Josef Neček

"I took charge of it. I went to the stationmaster and said, 'Are you Czech or Moravian?' So he confirmed it. I said, 'Is there a train to Prague?' And he said, 'Boy, no civilian trains are running here. Only transports of German soldiers. There are German carriages here.' I asked him how we could get to Kolín, and he said, 'You can't get there as civilians. Only with the soldiers.'"

"The war was still going on, even though the Germans were already retreating. I received a summons to report to the labour office. So I had to accept it. I knocked, and there was a German manager in uniform. I said, 'Guten Tag, Herr Ober.' That impressed him, and he said, 'Sprechen Sie Deutch?' I said I did. 'Well, that changes the situation. I was going to send you to the Reich to work.' He grabbed the phone and made a phone call and eventually sent me to Úvaly, where there was a sugar factory that had been closed down, and there were warehouses there, and whatever the Germans had captured or stolen, they would put in there."

"I was involved in the occupation on March 15, 1939, when a horde of Germans came to Poříčany on motorbikes and sidecars. It was snowing and raining. I remember it as if it were today." - "And so they came to the square or something?" - "No, they came to Poříčany onto a sort of farm road and waited there for further orders. In Poříčany, they immediately visited the cake shop and devoured everything. It was terrible."