Marie Utli

"My mother was very pious. I think that if she hadn't been so pious, she wouldn't have survived. She had three men in the war. At home there remained four of us. Before the war my father bought some furniture for a new kitchen and two bedrooms. He wanted to extend the house - the boys should have lived on the first floor. We were very lucky that we had stored it somewhere else, not at home. When they moved us, we had the furniture for two brand new bedrooms and a kitchen. My father wanted nothing here in Huzová. He said he was not a thief. He said he was satisfied with what he had. And that we would return back. At home my parents had prepared some wood for building the house. But they had to leave it there. And also the barrels with wine. My father was a tough man, but my mother was compassionate, pious. I know that some Croats even jumped into a well here in Huzová. Uncle Czechowský went mad because of that. But, considering what my mum had to experience, she was very brave. We prayed at home for those who had hurt us most. But it was not easy for me to do it and so my father wanted to punish me. But now I know that he was right. There is no hatred within me. But some of the people still feel it inside. When they stole something from my father, I remember him saying: ´That is nothing. They took much more from us.´ Even though he was rebellious, he took it in this way. So there is no hatred within us. Just my brother Jan remembers the horrors of the war. He was so young."

"When we arrived here, people thought we were Germans. Our people were wearing garbs, my mother too. One German, who had married a Czech and stayed here, was very happy to see Germans. But my mother told her: ´No, we are not German. We are Croats.´"

"Do your children speak Croatian?" "No, they don't. But when they went to Croatia on holiday, they regretted it. But I told them: ´You deserve it.´Granny spoke Croatian to them; grandma and granddad Šalamon spoke just Croatian, too. When the boys went to school, the headmaster told them they would never become well educated as they did not speak Czech. However, they got a degree at university. We spoke to our children only in Czech, because other people judged us. As when we met friends somewhere, we were chatting just in Croatian. One of my friends commented on that: ´I don't care at all. They should speak Croatian. We speak Czech so they should learn Croatian.´We talked to each other just in Croatian."

"About a half of us were Croats, the other half were other nationalities. Recently they said on TV: ´Everybody's from somewhere else.´My father used to say that too. There were eight nationalities here. But nobody made trouble." "Did the Croats lived together or was it mixed? When there were so many Croats, wasn't it similar to living in South Moravia?" "Similar to South Moravia? No, it was not. But the Croats helped each other more than the others. The Czechs joined us too - we went to church together. We have a large church; sometimes people had to stay outside. And the Czechs, Croats, Germans went to church ... We had a Hungarian and a Ukrainian here."

"Did you have any troubles because of being Croatian?" "Some of the children laughed at us, but, you know, children are children. Even today some children are rogue. One girl even beat me - but her brother learned to speak Croatian! He used to be with us all the time; he was not like her. So he learned it."