Květuše Malá

“I remember that my father returned and that we [with my mother] had to hide him. I remember that we had to be in the basement, it was a large basement and our neighbours came in there, too. We stayed there for several days. Russians were shooting at Odry and the Germans were shooting back at them. It took quite a while before the Germans retreated. Then it was already over. I cautiously got out [of the basement] and I could already see the Russians running there. I was happy that they were there. But the shop windows were smashed and people were looting the shops. I also know that two of my classmates were raped by the Russians. The hospital was full of cases like that at that time. I put a hat on my head and I put on trousers, it was probably an instinct, I don’t know, and I spoke Polish and the Russians left me alone. But my friends, I know about two of them, were raped and they were hospitalized.”

“My father then worked in Ostrava. Obviously, he became a communist, and he was a member of the Party. But it was only until he went for some inspection to Donbas. I don’t know exactly what it was, but it was immediately after the war. He saw all the mess there. He got so angry about I, I cannot even describe it. He grabbed his membership card of the Communist Party and he threw it at their feet. What were they thinking… People have suffered so much and they now wanted to lead the nation like this? They obviously expulsed him from the Party and he was no longer a communist. He was also fired from his job and he had to go to do manual work. He worked in the electric works in Třebechovice on two large machines, and very few people were able to operate them, but thanks to that I was able to apply for study at the conservatory as a child of working-class parents. And I got admitted.”