Marie Mikešová

"The farm was completely destroyed, because during the war all Germans capable of holding weapons were at war. So the village was left with women and old people. They needed someone to work in the fields, so they recruited French prisoners. And they, at length, it wasn't theirs, so they demolished the buildings. When we went back there, we couldn't live in it at all. We had to find alternative accommodation in the school. It had to be repaired. The roofs, everything was broken. There was no inventory at all. Can you imagine? You can't! The cattle must have been murdered, there was nothing, bare walls. So my father had to fix it up. At the expense of the family, of course. Everyone thought we had millions. We had shit because he had to invest to make a living."

"When Hitler began to occupy the Sudetenland, life there changed for the worse. My father was imprisoned, he was lucky that he was imprisoned only in Štětí. He got out of there thanks to a decent German who lived in Radouň. He was a dance master in Litoměřice. As a dance master, he had many friends, because the children of German officers came to him. So thanks to him, dad managed to get out of prison. And that was very lucky, because in three days all the people who were locked up there were taken to Dachau." - "And for what was dad imprisoned?" - "For nothing, just for being Czech. He was the biggest peasant in the village, he bothered them."