"I will never forget the time I spent in the Tatra Mountains. There was a wounded Russian there, a young, nineteen year old boy who lost both of his eyes in a shelling attack. The doctor told me to take him outdoors whenever we had some time off. He could always tell I was so young and he’d stroke me. „How old are you?“ I didn’t want to tell him how old I was. I said I was 21 and he said „No, you’re lying, you’re 17. So I said „No, I’m 14.“ And he said: „Oh“. When we got outside he asked me: „Have you got a gun on you?“ I told him: „No, I haven’t got a gun on me.“ He said: „You nick a gun...from the doctor... and shoot me.“ I cried, wept. He kept pleading and I told the doctor I couldn’t take him out anymore. The doctor said:“ You don’t carry a gun...and you won’t start carrying one.“ Well and then they took him to Russia. See, it’s such a long time ago and it still makes me cry."
"Hello, my name is Marie Uramová and I live in Ostrava-Poruba. I was born in East Slovakia in Haburé in the region of Medzilaborce on 6th September 1930. The war was over where we were from but everything was destroyed so we didn’t have anywhere to live. My mother was heavily wounded; my father was with the partisans. There were eight of us children and we were hungry. Three groups went to Poland to join the army but I was the youngest - 14 years old. I joined 1st Czechoslovak Army Corps in Poland."
"They had cows, and there were three boys there... also about eighteen or nineteen...Germans. Three boys that stayed behind. They didn’t want to leave with their parents when they went. Germans were forced to leave, you see. Germans never did anything wrong, they took what they wanted and they never said a word. You know...I was there when the Germans were being forced out. There was this captain and he never gave those boys anything to eat. So I had a word with him once and said to him: „You’re not a captain anymore and I’m not a soldier, but look here, we’ve come from the east and what are you doing? Why don’t you give those boys in the cow-shed something to eat?“ And he said: „Look at what they’ve done to us.“ I said: „I know what they’ve done to us but they’re here now doing their job, not harming anyone and you’re going to starve them?...Well not if I have anything to do with it.“ We then milked the cows manually, they had cows and goats, and we always poured them out some milk. They thanked us. He never gave those boys anything. It wasn’t their fault there had been such a war. I went to see the captain again. We complained that he wouldn’t even give them any bread. He said he wouldn’t give them anything. Then one of the women’s brother-in-law arrived. The captain had just sent us our lunch and when the brother-in-law saw what he had given us, he threw it out of the window. He threw it out in front of the pub, grabbed him, pulled him outside and said: „You’re going to eat that off the ground! What do you think that is? Can’t you see what they’re being fed? They work here and this is what you give them?“ So they went to Cheb to headquarters...They called for me but I wasn’t going anywhere. Three officers appeared and got rid of him straight away...said he had no right to work there, that no one had given it to him, and arrested him. And the German boys went home."
"My mother was heavily wounded. We put her on a cart and took her to the neighbouring hamlet and then to Poland which had been liberated by then. I hated the Germans. They never did me any harm. There were lots of them in our hamlet. Mother was wounded, the Russians withdrew and the Germans came. The lower part of her body was wounded...a bomb...her womb. So they took her to a German doctor that was there. Thank goodness he was there. My mothers´ brother took her there and the doctor didn’t refuse to see her, she was bleeding terribly. The Germans started making fun of her and the doctor yelled at them and threw them out and treated my mother. He treated her womb – she was wounded. I had no problem with the Germans after the War. My job was to look after the sick."
"I will never forget that woman. We were there for a fortnight and all that time she stayed awake, never ate, never slept...me and another woman forced some tea down her. I’ll never forget that woman. She wasn’t Georgian but she kept praising Stalin. They swore at her...leave her alone... can’t you see she never sleeps...sulika, sulika is all she ever says. Well, then the Russians came and took her away."
Private (in retirement) Marie Uramová (née Turok-Hetešová) was born on 6th September 1930 in Haburé (in the region of Medzilaborce) in Slovakia. She came from a Ruthenian family and was one of eight children. The devastated land, fear, and hunger during the Second World War were her main motives for moving to Poland, where she enlisted in the 1st Czechoslovak Army Corps commanded by Ludvík Svoboda. There was not enough time for her to receive basic training so, at first, she served as a cook. She was supposed to have been replaced by volunteers and sent to the front, but that did not happen. Consequently, she cared for former concentration camp prisoners before they were handed over to the Poles and Russians. After the camp had been closed down she moved to Humené with the remaining “former prisoners” where the Czechs and Slovaks were handed over. She was then moved to a military hospital in the Tatra mountains for five months. This was a very hard time for her since she came into contact almost entirely with people who had been wounded and therefore witnessed the horrors of war from close up. The entire hospital was eventually relocated to Prague-Střešovice where Marie Uramová continued to work even after the war had ended. Ludvík Svoboda himself urged her to go to military school but her father would give his consent and she had to return home. Ten years later she moved to Bohemia with her second husband.
