Pavel Šmíd

"I remember the slogan of that time: 'Young blood to Prague'.So a lot of people came from the outskirts of Moravia, but not only from Moravia, not only high school students, but also apprentices. And they all came at the same time. When one left Krnov at half past two, one arrived, of course, standing up, at the main station in Prague at half past ten, with a change in Olomouc. And there were situations where people were standing even in the compartment. God forbid that something should happen. One Easter, it was Friday the 13th, and it was not a free day then, I was returning from Prague to Krnov. It stopped at Kolín. We all had to get off the train and wait for the next one. The whole number of people had to fit into the already full train and we kept going. I think we had to go through Brno, because there was another complication near Česká Třebová. I got home at four or two in the morning, while I was leaving Prague at two in the afternoon. The transfer from Olomouc to Krnov took two minutes. Not to mention all that was going on there, how the apprentices were fooling around, drinking and having sex. You were glad to get out of there and live."

"There were a lot of collaborators, collaborators in the sense that they did business with the Russians, with oil and various advantages that the Soviet troops had. But because I lived at the complete opposite end of Krnov, I didn't come into contact with them much, except that officers sometimes walked around the square. They were absolutely unmistakable in those huge coats and huge brigade jackets with gramophone records. And they were wearing hats. There were always one or two soldiers following them, carrying shopping. They were at the other end of Krnov, near the barracks, where they had their compounds and shops. And if you can call it collaboration, my future mother-in-law used to go shopping there too."