Ing. Josef Mach

“Next to our estate in Valteřice there was a butcher and that was the first shop they visited. And they couldn't make themselves understood as they knew no Czech and our people knew no French, so they came for me, as they knew about me somehow, so I could show off. I didn't know much but I could tell them what I had prepared for my school lesson, about Moulin Rogue and other funny things one would remember back then. It made a good impression on our neighbors in the village, and they visited us every week or two after that. We already had a radio and I remember that we listened to the broadcast in Czech and we knew when there was one in French. It was like, 'London calling', so they came and listened to that in our house and maybe they could even hang you for doing something like this, I don't know, but we just took the chance.”

“Our village was annexed during the last, additional phase of the German occupation, and I can still remember it happened on November 24th, as the general annexation took place several months before that, but this was an addition, as they annexed all the villages because of this road Trutnov-Vrchlabí-Jablonec-Jabloneček-Liberec, today's State Road no. 14, which went through this area and our farm had been standing just next to it. So that area had become part of Sudetenland and we – due to this appeal by the Czech government in London, as president Beneš appealed on Czech farmers not to leave their land, and my parents followed, of course, and there was this unfortunate fact, as our farm was the first one by the road from Vrchlabí to Hrabačov and on and it was quite noticeable, it would be good to have a photo of it. And the Germans behaved differently during certain phases, as there were Germans from the Reich coming to Sudetenland and that maybe it took opposite direction, but these were interested, maybe it was offered to them by someone, I don't know, they were inquiring if they could buy it. There were talks of annexation rather than purchase, so we were living in quite uncertain circumstances... We were always watching for someone to come wanting something.”