Ludmila Kantorová

"As the PTP (Auxiliary Technical Battalions) appeared, the soldiers with black shoulder boards, they had to complete a military service. Some were already at the age; I remember that they seemed old to me to be the soldiers. It was the 1950s. It was busy at our house. My mother's acquaintances from Vysoké Mýto were joining the army. For example, Father Schnitter came to our apartment, he even christened me in Vysoké Mýto, the Dominican Father Josef Kulhavý and others. They led their comrades-in-arms with guns. They saw no weapons, only shovels and pickaxes. Father Pohorský Jan of Vlašim, Father Lazar of Karlštejn, Father Jaro Lank of Salesian and others came. Sometimes there were ten of them. They had their tools hidden under our table in our room, that was a chalice and a paten. They served Holy Mass almost every day, taking turns at home. The chalice and paten were about four times smaller than normal. I could answer in Latin, I liked it. After Mass, we sat in the kitchen, we were talking, I also liked it. But I didn't understand it very much. My Mom was preparing some snacks. I was nine to ten years old, my brother was nineteen, my sister was eighteen. It was philosophical and I often did not understand, but I bravely watched."

"As for my father, I remember that we were going to the hospital in Litomyšl to see him. During the liberation of Vysoké Mýto, because his car was the only one buried in coal, he pulled it out and drove the supplies to the partisans somewhere near Myto. He had severe angina, untreated it, and caught inflammation of the heart muscle. He died at the age of forty-two. He was in Litomyšl, but then the brothers wanted to take him to Moravia. I remember that I went with them in an ambulance, that they would take him to Olomouc. There were pretty good doctors here. As they drove him, it was not an ambulance, but a green car, probably a military one. There they were heating it up with wood gas. He was having a hard time breathing there, so we all climbed out of the car into the air and he died. Above Třebová on the hill, it was called U Anči there, there is a pub standing till today, so he died there. So, we went to Olomouc with my dead dad. This is the beginning of our pilgrimage through Olomouc."