František Stanzel

“They were in Seninka and we didn’t see that much of them. Nobody had any interest to go there and take a look at them. But they saw from the upper end of Seninka that there is a village here so a commando came to Urlich. By the time they came here, the women had already fled to the woods. Everybody knew what the Russians were like. We stayed at home, me, my two brothers and my dad. My sisters had left together with my mom. Five Russian soldiers came to our house – four were on foot and one was on horseback. They stayed at our house and looted the other houses. They stockpiled the stolen items at our home – a gramophone, some food, various stuff. My mom and sisters were hidden in the forest in the meantime. We built them a shelter there where they were protected from them.”

“It’s called the ‘Polish cabin’. Here, near the forester’s chalet, shortly before you arrive at the Kladská brána. The Poles were living there in a wooden cottage. I don’t know whether they were prisoners of war. They might have been also workers from Poland who were assigned to work in the forest. But they weren’t really guarded. They worked in the forest. I remember that they would help us to dig out the potatoes. After they finished with their work in the forest, they came to Urlich and helped us with the potatoes and in return, my dad would give them some potatoes for them to have some extra food.”

“We were the ones who were chosen from Seninka. The fourteen to sixteen year old boys had to go to work to a labor camp and we were supposed to go as well – me and my older brother Josef. But my dad didn’t want us to leave so he went to see the forester, Jánský was his name. My sister worked for him as an assistant worker and Jánský took us to the forest and thus we were saved. Because there were no other forest workers available, he could arrange for us to stay in the village and work in the forest. At the same time, we worked our lands. But when the harvest season was on, we could harvest our crops and didn’t have to go to the forest. After 1948, a lot of the re-settlers came to the region and so there was enough manpower for the forest. They came from Slovakia or Romania and were promised land and livestock. That’s how we lost our livestock and they also moved us to the inland to work on in agriculture.”

“After World War I, they smuggled goods of all kinds across the frontier. For instance sugar was cheaper there than here and conversely they took other items over there. I didn’t witness it so much myself any more but my dad would tell us great stories and he supposedly smuggled as well. There was a border guard but the locals knew their ways how and where to safely cross the border.”