Blažena Lébrová

„Daddy used to hide me at the wardrobe, as there was the best hiding place, and when everything was over and the air raid gone, we heard the long sirens going off and we stayed like statues and the town officer woke us up to leave the house immediately to evade it, as in the next courtyard a bomb was found. So we left immediately and waited for three days to see what the bomb does and our daddy had a rabbit hutch with fifty rabbits and they saved us from starving during war and he was worried about them. So he crept to the hutch secretly to feed his rabbits. It took over three days and we came back and just imagine that the bomb didn’t explode. It was the kind, which got boycotted during production and everything stayed together in one piece, even our house, just our window glass was broken.“

“I came to the first grade and our teacher was terribly nice to us. Coincidentally she was our neighbour and tried to welcome us in Czech, and greet the Germans in German. But we could still use Czech. Although while explaining German vocabulary she always made comparisons as you do, when you learn English. That was in the first grade. Beautiful, everything was all right. We came to the second grade and we got a different teacher. He was an SS man and used to wear uniform to school. High heels with a beating stick in it. And we could not talk even during the breaks. And if anyone said we did, we had to go up the step (in front of the blackboard), kneel and point our hands in front of us and he was beating us over them with his stick. All was just in German.“