Edvarda Valentová

“The commander of the retreating German army was Schörner. And Schörner’s army was hell of an army. Even its remains caused quite a mess and they were retreating through here, which means that they passed through Voznice. There was a scare that they were taking cattle and that they were searching for food. That they would just stop and storm into the village. Grandma thus had this awesome idea that we would leave our house open so that they would not break our door and we would hide under the spruce tree. We had beautiful spruce trees, with branches reaching to the ground. Each of us thus lay down and hid under the spruce tree. I don’t know whether I considered this an adventure or whether I was scared, but grandma’s idea was probably reasonable, and I was not scared. In my memory, barking of dogs is mixed together with the barking sound of the German language. They were really so curt; I knew that this was German, because from time to time I could hear it from the radio and I started to feel anxious. And I could hear that the barking was drawing closer, the German barking, which reminded of a rustling sound, and even before I began to feel afraid they had left or they went somewhere else, I don’t know. After a very long time… I can still see my grandma crawling on her knees, but using only her legs and one hand, and she was holding her butt with the other hand. I don’t know exactly, but they were prodding with bayonets and, I don’t know, but they pricked at my grandma’s butt and she thus had a bloody scratch there.”

“I have one nasty memory from December 2, 1948. One night the light came on and some stranger came in. He literally yelled at me to get out of the bed and he started searching my bed. Under the bed, or rather a couch, there was a storage drawer which could be pulled out. He started going through that drawer and I could hear two men, two voices, yelling at my father. But I don’t know what they were shouting at him. Meanwhile, my brother had been born in 1947, and now my mom was pregnant again, and she was standing there in the door in a night robe and she was completely scared. And then I saw dad’s back and three men behind him. The next time we saw him was the following May. He had probably been in detention pending trial, but he had certainly not taken part in any covert activity or some scheming. I don’t think that a man with two children and a third child coming could dare to be so brave and do something like that. But still, it is an unpleasant memory. Can you imagine how a Christmas tree looks in April? The Christmas tree was simply waiting for dad. He returned in May and he was talking to us, but it was somebody else who returned; the man who returned was not my father like he had been.”