Anna Trefancová

"What were you doing during the air attacks in the town? Did you have some shelters?" "Our factory was nearby and we were instructed that if we hear the alarm we have to run to the factory. There used to be big concrete shelter. We shared our room in the camp with some Ukrainian women. They all were nice women, all mothers. And we were young girls, so it was good. And the very first night the alarm went on. We didn’t know what to do; we grabbed all our belongings and went outside. And these Ukrainians shouted: ´Follow us, follow us! ´ It was completely dark outside. We ran as fast as we could. There was our camp, then the bridge and then the other camp, where the men were. But we didn’t know it back then, because it was our first day at the camp. We followed the Ukrainian women until we made it to the shelter. It wasn’t any big though, just a concrete underground one. It protected us against the fragments. When the alarm announcing the end of the attack stopped we got out of there and noticed - the Ukrainian women were gone. We had no idea where we are. We were trying to figure out what we are going to do. Some guys who were standing nearby heard us - they were also Czechs. They came to us and asked us what the problem was. They said: ´Your camp is over there across the rail track. Follow us, we will take you there.´ And so they did. All the Ukrainian women had their husbands or lovers there, so they just stayed with them."

"My husband worked also in this factory. He had a worse job though; he was combining the material for tires. He was always black as the chimney-sweep. On the other hand he made more money too. Later on - in March of 1945, when we knew that the end of the war is coming my boyfriend told me: ´Pack up your stuff and leave the things you don’t want here.´ Some of my clothes were already very old, because for the past two years we couldn’t buy any new clothes for us. He said: ´Everything you want to take home with you put in a suitcase.´ We made a deal that we would go to the train station at night and will go home - stow away. There was another couple there. We did as we planned. We arrived to Stříbro town without any permit to cross the border. In fact it wasn’t completely illegal - my husband’s mom was a German, so he could speak some German too. We went to the head officer and my husband asked him if he could let us go home, because we want to get married there. He told him that we would return back after the wedding. But I think he didn’t believe that anyway. But this officer gave me the leaving permit in a second without saying anything. In the camp there was a new canteen just being build, although we couldn’t understand why they are building something if there were air attacks all the time there. Anyway, this head officer went inside of this canteen and brought two blue cups and two saucers and gave it to us as a wedding present. It was funny we didn’t intend to come back and we got the wedding present."

"We didn’t get anything. Not even the food. All we got were the meal coupons. There was a canteen in our factory where we could purchase some food. We were at work even on Saturdays. On Sundays we usually went to some restaurant. There used to be a lot of businesses named Obermeier there. There were many families with this name and they owed restaurants too. So we started to go to one of these restaurants. There were some older waitresses there. I suppose they were waitresses; what could I know - I’ve never been in a restaurant before. But my husband comes from Prague so he knew these kinds of things. Our men always left some tips there so now the waitresses were more than happy to take care of us. If there were some leftover meat crumbs on the pen they always cooked some potatoes, put them into this pan and mixed it with the meat sauce. They added few lettuce leaves and called it Tyrol roast. They always gave as big portions. So I can’t complain. It wasn’t any luxury though, because when you’re young you’re always hungry. But I can’t say that I was hungry there." Mrs. Výšková speaks: „But it’s also because we were in Bavaria. And the Bavarians are such a nice people. If we would have been located more toward the North where the real Nazis were, like in Dresden...everyone who was there was lamented. But down here in Bavaria, if you ever listen to their music, they’re really folk people. We were really lucky to be there - in Bavaria."

"We arrive to Stříbro town. Actually, it was here on the protectorate border line..." "To Cheb town?" "No it was closer to Plzen." "Kozolupy town?" "Yes, Kozolupy that is. We arrived there and there was the end. They told us they can’t let us any further and we had to go back to Stříbro town and obtain ourselves the permit. But it was already night. I remember me walking from the train station carrying my suitcase. It wasn’t heavy though, but there was this hill and the cat heads were there. I was very mad, because I kept stumble for I couldn’t walk in the dark. Now, we have arrived there. It was our only luck that my husband knew German. We were there also with Joseph and his girlfriend Miluška. My husband said: ´What shall we do? We can’t stay here on the square. We have to find some police station.´ And my husband really found one. We were lucky - there was some nice police officer on duty. When my husband told him all about us, he grabbed a key and took us to this room which was right next to the police station. It used to be some shop in the past. Now it was used by policemen who were on the night shift. There were beds where they could sleep. So he let us spend the night there. In the morning we made the beds; actually there were only blankets. My husband gave the police officer some cigarettes locked the door and that was it. After that he went to the office to get the permits for us that would allow us to cross the border line. And since the train didn’t go very often, we arrived home later that afternoon."