Jitka Bernardyová

„Then, bad times came. Mum got ill with blood cancer and she had to go to hospital. And then this colonel Wesely, with whom dad still corresponded at that time, so I know that when the doctors in the Plzeň hospital sometime in January 1949 voiced such a wish that maybe mom could be helped with penicillin, which was not yet available in this country, so he indeed, father wrote it to him, and he [Wesely] went, from that place where they lived in California, in Palo Alto, near San Francisco, I think that’s where it is, so he drove across all of the U. S. to Chicago where there was a plant that made penicillin for army purposes. And he was already pensioned but still a colonel, he got that dose of penicillin, he sent it to us, however, it did not work for blood cancer. So, unfortunately, there was no effect but it was indeed nice that he tried to help us this way. Unfortunately, then the 1948 [Communist coup d’état] came and how we all know it, it means that all contacts with the West became very suspicious, so, unfortunately, my parents probably destroyed all the mementos and letters and adresses.”

„They said that there was a major air raid announced, not only at Plzeň, at the Škoda factory. We were used to it, the railway station already lay in ruins, so did the Škoda factory, but this time, Rokycany was supposed to be bombed as the army trains full of ammunition gathered here or passed by. Dad came running home and said: ‘It seems tha tsomething is going to happen after all, we will go away.’ We pacaked the necessities, a small cart, all of us had bicycles, my older sister, who was fifteen at that time, I was not even twelve, our mom. We had about six dogs. As dad was a forrester, all of them were either dachshunds or pointers. And those dachshunds had just had puppies so I remember that I had a basket with eight puppies on my bike. There were some feather duvets on the cart, only the most necessary ones. And we went outside Rokycany, there is the Kotel hill, and we decided that we would stay there overnight because it was already evening. And along with us, as a sort of itinerant camp, neighbours and friends came. We could be fifteen or sixteen people altogether. And on that Kotel hill, there was a small quarry with a shed and women and children were lodged in that shed, men started a large bonfire and we sat by that bonfire. We had a view of Rokycany and waited whether the planes would appear. They did not.”

"Towards the end of April... my father used to commute to the forestry office in Rokycany on his bike. One day, he came home in the afternoon and he said: 'There is another village nearby, Mokrouše, and allegedly there are U. S. tanks at the edge of the woods.' I grabbed my bike and wanted to go right away. We rode there and we did indeed see them, I only remember seeing one single tank but maybe there were more of them. This was the very first outpost of Patton's and Harmon's army. Harmon had a lower rank than general Patton and he served under him. And we greatly rejoiced there. The tank commander was an American with Polish roots so we spoke some sort of Slavic. I even have a photograph where dad and the local boys of Mokrouše climbed on the tank, and it was a very friendly encounter.“