Hana Opičková

“When I finished my job at the cosmetics lab, my friend and I went to a private business school as we did not get accepted anywhere else yet. And when I came out of it, my guardian promised me that the dad was working at the railways so I could work there too. But that was already at the time of the German commanding, so he had to ask the top commander. Well, and he told him I was too small, as I was sixteen years of age back then, that I could only be a train conductor, but I had to be eighteen already. And he recommended I should clean the wagons on the rails. Well, I tried it. They gave me a workbook and I was trying. Well, it was not going well, because I had to get up at two o'clock in the night. Now imagine that I was fifteen and I was fast asleep. I put the alarm clock up on a plate and I do not know what else I tried. Twice I went there and I fell asleep for the third time. So I gave up and said I was not going to go there anymore. I was annoyed with that guardian that made my life that difficult. I went to the labour office, but they said, "You have a manual working book, and we will not give you any other option." They sent me to Vysočany to the factories, where I did not want to go at all. So I found a place at a law firm. I was very happy there. Although the firm manager, the owner of the office, was locked up. He was somehow with the fascists, and yet somehow the Germans put them in prison. A certain lady managed it, but then she could not afford it financially. So I was there for about a year, and after a year they closed the office. Even the new guy who wanted to rent the office said he was going to let me work there. But when he saw that it was not confirmed in my working book, because they refused to write it down at the labour office. Then he refused to hire me. So I stayed at home. I was at home, for about three quarters of the year I did not go anywhere. And that I turned eighteen. And they came for me from the labour office. Well, you know I was scared. They called me there, and I came to the room with a huge image of Hitler hanging up on the wall. Well, all those officers were wearing uniforms.”

"The worst experience for me was when the men returned, I was just a girl, but when the men returned during mobilization. These were terrible scenes. They cried, the people in the streets cried. It was so cruel for the nation. That they left us all, as France, England, and Germany agreed there would be peace when we give the Sudetenland, yeah. And finally you know how it all happened; Poland was attacked and World War II began. It was terribly sad."