Mstislav Pospíšil

“We got on in Luck. It took several days before we could leave. We had to make sure that it was possible to heat up the carriages. It was in winter and I think we were on our way for at least three weeks. We rode in carrel cars. Most people had grain with them. We were about three families in the carriage. Up on the grain pile, there were blankets and we slept there. We used a small stove for heating. We used to sleep day and night. I was observing people at night, nobody knew what time it was. Pereselenci [the emigrees] were joining us for the journey; they were coming from somewhere in Russia. They were standing like statues on top of the carriages. I was admiring them. Some of them must have frozen to death. They would come to us and beg for money for their families. They would go with us, look for whatever they could gather and go back again. The journey took a lot of time. We stopped all the time; allegedly they wanted a bribe. I only learned that later when we arrived.“

“Well about the burning down of Malín, all I know is that we were with my grandmother the next day or the day after that. All I can remember – I was a little kid back then, only about six years old – is that I was terribly frightened when they were carrying all those corpses in the carts in the streets. I was looking out the window and was scared to death. My mom was constantly looking for other family members, for her sisters and the rest of the family. She was afraid of what had happened to them. She was trying to identify them among the dead or something like that. So she was out on the streets and I was left home with my grandma.”

“I think that the Jews had already fled and the Poles were looting their houses. I remember a woman coming to our house with a child in her arms asking for water. The child was already dead. I don’t know who killed it. My mom gave her some water and she said she wanted to see a doctor. We didn’t have any horses so my mom sent her on foot to Zborov, a village nearby, about half a kilometer away. She told her to go to the mayor of the village. So she left. A little later, the Poles came to our house. I remember that they had these angular caps. It was before the burning down of Malín. He stepped into the room and I started to scream really loud. He told me not to be afraid, that he just wanted to talk to my mom, that nothing’s gonna happen to us. So they talked and he asked her about the woman that had been at our house. My mom told him that she had sent her to Zborov to the Mayor to find someone who’d take her to the doctor. They left and later we found out that they followed that woman and killed her. They threw her corpse into the grain.”

“These beggars stood there like statues in the open railway carriages. It was by the end of February, it was really cold, and we came here by the middle of March. So they stood there… well, I felt pity for them. These were very miserable beggars. They always went out on the street to get something for their family. So they stood in the open cars. Actually, all of these people were pretty miserable, they had a tough life. Who knows where they came from and who they were. Nobody knows. I was just a kid, these are the recollections of a six-year old.”

"They took all the daughters… One of them said they would be checking their documents. She said, she would go as well. But he said no, that she should stay home. So she stayed home and they left her untouched. I don’t know if it was because she knew how to heal others… Other grannies, who were not able to walk, were shot dead at home. One was shot while on the stove, another allegedly somewhere in the corner. My grandma, they let her go. She was over 70 years old."

“Well my cousin stayed there. He was the son of my mom’s sister. His name was Vašek Minařík. He was in the war. He was born in 1924. He talked to some Germans one day after he returned from the war and they said that if we’re going to Bohemia, they’re going to come and wipe us out anyway. He had a Ukrainian girlfriend there. He was afraid that he wouldn’t come here, that he’d stay there. But in the end, he regretted it. He was here twice or so.”

“It was so-so. There were no men left. Actually, the Minářík family moved in to my uncle’s farmstead. They had horses and were helping my mum. We went to school, there was a single classroom for all children. Everyone went there, even the kids from Kneruty. It was full…. It was difficult for the teacher. The classes were held in Ukrainian and Czech. Often, we would go to the fields. I would go shepherd the cows. We had two of them. The whole group would go together. There were meadows in the forests and that’s where we would shepherd them. It was about two kilometres away. Cows from all over Malín.”