František Tampier

"I drove out of the camp with a truck on which a soldier was sitting. We went to Poprad to get fruit from a fruit and vegetable store. We arrived there at the counter. What's it called? The loading lift. We loaded the fruit. There was an armoured personnel carrier with two slant-eyed men with machine guns, ammo belts packed and aiming at us. When we left Poprad, the guy who was sitting on top and had loaded the fruit, a soldier, took a peach and threw it to the Russian. But the Mongolian took it for a missile. Suddenly the car flew in front of us, going a hundred. They were aiming at us. Some gefreiter or who got out. I had a tough time explaining to him that the soldier didn't throw it at him for revenge, but as food. I'll tell you, that was quite a lesson."

"Suddenly the supervisor, First Lieutenant Zadražil, woke us up at night and said: 'The Russians, Hungarians and Poles have taken us'. Less than half a day had passed and two Russian tanks were already in front of us. There was a barrier behind the road, and the area where we had our tent camp was forbidden to enter, so there were two Russian tanks there. Soldiers behind the machine guns of the tanks, barrels pointed at us. The battalion commander had to rush over to those Russians. They agreed that we would not go out or do anything."

"My parents earned thirty crowns a month. Thirty crowns! The pay was thirty hellers per work unit based on the cooperative's performance and results. Harvest was normal in the fields. But when they started to combine farms, a lot of things like fertilizing fell apart. Private owners fertilized their fields to good results. The cooperative (JZD) was unable to get it right, they couldn't t even remove the manure from the cows properly. It wasn't put in the fields and the fields didn't produce at all. Plus, the people didn't want to do it. When they did it for themselves, they did it well. When they were doing it for the JZD, they made deals. Our village was almost all relatives. There were five siblings; families were numerous. My dad was one of five siblings and my mom was one of seven. Dad's siblings all lived there and I know they tried to haggle. They didn't get anything. The only livelihood they had was from the allotments and a few chickens. When I went to Stříbro by bus from Křelovice, the monthly ticket cost twenty-one crowns. My mother had to pick up a goose and some butter from a cow we had in the garden and go to Plzeň to sell it. She went with a middleman from Krsy who drove them there in his private car. He took half of what they earned in the market. My mother came home and was happy to bring back fifty or sixty crowns. Not more."

"When they formed the JZD, they came here and my dad knew they would take the farm and turn it into a kolkhoz. People already knew that much. The chairman and the mayor, a local boy and dad's friend, walked around. They kept talking about when the JZD (cooperative) was going to take it. The JZD took it all. All the farms, cattle and fields were nationalized. 'Voluntarily.' People were absolutely scared not to go in. I know I didn't understand it much as a child, but when this guy Hájek came and spoke to my dad in the kitchen, he would always say, 'Francek, this and that will happen so and so.' He always had a task to do. Like, they will take something away or make sure something goes wrong if we don't [join the JZD] or join the party. It was the same with the party. Everybody had to join. Mum and dad both joined the party."

"We woke up one morning and a Russian came. He had our entire family and tenants in the house lined up. I guess there were about ten of us. He threatened us with a pistol. He showed us his hand, claiming we had stolen his watch. His hand was full of watches. When he was drunk, another Russian unstrapped them and took them away. Luckily, that other Russian came when he had us lined there and was yelling at us to get the watch: 'Give me the watch, give me the watch'. I know he said it like that, but I didn't know at the time. I was seven years old. I do know women were crying. It was a very tense situation. No fun."