Anna Tomíšková

“I knocked at those people´s door, and they let me stay the night, gave me dinner. Very good people they were, elderly ones. In the morning, when I was getting up, they fed me too. And he said, well... he went to put on his uniform, he was a policeman and said: ‚So girl, tell me now truly: where are you going and what happened to you?‘ So I told them everything, that they kicked me out in the factory and I was afraid to go back home. I didn’t know about the fact they had me searched by the radio. That was why they already knew about me. That´s how friendly he told me. It was the goodness shining out of him. So I was willing to tell everything about me. And he said: ‚Would you like to go back home or you wish to go to Slovakia?‘ I said: ‚I will not go home.‘ And he replied: ‚And would you like to work with us here?´”

“I had to get up at four o´clock in the morning, but I was only taking our goats out to pasture. Uphill from the cemetery... that is the cemetery... There I used to go and as I sat down... on the ground and the goats ran to the cemetery and ate all the flowers on graves. But the priest saw it and went to tell my mother and she took the beating stick and wanted to give me beating and the priest advised her: ‚That is not how you raise children, the girl is not to blame.´”