Libuše Straková

“He also lived in Pardubická Street, where our factory was. His family had Jewish origin, his name was Kantner. And I was narrating about the funerals, so we went to a funeral of a single young woman and we as funeral bridesmaids went to a pub for burial service. We did not walk behind the coffin as a couple but he started to pay attention to me and talk to me in the pub. And it was a beautiful innocent first love. I used to go to the village for milk at night and he used to go with me. He studied to become a metalworker in Moravany and I was on the lookout for the train to hoot and we met by chance, it was a beautiful love, more likely a friendship. And at the end of the war those young people were sent to forced labour in Germany and about three or four young men ran away right before the revolution but I did not see him again, someone just told me that Karel had returned home. And the uprising took part several days later, the bombs were dropping in Holice and those boy scouts probably wanted to prevent the Germans from coming through at the end of Pardubická Street and they (the Germans) simply shot all of them. It was a murder but it did not happen in combat but from a long distance. There is still a small memorial with the names of the killed boy scouts. So that is how my first sad love ended.”

“I cannot describe the atmosphere, it was such tense, I could feel that something would happen. And there was a cellar across the yard and so we run to the cellar and at once the bombs started to fall. All the windows were smashed in the factory, it was not hit but it happened because of the pressure. And the soldiers were running down the streets and picking up all the men. We had to go out, so we went out from the cellar and they immediately picked up dad. I could speak German quite well, I had had private lessons and was prepared to sit a state exam. My mum was five months pregnant. I had to go and get a key and had to open all the doors. I did it automatically and did not think about it at all. I did (everything) that they told me. And there was a young man, a soldier and he told me: ‘You cannot be here alone with your mum. Can I take you somewhere?‘ ?‘ So I told him (to take us) to our neighbour who lived across the street. So he took us, stopped the shooting, and helped us cross the street. And right behind the gate my mum clutched her head and said: ‘Líba, the ham and pasta bake is still in the electric oven!‘ So I took a handkerchief and (went) again to the street, the soldier took me across the street again, I turned off the oven, caught a suitcase because I told him that my mum had forgotten her medicine there. I did not think about it at that time but then at the end of the war I thought, you see, Hitler didn't devastate all of them after all. What the soldier must have lived through and it stayed in him after all... well it did.”

“I remembered that we rolled them little loaves of bread. There was a baker in Dudychova Street for a short time and he let us have black bread without food coupons, he knew why we were buying it that it was not for us. So we would always roll it down from the pavement and someone would pick it up. They were poor fellows, they were shuffling, they were not marching, the prisoners of war.”