Adolf Vondrášek

“I experienced the beginning of May ’45 in Těchařovice, so I remember how for three days the Prague–Budějovice road was swept... how it was swept with endless crowds of those German refugees from the east who had moved in there beforehand. All the escape routes were completely blocked, you just couldn’t get through in the opposite direction at all. And the surge didn’t just come along the road, it flooded the fields as well. They swept through any way they could. And of course, it would happen that the various machines, especially the cars and such, everything, would break down, and so they’d leave that in the fields.”

“I remember that the Communists used a kind of, what we’d now call a trick, which they thought would let them show everything in a different light. At the time, in ’49, suddenly in the summer or the autumn they suddenly started sending office people here on work trips. People who volunteered to help, that they’d help in the field, they’d help collect potatoes, and everything. I mean, no one invited them, but Dad and the other farmers thought perhaps it was some good intention of the government or to help those people, so we didn’t resist it. They helped us, Mum cooked for everyone, then they left again in one of those lorries – because buses weren’t very popular yet in those days, so they just left. And some time later, when needed, they came again. Another thing that was strange was that suddenly a tractor depot came up, brought a new Škoda tractor, said they’d help Dad with the harvest. There again, no one saw any harm in that, Dad didn’t mind either, we children certainly didn’t, we could hitch a ride on the tractor, the driver even let us drive for a bit. Everything was so natural, unforced. None of us realised what they were aiming at. We didn’t understand that until much later, when these farmers were pushed to death, devastated, deported, so then they sent the bill. The bill, I don’t know about the others, but I know our bill – 70,000. For the services they provided.”