Bedřich Zavadil

“I was walking through the park and all of a sudden I heard a Russian passing me by. He had a sub-machine gun. As he spotted me he started shouting in German: 'Hände hoch.' ('Hands up.') I said to myself that he was a German. But he thought that I was a German because of my blue uniform. And when I heard him clicking with his sub-machine gun, I ran away into an alleyway. Just in time – the Russian stated shooting at me.”

“What we couldn't get used to was tea served with milk. Tea or coffee with milk is a run-off-the-mill. We got used to it so much that when we came to Prague, we asked cooks for milk both in Karlín and in Ruzyně. They used to exaggerate: ´Well, so buy it then or go back to England.´”

“They were threatening me that if I didn't come for a medical check-up and for recruitment, then I'd have to pay 100,000 Czech Crowns fine and that the police will take me to the Employment Office. I was checked up by a doctor there, without any stripping up to the waist – in my coat. Simply I had all my papers ready beforehand and I went off.”

“We took no interest in what we were building. Only later we got to know that it should have been Hitles's tent. Bunkers were also being built there. We were there for a long time. It was a great valley, we used to go about 14 kilometers to Margivall every day. We worked 12 hours a day: from seven in the morning till seven in the evening. Night shifts lasted also 12 hours. There were no weekends at all.”