Josef Svoboda

“I wish there was never war again because people die in war, they just kill and die. But back then the war had to happen because the Germans would have slaughtered almost all European nations. It was necessary.”

„[In the village we would always - ed.] hide in some barns or people invited us: ‘Come in.‘ Because many times, we did not fight, just rarely, there were for example attacks at night.” - “And how did local people treat you? Local people?” - “Very well, I do not know. Mostly in Moravia as we walked through there. They treated us really perfectly there. They invited us: ‘Come in, come in.‘”

“We met four years later and he said: ‘What are you doing here?‘ When he left, I was fourteen years old. Thinks like that also happened.” - “And did your brother come all the way from Buzuluk?” - “Yes, my brother came all the way from Buzuluk.”

“He was led by an escort - twelve police officers and he was in the middle. They brought him in, where the gallows stood. They stopped there and the hangman arrived. He did him something like this and stood him in front of the rope, put it on his neck and that was it. It was announced that he lived for eight more minutes. That was the first and last execution and then also the one of Frank but I did not get the ticket for that one, it already took place in Pankrác.”