Petr Sýkora

"That's how he always beat us up, teacher Fabri. He used to stay here at school. He only saw us when we went to church. We always came to school on Monday morning. He forbade us to go to church. Who went to church, he'd have to go to the blackboard on his knees and pray. The techer had a rod and beat us. He would say to us, 'You damned buffoons, I'll beat the Lord God out of you!' I was beaten at home for not wanting to go to church, but I had to. I was beaten at school for being in church. So how could it have been better?"

"My father told me that his father's uncle, a certain Uncle Matěj from Bohemia, came here with three boys. They were the last to arrive. Here they were rewarded with a field behind the village, but none of them knew what was there. There were only thorns, but he and his boys cleaned it out, so the others saw how flat it was, so they started to swear. That it was a vinitur [newcomer]. That they came last and got the best field. But they [people from the village] said that the old man had bribed the leaders, but I wouldn't believe that. He was a shoemaker. But they said he might have given some of the leaders shoes, I don't know. But that he gave them liquor, that's not supposed to be true. Because they came here and they had nowhere to have the liquor from. They had no plum trees, no apple trees, nothing. So how could he give something to somebody, to splush money? But there was anger, so they set them up that way."