Eva Salamonová

“I just know that in the flat, in the basement, where they were hiding, there had to be Germans accommodated when the army came. People had no choice. They had a house, the Záruba’s family, and just imagine: they were sleeping in the basement and above them, there was an officer sleeping as they were obliged to lodge him. So these people were hiding Jews in their basement and in the house they had a German soldier. It really had to be huge stress for everyone. For example, my grandpa got bronchitis there and it surely is impossible not to cough when one has it. My mom used to say it was awful, that they used to put blankets on him just to muffle the noise, so they weren’t disclosed.”

“Later I found some documents how my grandpa litigated to get his house. He won the trial, but they informed him, that even though they were about to return the house back to him, as it belongs to him and they took it illegally, they are unable to provide him with spare living, since other ‘comrades’ had been already living there. Until the end of their lives they couldn’t have returned to their house. Poor people had to end up in a senior house – grandma was in Bystrica. My grandpa was probably fed up with Bystrica, so he packed himself and left to a senior house in Brno, because there he had some friends.”