Edita Reinoldová

„Then it was sad when our family had to split up and they had to leave within the expulsion. That had happened before my father came back from the camp. Because my grandmother, my mum's mother, was Czech. Mum had tuberculosis, three small children and a husband who was missing. And so my grandma talked the commissioners into not making us leave with the deportation. Hanging on the shop in our street there was always a list of people whose turn it was to be deported. They were only allowed to take a bag, which couldn't weigh more than thirty kilos, only personal belongings, no things or paintings. Only clothes. And that was always weighed, and then the bags were thrown on a truck, and then the owners of all the bags had to sit on the truck and they were taken into the unknown. It was hard to say goodbye like that to my aunt, my uncle, my cousins. Because we didn't know where they were taking them. They didn't even know where they were taken. It was really sad. And I know that my aunt tried to arrange with the commissioner that she wouldn´t take any personal things with her, but she begged to be allowed to take her sewing machine. She was a seamstress and had a Pfaff machine in a wooden case. But he told her that her sewing machine was too modern, that if she had an old Singer machine, he would let her. So then my aunt swapped it with someone for an old Singer machine and she was allowed to take it with her. But she didn't even have a single spare pair of trousers.“

„The stain stuck with us, anyway. And the kids did all kinds of spiteful things to us. They would come outside our house and shout at us. And then they made up a thing about me. In a house that had glass windows made of these little panes, they kicked all of them out and they said I had done it. Then I was questioned at the police station for two days, and I still couldn't defend myself, that I hadn't done it. And then Daddy himself had to glaze all the windows in the house, because I didn't clear myself. There were about ten kids against me who 'saw' me kicking it out. It left me angry, angry... But what could I do, right.“