Josef Petýrek

"These people were true gold diggers who came to plunder and loot. I used to know one family from the Příbramsko region. They hung a bread crust on the chandelier and fought for it. He would come to the borderlands and six months later, he came back with his car loaded up to the roof. He brought back four motorcycles, all sorts of furniture and lots of other stuff. He stole all of this from the former houses of the Germans. They had to leave everything behind. The people left with 50 kilos of their belongings and had to leave the rest there."

"I went back home. At Glaserwald ,Stop – shooting‘. Allegedly some night-time shooting exercise. It would last until 2 or 3 o'clock in the night. So I took a detour, a shortcut, and stopped at the end of the forest. They had their targets stuck in the surroundings of the road. The silence there was beautiful. Then I started the engine and floored it. As soon as I did that the idiots started opened fire. I got very sweaty – even on my tie. But I made it through."

This is a story that was told to Mr. Petýrek by one of his colleagues. She originated in Prášily from a mixed family. Her father was German and her mother was Czech. She and her mother went from Srní to Prášily one day, but not on the road but through the forest. And when they arrived in Velký Bor, they were in the back of three men. And one of them said to the other guy: "Why do you want to kill her? She's got a child with her." He replied: "Because she's a Czech swine." It was her uncle. They were waiting for them. But they came from the back so they didn't notice them."

Mr. Petýrek remembers the recollections of a forester who used to work in Slovakia. But after March 14, 1939, when the independent Slovak national state was created, the aversions of the Slovaks towards the Czechs came to a head and things became tense there. The Czechs had to leave the country immediately to save their lives. "At night the local gendarmes came to their place and said: 'you have to leave right now. The Slovaks are loose'. So he had to take Liduška in his arms, Pepík by his hand, his rifle on his shoulder and they fled, leaving everything behind, even their hens and rabbits."