Blažena Baborová

“We were approached by two border guards. I reckon that Dad must have recognised one of them. He used to guide people when [that person] was on duty, he must have arranged with him when the person would be on duty, when Father could guide the people over without harm. They were sure to have this time arranged as well, that we would cross over no problem. When the border guard came up, Father recognised him. According to the interrogation notes (which I don’t have any more, I gave them to my brother), Dad turned to him and said: ‘You...!’ - a nasty word, I won’t repeat it. And he made as if to leap at him, but he didn’t do anything to him, because the report states that Dad had a pistol, but that it had not been used. I don’t know why the border guard shot him. Dad copped it right into the heart, and another bullet into the ankle; he was dead on the spot. I think that the border guard probably shot him because Dad would have been a witness to the fact that he had helped him guide people over. They would have locked him up too. With Dad dead he was in the free, everything was blamed on Anděl.”

“Some [of the expelled Germans] were deported West and some East. I know that’s how it was. When we were in Biedermeier later on, there was a German lady with us, she helped Mum and so on. I heard that she was supposed to have been deported to the eastern part [of Germany]. Of course, who wanted to go East? No one. They said that Dad had guided her to the West. Simply one day she didn’t come. I know they said something about Dad having taken her across to the West Zone.”