Anna Staňková

"They stayed with us for about four days, like stationed, but I don't know why they stayed there. They were assigned to individual farms for sustenance. They didn't sleep there but came for breakfast, for food. I remember we were on that patch, as they used to call the village square, running around and looking at everything. And there was a boy, this one Russian soldier, and he got drunk and climbed over a gate likely to get a girl. Girls had to hide from them, that's the way it was unfortunately, they were war boys. And it got ugly. The commander came riding a horse in with a pistol, and without any arguing or order or anything, he just shot the soldier with his pistol. I can still see it right in front of my eyes, how he fell off the gate and stayed lying there. That was a terribly difficult moment."

"It's the Železné hory region; quite a few paratroopers landed there. I remember one day my dad came and took me aside. He told me we had a secret to keep together and I shouldn't tell anyone. He gave me a big bag, as big as I could carry. It was full of food, and he told me to bring it over there. Past the village, you went up the hillside a little bit and there was this big power pole and a bush next to it. It was a rosehip bush, a regular rose bush. He gave me the bag to bring it there. He said he'd met a lady with a radio and told me to put the bag there and not to tell anybody, and that lady would get it. Just bring it there, put it down and come back. Fact is, I did it. I did it and luckily I didn't meet anyone. In case I met anyone, I was to say Daddy left a rabbit or something. I wasn't allowed to tell anyone. So I never told anybody, not my brothers, not my mum."