Ludmila Ševčíková

"And then another group arrived after the Russians, they were Romanians, and they came with everything they had stolen on the way, including horses, cows and calves. They could ride horses very well. And they came into our yard. It was terrible what we experienced there. What stole everything they could, they were such scoundrels. I don't know how long they were with us, but they took all our cows. They killed our pigs. I also saw a cow lying by the creek without one leg. They killed it, cut off the leg, ate it and left the rest. When it was all over, our men had to burn the carcasses because they smelled so bad. When we came back from Bánov, we saw the horror left behind at home. We had to rake out the mud in the house with hoes. And everything was looted. They were such poor, dirty men. They had nothing. We had an ottoman in the kitchen covered in nice coloured plush. Some of them cut it out and took it. We felt sorry for them. When we came back, we worked very hard. We had nothing left."

"We saw them coming from Bánov. We were all surprised, especially my father. We were expecting our liberators because everyone was praising the Russians. So we imagined the liberation in a completely different way. When they approached, they had a horse and cart. They didn't have a car. They came to our house and our father welcomed them. They took him and put him in the chicken coop together with other men who stayed with us. One soldier was guarding them. We hid in the cellar where we stored potatoes. My father locked us in there, we were like in prison. I remember the stomping in the house when the soldiers were walking around and searching. They went one after the other. We left everything there. When they released the men from the coop, my father came to us and told us to run quickly to Bánov. I remember that I was wearing a bathrobe and it was raining. We were cold in the cellar, so we got dressed and ran to Bánov. The soldiers were firing with katyusha rifles, they were powerful shots. They just showed us to cover our ears. They told us they were shooting at Luhačovice. I didn't know where Luhačovice was then. They stayed with us for a while and then left again. They went through Nezdenice and Rudice."

"There was a family working with us, and they had three little boys, and one of them graduated as a priest. Then he started with activities against the communists, and they wanted to arrest him for that. Once someone called my father to pick him up and take him away. In the morning my father went to Bánov to pick him up. The boy was born in our brewery, he spent his childhood there, so our father had feelings for him. He was supposed to pick him up, but the boy was already gone. And my father was arrested. They took him to Hradiště, where he was in custody for 14 months. When we were called to court there, we couldn't recognize him. Our father used to be a strong man, but there was a skinny man standing in front of us. We recognized him only by the glasses he wore. He was convicted in that court. He was sent to prison in Ostrava, then somewhere else, and then in Bohemia, where he died. He spent more than eight months there. His cellmate came to tell us about it, when he was released. My father got some money and went to buy an egg in their shop. He was taking the egg back to his cell, when he suddenly fell down and that was his end."

"That was the beginning of communism. It started again. The kulaks were not entitled to do anything, they were not supposed to do that. We were three sisters, I was the youngest, so my older sisters couldn't study. The sons of our workers were not allowed to be apprenticed. That was hell. But we go used to it so we didn't even complain anymore. We just made sure that the children had something to eat and that the laundry was done. We also had to take care of the cattle. But my poor father! He was 53 when they put him in jail for nothing, and he died there eight years later."