Maria Wolska

"One night came when there were Polish and Russian soldiers, one night came and there was such fear that all the families fled, crossed over to the Czech side. Our family to Závrch, others further to Machov. I don't know how it happened there, but our grandmother, my little father and aunt fled to Závrch, which is just above our house, about 200 meters above our house is the border. But if there were no bushes, as it is now, everything could be seen. At night they were in a barn of our relatives, because we also had families across the border, the families were mixed. So many families hid just beyond the border and our first night, grandma and aunt were sleeping and grandma says: 'Are you sleeping? We have so much cream at home. So, we would go home at night, make butter and come, because there are a lot of people here to feed.' And maybe nothing even happened that night, but there was fear in the village, people, maybe it just looked terrible. So, they came home, they made the butter, because the pots—clay pots—were full. That was tens of liters from two cows that made butter for sale once every week. So, they made the butter, but it was already morning and Sýkora came, he was from the neighborhood where the Janses lived... he was, I can't remember in Czech now. He just came in the morning and said: 'It's good that you're here, that you've come back, all the Jansens have run away from my place and nobody's home. There are cows, everything is standing there and I can't help myself.' And so, they stayed at home, the two of them, then little Horst was running somewhere with the children and also came home. Because some came back, some. But others stayed in Machov, went on, then went to Germany, because many of those families felt perhaps German and were also German. Some stayed in Bohemia, and there are still descendants in Bohemia to this day, but ours returned and a few more families too."

"Those Czech and German boys helped out in Polish families. Why? Because when Poles came from the east, even from Ukraine, but not to our family, to others. They had nothing with them, only children. And when they came to those farms, we already had light in our place. For example, the light was established in our country around 1926, and the Poles came and were abroad. They did not know how to deal with each other and did not know how to work in the economy. So what. The barns were full, the chests and grounds - everything was full. Cows were standing in the barn, calling to eat, it all had to be taken care of. When the Poles came, they first made belts for their pants, because they had cords, they didn't even have belts for their pants. And they made straps out of the belt that threshed the grain. Then again, they didn't know what the machine was for. Both the putzmachine and the machine that was in the barn, well, our boys actually taught them to thresh grain."