Jaroslav Ryvol

“The whole Wehrmacht pulled out to Plzeň. Me and my brother were just standing there watching it all go down and saying: ‘See, that’s how we looked to them in thirty-nine when they came here.’ You should have seen it! They had baker’s handcarts, they had their satchels and guns piled on them being pushed by two people. Or they were pushing baby carriages with their rucksacks tossed in them. This was how the German army, the Wehrmacht, departed, while the soldiers of the SS stayed behind for good.”

“I remember perfectly well how I was standing in Strašnice with my brother on Černokostelecká [Street], when then, what do you know, some covered vehicles showed up with some frozen German soldiers sitting in them, and it just happened that it was raining sleet. And right where we were standing that convoy pulled up, German soldiers jumping down from it, and bolted into the nearby store. It had already been announced that the mark was going to be worth ten crowns, one mark. The thing they bought the most of, and I could see it with my very own eyes, was cakes. They carried them like this, and salami, too. They had plenty of marks and it was cheap, one to ten. People weren’t able to yell or throw something at them because it was forbidden, you weren’t allowed to. Everyone just stood and watched.”

“For maybe half a year I worked on Adam, or was it Eva? I can’t remember anymore. Convicts were working there. And there weren’t all black and blue, they were normal miners like anyone else. They even got the same food. We talked with them like normal. Just that inside there were mine prison guards, but they weren’t even armed. These convicts worked like everybody else and smoked. But I remember well that there was a Gypsy there who once said to me: ‘You get to leave, yeah? Bring me some rum and I’ll show where some really valuable smalt is at.’ Because when we were working on a rock we were paid by the meter. But when we found ore, it was based then on how active or not it was. For pure uraninite we got 32 crowns a kilo, I remember. And when it was less active, then it went for eight crowns.”

“There was no denying that people were angry, fuming with those Germans and collaborators. Because they had reported them and many people ended up in the concentration camps or prison. So, they had it in for them. Big time."

“There was a big reunion of the all the high- and highest-ranking officers. Naturally, they hadn’t taken just any ordinary John or Fritz or whatnot. Just the elite. And I know that they were yelling into the public radios that Doctor Edvard Beneš was on his way, and everyone was going: ‘Hurrah! I’ll still catch it!’ His wife, Hana Benešová, was sitting next to him, smiling and nodding her head. Then they said: ‘Now comes Marshall Konev, the Czech liberator, and General Lelyushenko, the liberator of Prague.’ They kept yelling and everyone was yelling: ‘Hurrah, to their glory!’ That’s how it happened. Then people were yelling when those American officers came out, some guy named Bradley, then some other bigshot American general or another, they yelled for him too. Then came English officers, French officers. It was a grand welcome!”