“We rode a repatriation train, there were cattle wagons in which we travelled, in each of them, there were around 34 persons, we were stacked there like this. The trip from Leipzig to Cheb took three days as they moved us there and back, you know, in forty-five, it was pretty wild. And now, we arrived to Cheb and then, the bridge in Cheb was in ruins after bombing so the train couldn’t go on. So there were U. S. soldires, black ones, in large lorries, so we got on the lorries and went from Cheb to Plzeň in cars. But what a ride it was, they drove like crazy. The trip from Cheb to Plzeň took us less than two hours. There was smoke going off their tires when we got to Plzeň, back in the day, the roads were not as nice. This was pretty wild, too.”
"When there was that air raid on Dresden, we were just returning from Southern Bohemia, we were there to visit relatives. And just then it was such a chaos, now, we were making our way home on the train and this, now, the people were all scared. And one gentleman had a total breakdown, he just went mad, because when he saw how everything was on fire and the people cannot get out, after all, a bunch of people lost their lives there, I don't know how many thousands of people were there who lost their lives."
“There was such an insecurity because everyone was worried for their lives, as there were the air raids and stuff, because one never knew whether they would remain alive or whether they would lose some property. I remember that we for example had to get up five or six times during one night. We went to bed – and then there were sirens again that there’s another American air squadron coming. And right as well, we were lucky to have lived at the periphery whereas grandma and grandpa lost everything. And grandpa had a sister, too, she married there, and she lost everything as well.”
Liselotte Pultarová was born on the 2nd of December in 1929 in Leipzig, Germany, to Josef and Růžena Paduch. Her grandparents left for Germany in search of work at the end of the 19th century. Liselotte grew up in the local Czech community and attended Czech language school until the Nazi authorities closed it down. Her parents were members of the local Sokol sports club and were active in the Neruda cultural association. The family lived in Leipzig through the whole duration of WWII. Liselotte witnessed frequent air raids, bombing and liberation by the U. S. Army. Her future husband, Václav Pultar, was stationed in the Reich as a forced labourer. They married in May 1945 when Liselotte was 16. They left for Czechoslovakia, her father and grandparents remained in Germany for the time being. In the Soviet zone, they suffered such a hunger that her grandmother died of malnutrition and her grandfather went blind. Václav was an ardent Communist until the Communist coup d’état as his father had been a Communist before the war. Liselotte and Václav had two sons, the younger of whom died of leukaemia at the age of 41. She welcomed the Velvet Revolution with great joy. In 2020, she lived in her house in Hradec Králové.
