Hana Šebková

“In March 1945 a death march was passing through Tanvald. I was just in my friend’s house which was by the main road and we could hear dogs barking madly and shouts in German. We were scared by it. It was a death march from concentration camps. Concentration camps were being liquidated and they thus made the prisoners walk to Rýnovice, where there was some camp as well. It was something terrifying and I will never forget that. What people can do to other people… Prisoners pushed two-wheeled carts and others were holding one onto another, leaning on their elbows; they wore wooden clogs and striped rags, and they could walk no more, they hung onto another, and when somebody’s legs could serve no longer, they threw him onto that wagon. We were on the first floor and from the window we could see that people on the wagon were still moving. It was horrible.”

“We had a German neighbour, a baker who came here in place of a Czech baker. The name of his family was Preiss and they had no children. Baker Preiss befriended my dad, who could speak German well. They were bringing shoes for repair to us and they talked. One day Mr. Preiss told dad that he was an anti-fascist. Dad asked him how come that he was not on the front. Mr. Preiss said that Hitler would not get him. One day he came to dad and he said: ‘Mr. Dlouhý, the next time you want to listen to the broadcast from London, please, come to me. I am a German, and I live on the first floor. If some stupid fascist walks by your house and hears that you are listening to the London radio, that would be your end.’ Dad was surprised that Mr. Preiss knew that we were listening to the London broadcast. Mr. Preiss said that the opening theme of the London broadcast could be heard from our apartment. He thus said to dad to come to Mr. and Mrs. Preiss because they were listening to London as well. But they were Germans, and they lived on the first floor, and the radio could not be heard from there.”