Františka Skoupá

"My uncle, who I lived at, spoke perfect German because he had studied in Vienna, my aunt did too, they met in Vienna. When the Germans came, they were looking for someone who knew German. He volunteered that he could speak German, so he was their interpreter in the factory. The end of the war came, and they came for him, put him in Jagodina. When the Germans left, they blew everything up, we couldn't get to Jagodina except across the Morava River. They made a ferry across the Morava to connect Ćuprije with Jagodina. My aunt left immediately for Belgrade to a Czechoslovak military mission. My uncle was locked up and I went there to see him, about twice a week. I went to that office and begged so many times. I said: my uncle is not guilty, he was only doing interpreter, he is not guilty, they forced him to do interpreter. And so then they let him go later. Suddenly somebody rang the bell: "Fanynka, I'm here, I've already been released... everything I'm going to take off now you have to burn, it was lice and fleas he had on him."

"In 1939, maybe as early as the end of 1938, our people were fleeing, mostly in 1939. They were running down to Beirut. We got a dispatch from Belgrade, because Yugoslavia was not occupied until a year later. Here in the Czech Republic it was already occupied, but not yet in Yugoslavia... And our people wre fleeing through Hungary, through Yugoslavia to Belgrade. They gave us a dispatch, there was a monastery in our place and it was called Tomić, and we used to have them there. They rested for a few days, and we went to see them, and we roasted piglets with them. At that time, the Germans were not there yet. And then they took the train again, when they had rested, and they continued on to Beirut and from there they went to England, I think to France first, because nothing was occupied yet.Some of them did not stop at us, just passed through by train. We were instructed when the train from Belgrade was going to leave and we used to go mostly in the evening, and at night the trains went to Niš and Beirut. We also used to even get on the trains and bring food to our people, like my aunt baked a big meatloaf, pieces of meat or chicken or something. We would roast maybe a whole lamb, a whole piglet, and bring it to our people on the train for the journey. We just visited them on the train to give them drinks, food, everything."