Bruno Mrovec

"Bombs started falling in no time. It was like an earthquake. And that was the first time I heard the women begin to pray the Lord's Prayer. Everything was shaking. We were waiting for a bomb to fall on us. It was a terrible feeling. Two bombs fell thirty meters from us right on the main road. They made deep funnels. And one fell to a neighbor five meters from us, but did not explode. If it exploded, we're done. The neighboring house would be destroyed and we buried. There was dirt everywhere from the bombs. And when we crawled back into the cellar, we heard a call upstairs, and it was the Soviets."

"Thousands of Russian prisoners went here. The front was already approaching, it was somewhere in Poland near Katowice. And thousands of captives were coming here. Poor people. It was horrible to watch them. It was snowing and some didn't even have shoes on. Their feet were wrapped in cloths. It was terrible. Mom prepared bread with cracknels, because there was nothing else, we waited for the moment when the guards did not see us and threw it to them. They were very hungry and fought for it. They mistreated them.“

“There was such a case with neighbors who had cows and worked with them in the fields. A neighbor who was three years older than me and his grandmother were arguing in Czech, or rather Moravian, about how to harness the cows. And a guy like that rode by on a bike, turned it around and yelled at them: 'How are you talking! One more time, then you'll see!' I experienced that directly. It was forbidden to speak Czech or dialect. It was quite unpleasant for us. “