Jana Kuncířová

"There was this little hill there. Normally, by the road and our street, there would be grass there and the fields would be grown over. It went all the way to the barracks. And they struck there by the barracks too, a bomb fell there, because there on the field thrown about were arms, legs in casts; I even saw a body. Our mom, she felt terrible from it all [...] The women cried out so much. It was insane. And I hadn't even finished talked with that mother. Our mom, when they started blaring horribly, she ran with the other women down to the one house, where there was a doctor, there was a sign saying: 'doctor'. And there was this little entranceway there, and so they all squeezed inside and were huddled in there. And a man ran down there, grabbed my mom, and said: 'We have to run away from here and go by the back way. We're going the back way.' He kept on shouting. And he grabbed my mom and dragged her that way, they went around Klenice. And they didn't go by the barracks, because it would have killed them there. And those women, which stayed there, then got up and went by the barracks and none of them returned."

"Horror. We were really scared, that there... Mr. Maruška was there with Mrs. Maruška and Jiřinka, she was a bit older, and so we held on. It was extremely loud and suddenly there came these bangs; it was horrible. Something went flying and that older boy, right now I can't remember what his name was, he ran down and a fragment had somehow hit his leg, he was bleeding, and told us, that it was terrible outside. And suddenly this huge explosion as a bomb fell just before our house. That was a real bang, it was crazy. Glass flew, window frames flew off, my little table which used to be on the cellar door flew, and we sat there huddled down, scared. We didn't even scream. You don't even scream in that. You're so scared, that you don't care about anything at all. It was horrible, ugh."

“Our house in Bělohrad had a huge plate made by a goldsmith, just like you have advertisements nowadays. And every year this goldsmith would give my auntie something new made of gold for Christmas: a ring, a watch, earrings, beautiful chains… and my aunt would always share with my mother and her three sisters. And it was great luck that my mother had these things because she would always go to the countryside with someone from the street and they would use them to buy a rabbit or more rabbits, bread, and butter (I remember they used to make these lumps of butter with a picture pressed into it). And we would share that with Maruška’s family and others in the street. If there were more rabbits we’d always decide on a way for everyone to have a piece.”

“I was playing hopscotch by the gate and the girls were there with me. Suddenly a truck arrived. My father had this long black coat, a white cross on his back, and he was wearing striped clothing. He came to me and said: “I’m your dad.” The last time I’d seen him was when I was three. He looked terrible. Before that he was quite big, not too big, just a little plump. Now he weighed 45 kilograms, he was like a twig. He kept lying on the ground, he couldn’t sleep. He would get sick in the bed, when he lay down his cheeks would fall down. He was missing teeth, he had bruises, his feet were in bandages. He looked like a skeleton and I was afraid of him.”

“He told us how terrible it was in Dachau. For instance, in winter they’d put them in a row and they’d have to say: “First, second, third – fell. First, second, third – fell.” And they’d never see them again. And then they would even bury people who were still alive, because they’d move in that hole. He would tell these stories but I was never there directly, I would sit by the door and listen because my parents always sent me to bed. When somebody came over to visit I would sneak behind the door and eavesdrop because my parents didn’t want to talk about that in front of me.”