Josef Nový

“I already went to school at the time, when the Russians were in Zdice. We had a bigger yard; thus, they parked their GAZ vehicle there. I remember there was a cherry tree and they brought such a bigger baby bath tub, filled it with cherries and drank beer, which they tapped in a pub into rinsed gas canisters. So, they ate those cherries and washed down with beer. They never fell sick! This is what I remember. And then from Pilsen there were Americans approaching on their jeeps, which were also parked in our yard. As souvenirs they left us some cans, so-called UNRRA, comprising e.g. meat or matches, etc. We had plenty of those and when we used to go camping as youngsters later on, we would still use them. They also gave me a big machete that my sister preserves somewhere.”

“I made a great mistake by trying to take pictures. If I had taken them normally, nothing would have probably happened, but there were such ladies; one of them stretched her arm and I took the pictures over it. Of course, the Russians were watching us through binoculars and everything was lost. They came to take me and brought me to their headquarters. However, I was really lucky back then, since I knew the commander-in-chief of their unit. A year ago, they gathered there for a military training within the Warsaw Pact troops. He was quite surprised and it was a great coincidence. His adjutant, or whoever it was, took the film out of my camera, exposed it and I didn’t have anything. He walked back and forth and I always had to show him something, since we knew each other. He called me Pipi, as Pepo, and told me not to return there anymore.”