Emilie Novoměstská

“We were liberated by Romanians, which was good, they were intelligent people. People said various things about the Russians, right. They were passing through the village early on Sunday morning, the vehicles full of people were passing through the village. People were giving them plum brandy and straw baskets with cakes, because we had baked the cakes in cases we would not be able to cook afterwards. People were giving them the plum brandy, but they were after the cakes. All of them stopped.” – “So there was not even any fighting here?” – “No no, they only passed through here. The Germans, when they were to leave, they were... They were here, for instance, and they were going to take one of our wagons. And one of the Germans came to my dad and he talked with him and he wanted to take one of the wagons and use it to go away. So dad went with him… German soldiers were accommodated here in the schoolhouse and they had nothing to eat. They did not have their field kitchens and their supplies here. They did not care about them. They saw that they were among enemies and they were going from house to house and asking for food. The war front was advancing, they were actually already retreating from the front. They had no supplies, no kitchen, they did not have anything, they had been simply abandoned here. There were about twenty of them. And just imagine, they knocked on our door. They had shot our uncle, and all that, and so we were scared, but instead they just came to ask for bread... my mom gave them bread. She felt sorry for them.”

“Our parents, my dad, did not want to join the cooperative. People resisted it fiercely at first, there was nearly a revolution when they arrived to campaign to make people join the cooperative. People with hoes, pitchforks, and rakes were all here in front of the office, but they defeated them. The way they did it was that at first they lured the people, young people, into the factory, and when the people got used to factory work, they said to the old people: ‘We will fire him from his job if you do not join the cooperative.’ Many people therefore signed it because they were afraid that the young people would get kicked from their jobs. And our daddy, they accused him that he was making obstructions to it… and many people went with him, that’s true. If he had joined the cooperative, the whole village would have joined with him. He was stubborn, and we waited until they destroyed us. Well, they took everything from us. They came here, and they led away all the cattle and they gathered everything, the machinery we had… the chairman from the village administration office was very diligent. He ordered them to take everything, including spades and hoes, and load it onto the wagon.”