wooden, elementary school. And they were driven there by the Germans, the young boys. It was full of them. And they were very lucky that the Russians freed it by morning, so nothing happened to them. They would certainly perish. It was full of boys in their twenties, and Uncle said, 'We were so cramped in there, and we were all afraid we would be executed. Everyone expected to execute them. And then the Russians came there. "
Zdeňka Lackovičová, a nee Bernátková, was born in October 1939 in the settlement of Mečůvka near Honí Bečva. She had three younger siblings and her parents made a living working in the fields and in the woods. During the war, the fighting more or less avoided the settlement, but the Germans shelled the surrounding hills, including Mečůvka. At the end of the war, the witness’s uncle was to be executed with other men from Horní Bečva. Her father managed to hide, but the village was liberated in time by the Russians. After the war, the family went to the Sudetenland Kunvald to a house after the Germans. Zdeňka went to primary school there and after a burgher in Šenov near Nový Jičín she studied for a year at a weaving mill in Krnov. At the same time, she was a member of the Wallachian ensemble with which she performed. She married in 1959, a daughter was born in the same year, and a son after three years. She and her husband lived in Suchdol nad Odrou, but in 1972 they divorced. In the same year, she remarried and with her husband she later went to Veselý near Piešťany. She worked in the Tatra company and in the mid-1980s they left for Mala Morava. She retired as a milkmaid, later moving to Hanušovice and Červená Voda. In 2020 she became a widow, in 2021 she lived in Červená Voda.
