Justina Koutníková

“On 1st September, 1942 I went home late. It was not the same as today, so that mum would not have to go anywhere and cared and then grabbed a child by hand and took it to school. Well no, we had to go to the field in the morning. And especially the older children, and I was the middle one, had a younger sister and an older one too, she was already in the field and I had to take care of my younger sister. So we worked in the field in the morning and suddenly mum looked around and said: oh, the sun is so high. And said to my father: ‚Come on, we had to go, the girl has to go to school.‘ So my father started loading everything up the carriage and prepared the horses, all the tools and my little sister, and off we were. But we were half-way between Rastovec and Ivanovo Selo, and suddenly the bells rang midday. Mum cried: ‚Our girl will be late today!‘ But my dad began to ride the horses fast and shortly we were back home. Mum made the water ready, washed me properly, prepared the clothes already early in the morning and combed my hair quickly. Back then I had longer hair, so she braided it and tied with a bow. I felt it took a long time and was really worried to come late. I didn’t managed to eat my lunch so mum gave me two pieces of bread with marmalade and put them in a clean cloth. She kissed me good-bye and said: ‚Now you run not to be late.‘ Oh well, I came to school and it was empty.”

„So they taught us and began speaking nicely Czech to us and we liked it. And if it comes to a song, then a Czech one, of course. And so it was, that was the second grade. We got used spelling-books (from Czechoslovakia) and one of them was called the Mother Tongue. We also liked it, as it was full of poetry and we could already read so the teachers were explaining us nicely. But then the school burnt down, just the walls remained. So they adapted one large room for lessons. And another smaller one was for the teacher to stay in. And that was the deceased Mr. Zámostný. He spoke Czech and we especially liked him as we were singing all the time. We even didn’t like going back home.”