Else Pecher

“We had to go to these political classes. It was at Bodensee, yet, and I was sitting in the first row. I was absolutely not interested in that stuff but I had to go to that class. And the teacher asked me when the Führer had been born. I stood up, remained silent for a few moments and then I told him that I didn't know when the Führer had been born. He asked me where I had gone to school and how it was possible that I didn't know that. I told him: 'but I can tell you when Dr. Garrigue Masaryk and Dr. Beneš were born, I know their biographies by heart. But I don't know when that one was born'. So he asked me again where I had gone to school and I told him: 'in the former Czechoslovakia'. He told me to sit down and I was never asked anything again. So it had certain advantages and I was left alone. The other class mates later told me, that it was quite courageous, what I had said. But I was so terribly angry at that moment, you have no idea.”

“This was when the American was still there. And the refugees came into the Holzlager. We came to Mettenheim, we were there in Mettenheim. Imagine 45 persons in a single room. It was a garrison and there was one room where 45 persons were accommodated. And what did my parents do? There were a lot of youngsters there and we only had these field beds. They put those four beds together and me and my sister had to sleep in the middle, my dad slept on the one outside, my mother on the other. They were afraid something might happen to us. We spent 3 months in that camp, until November, and we only stayed because my dad had work, he was in charge of it. Thereafter, some Czech social democrats moved into the house next to us and they warned us. They told my dad that we had to move immediately, otherwise he would be eventually arrested.”