Veronika Hamatová

"Dad didn't tell us anything about how [the Czech colonists] came. But my mom told us how her dad came from Bohemia. He came as a boy, as boys they came here to Romania. So they told that story, that they came here as boys from Bohemia. And there were about two or three brothers. That there was a forest everywhere. That they came this way above the cemetery, and where the cemetery is, that's where they came together. And there was a woman or a girl that died, so they made a cemetery there. Here, we have a cemetery. Here, they started taking all they wanted. He wanted to build, here was all forest and here was a spring of water, it's good. They started building and they made a village."

"I remember that people could go from here to Bohemia. I was already bigger then. They used to come from Bohemia to make us go to Bohemia, and a lot of people went. There were people living around us, like down the street. But they used to drive, there used to be a car going down the road, as there's a road to Cozla. That's where people used to go. I remember my dad came from Cozla and he said to my mom, 'Hey, let's go to Bohemia!' [...] Mum said to him, 'If you want to go, go!' We were four kids. She told us, 'Look, kids, whichever one you want, go with your dad. But I'm not leaving home!' And we didn't go, and neither did dad. But a lot of people went, but even from Bohemia they came back, they ran away. Then they attacked, the people who came back. But we didn't. We didn't go anywhere."