Anna Hladká

"He didn't speak German, but he was learning a little. I would tell him how to say it, and he learned a little bit. He got by somehow, but he didn't know much. He didn't know German, and my mother knew only a little bit of Czech. She used to go shopping, so at least she knew those things. But my father, he knew almost nothing. He only worked in the forests, and the two guys who worked with him were of German nationality."

"They arrived with horses, and the soldiers went from one house to another, and the first thing they did was take the gold. They were only after gold, watches and things like that. And I heard that one time they took an alarm clock, and I guess it was set, so it started ringing. They had it in their pocket and thought it would explode, so they threw the alarm clock in the ditch."

"Then they deported us down to Uničov to the village of Lazce, and our whole family worked there for two years for the farmers. Then the forestry administration called us back. But our house was already occupied by other people, so they put us in a big house near Malá Morávka, where three families lived together. I also wanted to say that the lady from the farm in Haná knew German, and she taught me the most. I used to speak German all the time, and she told me that we couldn't do that and we had to speak Czech too."

"The Russians came to the house and took everything they liked. They mostly went for watches, rings and gold. People had it in the closet, and they took it from them. Then they went away, and it was calm again."