Adolf Köpf

"After our expulsion in May or June, the farmers had their fields tilled. The Czechs harvested the fields. I don't want to scold them, but the Czech farmers... Until Znojmo everything was German, but from Znojmo to the interior there were more and more Czechs. The first Czechoslovaks who settled in the borderland were not the best farmers, the best farmers stayed at home and did not go to the borderland. The fields were cultivated by the Germans and the crops were harvested by the Czechs. With the arrival of the Czechs, the harvest got worse every year. Those who were resettled were not proper farmers."

"Once I was driving with my brother-in-law along the Austrian-Czech border. We cycled and visited several villages. Then I said to my brother-in-law, 'Look, there's a kindergarten over there.' A Czech woman heard us speaking German and started swearing at us. But otherwise we had no contact and we didn't want any trouble either. I'm sure there is still hostility towards Austrians or Germans today and vice versa."

"It was late in the evening, the whole sky over Znojmo was illuminated, one plane after another. My father took my sister and me and we ran away from the school. Behind the school my father had a vineyard where he had dug a hole, a shelter. When the planes flew, we ran with our blankets into this hole. We were hiding because we were afraid."