Marie Vrhelová

"Only those Czechs who had been doing very well during the war were doing this: going around and beating people. The others were not. There was a man up there, who had the largest farm here. He would take horses whenever he needed them, he would use them to ride to the mill and what not. I don’t like to think back about that time. We went for the May mass, and I didn’t know what was happening. There were three of us girls at home, and none of us knew about it. We thus set out for the mass, which was starting at seven, and up there, there were Czechs – those who had been well off during the war – running all over the place and causing trouble. Just like the Germans had been doing before. Normally, I would stop by for Hermína on my way to church. That afternoon, my mom said several times: ´What about Hermína? She hasn’t come yet.´ I didn't know anything, and so I said: ´I don’t know.´ I walked up to their house, but a man stepped in my way and asked me: ´What do you want here, you bastard?´ I said: ´I'm no bastard, I'm... ´ I introduced myself: ´How come you don’t know me?´ I wanted to push my way through the gate, but he didn’t let me. But I knew their house well, I have known Hermína since we were three years old, and their house was almost like my home. So I ran around the house and entered through the other side, there was nobody in the back, and there I saw them beating Hermína's father. All three of them – Hermína, her Mom and her Dad – were there, standing with their faces against the wall. Her father was covered in blood. That's what I saw with my own eyes."

"The Germans occupied us on the 24th and on the 26th the Gestapo came for my father and took him away. Our Dad used to have teeth like pearls, but when he returned , he had only few teeth left. The times were bad. My childhood came to an end at that time, because from then on, only tears and fear remained. They transported Dad to Kašperské Hory…But Dad had not even been at home when the occupation took place. He was in Sušice that day. He went there in order to arrange an extension of his employment, but it was probably no longer possible. That morning, Mom said during breakfast: ´Dad, don't go anywhere today! I had a dream that you were making wooden clogs and you wore your festive clothes. I am afraid that something will happen to you.´ It was not even ten o’clock in the morning and her dream came true. Policemen from Albrechtice came for him. With armbands, rifles… We had to stand facing the wall and they were thrusting their rifles into the hay we stored in the loft and searching the whole house. One of those man had a long leather coat, the other had a greenish jacket, and both wore hats… I can still see it in front of my eyes and I feel like crying. Dad told Mom something in German and then he said: ´Mom, kids, I’m going with them, I don't know when I'll be back.´ I began screaming: ´Dad, Dad!´ They slapped me so hard that I my face hit against the wall and I hurt my forehead. They took Dad away and he came back sometime in early April. But right after Easter he had to go to work to Germany. He worked in a company in Geislingen (an der) Steige, where they repaired railway tracks, and so on. He then came home for a leave only on Christmas, when he had four days off. When he came, he had to report to the police station in Dlouhá Ves. Then he came again in summer, for one week. Eventually he even got to Russia with that company."

"I just left and went home. There was a train from Kolberg to Nurnberg. An air-raid was just in progress. I went with the crowds. Babies were being born there, people cursing, praying, crying, even fighting. There were mostly women, of all sorts of nationalities. When the air-raid was over, I asked people how to get to the main train station. But the main station was destroyed, and so I had to walk all the way to Dutzendteich, which was damaged as well, and I thus had to walk back again. They eventually readied a train which was heading to Plattling. I joined one woman there – she came from Zwiesel and she had two suitcases. I didn't have anything, so I helped her carry one suitcase. At the train station in Regensburg she bought me two sausages and five potatoes to peel. That was my only food during the three days I spent on my way home. On top of that, we had to walk thirty kilometres between Plattling and Straubing. I don't like to remember that!"

"The atmosphere became so much relaxed in 1968... All those films, like The Ear, All My Compatriots, Larks on a String... They were screened only once, and then they were banned. I screened all of them, even at the time when they began banning then. The program planners from Pilsen and Prague warned me: ´Fine, you'll get that film, but maybe you will receive a telegram with it... Do they deliver telegrams to your postbox, or directly into your hands and you sign it?´ I replied: ´I have agreed with them that they always put them in my postbox.´ They said: ´Then it's fine. Just don’t look in the post box. In case a telegram was there. Look inside only after you have screened the film.´ And so I would show the film at eight in the evening, then again at half past ten, and finally the third screening at half past twelve. I would thus show the film that very evening. And if there was some trouble, I would always say that I only found the telegram in my postbox the following morning. Or another thing I did: I got a wonderful film, Eight hundred miles on the Amazon River. It has been already banned; I still don’t even know why. I received a telegram again. I did screen the film, but I was not able to report the screening. I would thus report a screening of some Russian film, and that was it. The content of the telegrams was usually like this: ´Send the film All My Compatriots immediately to the storage facility in Prague!´"