Josef Hamrozi

“I was also supposed to enter the military but it was already… the 3rd of January [1945] so I said that the front is near and I didn’t enter, while my uncle here had two sons in the military service so it was safe to hide there because they weren’t searching there since they were in the military, none of them came back. So I hid there and survived but it was risky, twice the SS were here, asking where I was. And mama says: “What? He fell? He already fell?” They were saying that I’d been drafted and I’d already fallen when the soldiers came. So they asked whether we had any eggs to spare… so they gave them eggs and they left. Ten days later they were back…”

“I worked for a farmer here in Bocanovice, we rode to the forest for wood – where the tall railroad bridge, to Lomná we went, and a bit further, above the bridge, there was blood on the road and next to it was a grave, later we learned that they had to dig them out and the Germans buried them there, three men – father, brother-in-law, and son.”