Anna Luzarová

“Having to leave home without even knowing where and what you’re going to. That was dreadful, especially for the old people. A lot of them fell ill, for some, it was the death of them. When you have to abandon everything you built up over all those years, not just you, but your parents, grandparents as well, and now you have to go, and you don’t even know where. And they put us [in houses - ed.] that belonged to Germans again - after they deported the Germans, they stuck us in there instead.”

“It began after the war, that we’d have to leave our home. Then the so-called Croatian question was discussed in Jevišovka. Some bigwigs from Croatia came to our village and said we’d be allowed to stay in our homes, that they wouldn’t deport us. Except then 1948 came, and all of us had to go. It was kind of all... We were sitting in school, the windows were open, and so we heard as they called out: ‘So and so will report to the elementary school, number that and that,’ and then they gave each of them the decision, where they were to move to. It was such a sad period.”

“Girls had three white starched skirts down below, covered by a beautiful top skirt made of ‘tibet’ cloth. This was topped by an apron, which could be variously coloured. Then there were the sleeves, ‘opljeće’, those were pretty, embroidered; then the bodice, comely, pink with green, laced at the front. The ‘kuolarin’ rested on top of this, hanging from the neck, nicely embroidered, and then a ribbon on top of that. The skirt was divided by a band. That’s what the dress looked like, very pretty. Young girls would also wear wreaths of artificial flowers, and so it sparkled in all kinds of ways. They also wore high black boots, ‘faldovačky’, I remember that Auntie Vranešicová had a kind of golden heel. The boys had red trousers with blue embroidery. Then they also had sleeves, a vest, a ribbon, and a hat. It was pretty.”