Ing. Josef Otisk

"Robert Matula worked in Šumperk in Moravolen and wrote articles for the racing magazine. It was called How We Fought. I didn't read it until sometime after I could read, probably in the third grade. Truth is, my father didn't read much before me. He knew how he was, that he was being watched. So I wouldn't accidentally say something. I used to tell my friends my dad was a partisan and a paratrooper, but nothing else. After the war, Dad was still in uniform, he was a captain then. We went with my father to the church in Líšeň and I was holding his hand and some guy spoke up: "Why are you holding onto him?" and I said proudly that it was my dad."

"My grandfather, who was a merchant, had these concrete vats in his cellar that were used to store eggs. They were kept in a lime pit. During the war, of course, there were no more eggs there. So there were boards on top of those tubs, and we slept on those boards during the air raid. And when the war was over, the Russians were already there, and one day somebody called to the cellar. We went upstairs and there was a gentleman and I knew at that moment that it was my father. So I recognized him, and I told him right away what friends I had and so on. And that was the end of the war for me and the beginning of a normal life."

"There was a huge lime tree in front of our house, and a German tank was hidden under the lime tree towards the end of the war. I don't know if it was a Panzer or a Tiger, I didn't recognize it at the time. And so, as boys, we danced around the tank. And all I remember is that one of the soldiers gave me a candy. Mom ran over and said, 'Don’t take it from him; it’s going to be poisoned. And the German said in Czech: 'Madam, don't worry, it's good chocolate.' He was some kind of, I don't know, of Sudetenland origin, or he spoke Czech."