Rudolf Papík

"I came across a comrade Danda, who was also a so-called politruk. It was called 'for political purposes', 'chief for political purposes'. And suddenly he says, 'Comrade, you are imagining this too simply. You're not a trained apprentice.' That I was only in apprenticeship for a year. Some of them were already there after two years of apprenticeship. 'Firstly. And secondly you don't have...' Even I think there was a six-month probationary period in the railways, today there is a three-month probationary period where both parties can terminate [the employment relationship] and leave, there it was six months. He says, 'We'll see after the probationary period,' and he immediately questioned me about how I was, whether I was in the party, whether I was in the church. I said, 'I'm a Catholic, we're a Catholic family.' - 'No way! I said, 'Not yet. I buried my brother, [he had] a funeral in the church. I was baptized in the church. My parents insist on it, I don't think they would allow it.' - 'Well, you'll have to think about it.'"

"Someone fired at the convoy of retreating [Germans], fired from the church tower - only one shot, but aimed at... It's hard to say whether [someone] caught it from the retreating Germans, but it came to a halt. Whether there was a cannon there at that time or whether they were waiting for it? They said they put the cannon right by the road. There is a square right from the road slightly uphill and at the end of the square there is a church, next to the parish house and the school. A modern school built in the first republic and the parish house almost next to the church. You just went from the parish house to the church through a side entrance. And the consequence of that shot was that they set up a cannon and aimed it at the church tower and demolished the tower with maybe one shot or two, I don't know."