Jan Turek

"At that time, these activities - meeting at our place - had to cease. But we the work in the resistance continued. We helped obtain food stamps for illegaly residing people. Sometimes, I was entrusted with that task myself. I went to visit our relatives mostly in Nymburk, around Žďár and to Rožďalovice from where I brought either money or food stamps. Via her brother, my mum passed these on for illegaly staying people. This had begun very early - already since 1939, 1940. On the same occassion, we distributed illegal magazines. Especially Rudé právo but also V boj and others. Later, there were Předvoj or Aktiv. As a schoolboy, I used my bag to transport various things. I was ordered not to stop anywhere, not to talk to anyone and to return straight away."

"I also witnessed that first violent explusion of Germans. I will tell you this - most often, the Germans themselves wanted to leave. We had helped that out a bit. But not by violent means - not at all. When they came over, saying they wanted to leave, we reported it to Zákupy. They agreed and told us to bring them there. And so we assembled a group. But a half of the people - more than a half, in fact - stayed in the village. This was only dealt with later when Czechs began coming in after the government's call for settling the border areas. This was only in 1946. At that point, they could still stay. But those who were leaving would for instance let the cattle out of the barns and we had to chase it, group it and feed it. Then the Czech people interested in the houses came in. There were a few of those who came in just to loot and flee. I had to chase one of them and drag him back from the train station so that he'd return his booty."

"He threatened my mum and left. He left a Czechoslovak policeman behind to finish the house search. So, they carried on with it. After an hour, he returned and said: 'She had slept here! On that bed!" That meant they caught her and beat the confession out of her. My mum said: 'You should have said so, I haven't recognized her, I am short-sighted. Yes, she had slept here because she wasn't able to get a hotel, everything was full. I went to close the door and she asked me to let her sleep over and offered good money. I am a poor woman and need every penny.' That SS-man shouted at her that they would have us arrested the next day. Then they left."

"We were sent to reinforce this barricade. We had no panzerfausts left down there. They handed out bottles filled with petrol covered in cloth - the cocktails. Plus each of us a container with petrol or alcohol. We were distributed to the first floors in the houses in that street so that - in case they broke through that barricade - we'd be throwing it down on them."