Jan Stoiber

"What did you think about that fence being built there?" - "At the time we thought it was a protection, well, but it was the other way around, it wasn't protecting us against an external enemy, it was preventing our people from running away." - "And those border guard helpers, how did those soldiers actually establish cooperation?" - "They enlisted the citizens, yes, there was cooperation with them in the National Committee, that was normal. And they would notify them when something suspicious was going on and that there was some person who shouldn't be there. And so on. That way they knew when something was going on." - "Did those border guards ever ask you to cooperate with them?" - "Yes, I also cooperated with them for a while, but I left. I was married by then, that was sometime in 1966 or 1967 when my wife was working at the farm. They were hauling out the urea, somebody had to go and open up the back, with a tractor. So she went in there and saw a man hiding in a bush. So she came to tell me, and I passed the information to the unit. They were looking for a killer from Pardubice at the time. They caught him. And when we had a meeting of the helpers, it was in 1969, the commander said, 'You know, Honza, I know your wife saw him... and they caught him, but she's not a helper, we have people we need more, so we'll give the reward to them.' So I said, 'Goodbye then, here's my card,' and I was done. And Honza Říčánek also left. We left, because the organization didn't care about others or its higher purpose, they cared only about each other."

„So some kind of a PS man stood there and said: ‚Where are you going? You cannot go there...‘, although it was outside the area. They had a guard here over Lipenská dam, the second was in Frýdava, and when someone came, they just would not let them through. They´d just say: ‚You cannot go there‘, although it was outside the border area. That was the regime. Once my uncle came to visit me from the Eastern Germany and I knew he´d come, so I announced it ahead, and still they´d not let him to Lipno, so he went to Budějovice, where my sister lived and came here together with her and then they´d let them both go. It was just beyond imagination. You´d have to have a special passing card to get to the banned area and even I didn´t have it being the chairman of the national committee...“

„...When the Germans were displaced, there was a tough regime as they had to give away everything from milk, churn, they could not kill their own pig, had to give up their sewing machines and bicycles. They could not own it anymore... they would bring it to the municipality and everything was pilled up and got stolen as usual. It is sad and I believe it has been happening until today; the houses were empty, usually with broken windows and doors... the vandals´ job... and when I look today at some empty house, it is the same again. People do not appreciate things, the fact it ought to remain as is... that is just sad.“

„Here was a resettlement. All German inhabitants were displaced from the village, so that almost nobody stayed here. Just seven Austrian and German families. New settlers came here; first the Bulgarians, Hungarians, later the Slovaks and Rumanian emigrants... but those people came here and there was no cultural centre to create a relation towards the place... there was a huge migration, people would come and go, especially at estates and forests, because no other work existed here, so the biggest migration was during the 1950th until 1960th.“