Maria Machálková

"My husband and I were in bed. We lived upstairs, my grandma downstairs. Suddenly, at four o'clock in the morning, grandma rushes upstairs and says: 'Children, children, we have been occupied! Russians are here.‘ And we, sleepy, said: 'What happened?' She had been listening to the radio, she couldn't sleep for long. So she told us, and by eight in the morning they were driving in front of our house. That was not far from Prague, and the tanks were going under our windows, and we were looking at them incredulously. Somebody made [a gesture] at them like this. I remember that to this day, that one soldier was sitting there and his tears were flowing like that. They didn't even know where they were. And then my brother and my husband were misdirecting the signposts and trying to kind of stop it."

"They came to my mother to prepare medicine for a Russian officer, but she had to drink it first in front of him and then he took it. And then I know [the story] with vodka. They came saying they wanted vodka, and my brother, who was three years older, took the watering can and brought them the can of water. And they thought he was making fun of them."