Otto Ševčík

“Airplanes came again. They were flying lower and from the south. We thought it would be bad. We saw they were quite low and we thought that meant something bad. We went to the cellar. And bombs started whistling. We heard them flying. The Rütgers plant in Vítkovice that made tar got hit. A bomb hit it and black smoke was coming from there. We wer sitting in the cellar just shaking with fear, hoping we wouldn’t get hit. Everything was vibrating. That was the first air raid of Ostrava that we weathered in the cellar.”

“I was worried about the future because my father was in the communist party. Many miners were. I was concerned he could get arrested. It was the worst after the assassination of Heydrich. That was really horrible. The gestapo came to our classroom and showed us the photographs of a bicycle, a cloak, and things left behind by the assassins. They asked if anyone of us had seen it. We were scared. It was a shock. They were arrogant, screaming. It made a terrible impression on us.”