Miroslav Tomek

"We were on service one day and it was when the worst case happened. We volunteered for the morning service and those who did not want to go in the morning, had to go in the afternoon. They stayed there till the evening, somewhere near the police station, but then a major raid came. Those fifteen boys went into a shelter, but the house over the shelter was hit. They realized they couldn't get out, so they talked, and around eight they found out that the building was on fire.

"We were at various places, at one bombed piping where we cleaned the area so that it could be repaired. We were eight of us and we took our turnes, four and four. There was an appartment building opposite and a woman approached us that it was on fire. It was during raids on Berlin. And that lady asked us to help her take a camera from that building. Our commander, I think his name was Bichbauer, did not allow us to do so. He was afraid we might die.

“As soon as the bombing ended, we helped pull people out of the demolished houses. Sometimes we found dead people there. Children were killed there, for example. One time they called us to a water-pipe shaft. We started digging, so they could repair it. One lady came up to us from a house that was on fire, asking if we’d help her take out her photography machine. Our commander forbade it. He said he’d lost enough of his people already. There were beams falling from the burning house, you see. We pretty much did auxiliary work everywhere, and after the air raids we also helped extinguish the fires.”

"I had this accident. There were several abandoned villas with gardens. And I saw there were fallen fruits in the gardens. In my free time, I gathered about 2kg of apples in my shirt. I shouldn't have done this since there was a decree that any trespassing on bombed property will be punished by death. And when I walked back, I came across my commander who had a gun by him. He was accompanied by a German soldier who worked with us. My commander allegedly wanted to shoot me, ransacking of Germany was punished by death, but the German soldier covered his gun and saved me.

“We met some Soviet captives there. We knew they were poor sods. Young boys. We gave them bread to help them at least a little bit. They had pretty dubious grub. And we had quite decent food. We didn’t go hungry. Our wages included money for cigarettes and confectionery.”