Miroslav Klíma

"I won't tell you when they came, around the tenth of April, whatever it was, I don't know. They came here in a wretched state. The older one, she was about thirty-five kilos, they stayed here. Nobody came here when the mailman came, so we watched them to make sure that they went to bed. They were walking, the gendarme also came, so we looked to put them to bed, and they were here until..., they were also waiting for the removal or where they were going, I took them then to Kneznice to the castle, where the prisoners and such people who were on the move had a meeting. They claimed to be sisters. One was called Olga and the other was called Etha. She was like me, the young one, the older one was about thirty, twenty-eight. They were led by a transport, they chased it through these forests, these transports, until they lost them, until they were shot, until they fell."

"Three years were mandatory [at the secondary school], and the fourth was optional. So they arranged housing for us – the neighbors had an older boy the same age as me – they arranged for us to stay in Světlá, which is about half an hour below Hartmanice. So we would go there on Monday morning, and on Wednesday we’d go home; Thursdays were free, there were no classes. Then we’d go again Thursday morning and return home Saturday at noon. But that only lasted three weeks. After three weeks – we were home on Wednesday – on Thursday the mailman came, and as usual we exchanged a few words, and he said there had been trouble in Hartmanice, there was shooting. So they didn’t let us go back there on Thursday morning. They said we’d see what happens. So we didn’t go on Friday morning, and on Saturday morning, mobilization was declared."