Vojtěch Strauss

“One day we went to change shifts and there was no car. And so they assigned us an armoured four-wheeled vehicle, which was nicknamed Fuk. We were not able to drive up the Jáchymov Hill. We thus had to return to Ostrov and take the back route via Merklín and the other place. Snow began falling and the car had small windows like this, and I was sitting up there and sweeping the snow from the windows. We arrived up there and a deer jumped in front of the car and as we had our headlights on, it was staring at us. I said: ‘Quickly, pass me the…’ He asked: ‘What do you want?’ I said: ‘The submachine gun, you blockhead!’ Before I could load it, the deer jumped away and he was gone.”

“Three families from Zvolenice u Prahy moved to us. There was a grandfather, father and son. Each of them took over one farm which had been left behind by the Germans. Pigs, cows, barns full of fodder, granaries above the houses full of grain, and a system wooden pipes ran through it and there was a crusher under it. It was for grinding fodder for pigs. Everything was furnished in a modern way. The cows had no troughs, but metal feeding devices were already fitted there. The farm was furnished with modern equipment. They took over it. Within three years they brought all farms to naught and when there was nothing left, they turned it into an agricultural cooperative.”