Josef Moder

"I was unhappy about one thing, I don't know if you'll understand. I wasn't Czech and I wasn't German. I didn't know how to speak Czech properly, to write, I was still learning that later on, but it was the same in German, we only spoke Egerlandic at home. I said to myself: this is not life. If we have a child, it has to change. And that was the beginning of it... My wife lost her first child and I still wanted a child. In 1964, our first daughter was born. And I said, one day, right after the girl was born, look, this life is not possible. I was convinced of that. I'm nothing. I always thought I could make a little more out of my life. I told my wife, we have to try to move out. That was terrible, terrible. At that time, you always had to apply, you had to get all kinds of documents to go with the application, also the employer's confirmation that they would fire me if I got the relocation to Germany. And we always had to take these documents to the commission, which was in Sokolov on the square. The first time I was there, they threatened me with all kinds of things. All kinds of things. They also asked me: 'Why do you want to move?' I'm not as stupid as they thought, so I told them: 'I have an aunt there. My aunt lost her husband in that senseless war, and my cousin is in a sanatorium near Regensburg - it still exists today - he had a lung disorder, I want to help them.' 'No - so - convince your aunt to move to Czech.' I said: 'I don't think she will do that, she left here.' As I told you that she was leaving with furniture. So we were there with the first request, we didn't get any answer at all, we asked maybe four times, but I don't know anymore."

"And the soldier, the Russian soldier, came with a jug of milk, the American soldier was waiting for him, took the jug, poured the milk down the drain, then put water in it, rinsed it out, then gave him the jug and kicked him. And the Russian had to go again to the other side, to the other exit street. That's the kind of thing I experienced directly, I'll never forget it. It means that people didn't understand right at the end of World War II that something should change in the world. Imagine, two armies abroad fighting each other again."