Every night the partisans came and threatened to shoot us
Rosa Wohlfeld was born on 25 August 1927 as Rosa Denk in Onen Svět (Jenewelt) by Javorná (Seewiesen), near Železná Ruda in Šumava. She lived on a large farm in Onen Svět with her parents and her childhood was happy until the war started. She began attending school in 1933, completing eight classes in Javorná, followed by two years at the business school in Pilsen. Her mother died when she was an eight-year-old girl, her father later remarried. She survived the war alongside her stepmother, her father had to enlist. After the war, when resistance fighters brought havoc to the village, Rosa was unable to stand the constant pressure and blackmail and in May 1945 she spontaneously decided to flee from Železná Ruda through the woods to Bavaria. She arrived at her uncle’s house in Osterhofen, worked for him for a short while and then as a clerk in Griesbach. On 24 December 1946 she married in Leipzig and started a new life with her husband (a postal clerk) in the decimated town. In 1953 the family followed Rosa’s parents into the Federal Republic of Germany. They moved several times more, each time starting from nothing. They finally settled in Diesenbach near Regenstauf, where they live to this day. Rosa remained a housewife, raising three children. She returned to her homeland for the first time in 1989, surprised by the changes to the landscape. Rosa regularly meets with friends from her old home and wishes the topic of expulsion could once more be reopened. She thinks the politicians could’ve talked together and found a peaceful solution.