Bedřich Hubáček

"On April 14th I enlisted in Cosel town, in Poland. They provided the clothing there etc. We stayed there for a week. When I arrived there I sent a postcard home; Just to let my family know, that was there and I´m fine. As I didn´t know German I wrote it in Czech. The very next day when we gathered for the line up the officer asked who was from Bělá village and wrote a postcard. Nobody answered. In fact, I was the only one there from Bělá. He asked again and then once again: ´Who wrote it? ´ Finally I said it was me. He asked me how come I wrote it in Polish. - ´That´s not Polish, that´s Czech.´ - ´Nobody will write in Polish here.´ He took it and tore it apart."

"We came to the gate where the captain was standing holding his machine gun. ´Where you want to go?’ he asked. We asked him if we could have a look in there. He told us he can't let anyone in. 'But we're installing the telephone here so can we have just a quick look in there?' we asked him again. When we got there we saw many sorts of doctors wearing white with the Red Cross on their sleeves. We were listening to their language, because we thought that they were Russians, but they spoke German. They all were Germans. As we came a little closer we saw this huge hole. It was about ten meters wide and about thirty meters long. It was a huge grave. It was still open. Then the digger uncovered the sand - and there it was: The bodies were just laying there like fish, like sprats. The dead bodies were piled on top of each other. The 'doctors' had some kind of long sticks with a hook on the end which they used to pull the dead bodies out. Another two people then took out the contents of the pockets; Id´s or knives and everything else that the bodies had with them. They pulled out everything and then put it into separate bags they had prepared. On the other side were graves too. The digger dug out a long deep line where they buried the soldiers back again."

"I was supposed to pick up some wounded people from the village over the hill. They all were gathered and prepared when I arrived. Before I could turn the truck it was already full of people. One man was even sitting on the cowl, his leg just hanging down. Everyone wanted to get out of there. So I took them and went back. It was already dark outside when I was driving back. When I got up on that hill again I saw the paths forked there. One of them led to the right and the other to the left. I didn´t know which way to go. So I took the right way and as I was going slowly down the hill all of a sudden I heard a big noise. ´Jesus, what the hell is it? We´re not on the front, it doesn´t sound like shooting neither, so what is it? ´ I continued slowly and then I saw some black spot in the distance. I got out of the truck and walked closer to this place. There was a panzer ditch and a small 25 seated bus that fell right into it. What a mess...! Everybody was screaming there, all people in there were injured and crying. I returned quickly to the truck. My truck was already full of people and I was supposed to take them to the garrison headquarters. I drove fast back to the hill; there I turned to the left and got to the main road this time."

"When we started to plow the field, the Germans came and occupied everything all the way to Opavice. We were so afraid. We had to walk our cows home, but the Germans were already here. What will happen now? In a while some of the Bělá citizens - those who were Germans - came to our field. Their names were Kocůr, Lasák and Kocůrek. They came to us: ´Hey hold it! Stop plowing! ´ I was standing there holding the whip and my father stopped the cows. We expected a fight. They said: ´So where is your Masaryk? Where is Beneš? You... Czech.´ My dad took the strap off the cow and as he waved it they got scared and left the field. As they were gone we continued with the plowing. But then our mom and my sisters came running: ´Hurry František, ran away! They want to kill us all.´ they were searching for us in our house later to pay us a lesson. We all ran away. Only our old grandma stayed there."

"We looked carefully out of the window and saw the tank lids opening slowly. Nobody was getting out of the tanks so we just waited. In few minutes I saw the helmet coming out. And then I saw the eyes. Finally the complete head was out. It was a black man. That was the first time I saw black person from such near distance. The Americans saw that nobody was shooting at them, so they started to get out of their tanks one after another one. As soon as they all got out, they were ordered to search the houses. We were hiding in our basement and could hear someone walking through our house. What shall we do? Run away or hide somewhere else? No, I didn´t want to go anywhere anymore. I took of my belt, my helmet, bag and the grenades. I disarmed myself and then I said:’ I’m not going anywhere!’ After just a few minutes I heard the black man walking down the stairs. Then someone called: ´Come on! Come on!’ Nobody moved. Everybody was scared. He climbed little lower and called again: ´Don´t worry!’ No response again. So he went even lower and this time we could see the barrel behind the corner. He was scared too, probably more than we were. I had a purse prepared from the past; I grabbed the purse and took out the napkins. I was afraid, but I raised my hand holding the napkin. I almost touched the barrel. 'If shoots now, he will shoot my hand off', I thought. But when he saw my hand waiving the napkin he knew at once we were surrendering. He started to back up slowly and we all followed him slowly outside."