"In the days just before the Russians marched into the country on 9 May and a little later, the Americans advanced to the outskirts of Budějovice, I think about 20 kilometres or so. There was even a unit, there are photos of it, that joined up with the Russians there, but they didn't enter Budějovice. Also, at that time there was a lawless situation in České Budějovice and very serious attacks took place there. Of course, one was aware of that, we didn't even go out anymore. But then, in those very last days before the end of the war, you could see from the window, we were on the second floor, that there was a lot going on. But the really bad things I experienced in the middle of May, when everybody had to report to the labour office in Budějovice, there were riots and even dead people, and I saw some of that myself. All you could see from the balcony were people marching. We saw a march where I thought they were English. Today I know that the steel helmets that the English had were also used by others, including Czech volunteers. There was nothing to see, it was in the city centre, that call to register. And we got a white armband with an "N" on it, that's familiar. And also a lot of people died there, I also saw someone jump out of a window in the city centre and get hit on the nose with the rifle butt, I didn't look at him much, I was a bit unnerved."
"Then we went through Melck in freight or cattle wagons, which were divided into two parts. The luggage was squeezed down, there were people on the top, about twenty or thirty, and this way we were going through the countryside. There was no toilet, of course, so if a man wanted to relieve himself, a boy like me did it by arc, but if somebody wanted to poop, two people had to hold him. Sometimes the train would stop for a long time and people would jump off, but they had to be careful so that it wouldn't go any further. We went over the Ems and the Russians handed us over to the Americans, that was the border of the zone, and in Linz we got a great soup in the middle of the night that I still remember. Then we went to Passau and I was got rid of lice five times during the whole trip. The Russians were not so thorough, they just knocked a bit of anti-lice powder on my neck and that was it. But then I experienced a scene in Passau: they asked us to come into a room where we had to undress. As a boy under the age of ten, I was one of those who stayed with their mothers. We were standing there in a long line of naked people and suddenly the news spread, that we were all going to be shot now, the door was at the end. Panic broke out, and the American soldiers had to calm us down. Then we walked through the door and there were three figures dressed like the Klu Klux Klan, they were wearing protective suits, even over their heads, and they had sprayers in their hands, and they were spraying DDT or whatever it was at us to delouse us, it was a very impressive experience. And then we travelled for several days via Plalting, Munich, Augsburg, always with stops and overnight stays, to Schwäbisch Gmünd in Württemberg, where we were quarantined for the first time. A diphtheria epidemic broke out on the transport."
"For example, I ran away once, I must have been four years old, four or five, and I was running, walking around the big square greeting people, 'Heil Hitler!' and I knew that if I raised my hand, the other person had to do the same. They told my mother, and she took me away and had to explain to me that I shouldn't do that. I could then go and say, 'My mother doesn't like the Führer.' The same thing happened to me in the kindergarten. I used to go to the kindergarten of the NSPC, the National Socialist Organization of People's Care, and I was chosen. We had been given two turtles and I was chosen to give them names. What was expected, of course, was Max and Moritz or something like that, and that's what they ended up being named. And I thought about it for a while and then I picked what I thought was the dearest and the most popular in the world, and that was Adolf Hitler and Hermann Göring. Carefully, very carefully, they talked me out of it."
Peter Johanek was born on 28 August 1937 in Prague to a German family with Czech roots. However, his home town was České Budějovice, where he spent his childhood and the war. He recalls the Nazi ideology present at school and the injustice and violent conditions after the end of the war. In mid-May 1945, Peter was first expelled from his family home, a few months later he was expelled out of Czechoslovakia and finally Austria. At the same time, Peter‘s father was released from American captivity and gradually settled in Westphalia, then a British zone in Germany. The family joined him in August 1946. Once in Westphalia, Peter decided to dedicate his studies at the University of Würzburg to his adopted home history. After successfully completing his doctorate and habilitation, he held the position of Professor of Westphalian History at the University of Münster until 2002. He visited the Czech Republic several times during his time as a student and lecturer, and visited České Budějovice for the first time twenty years after his emigration. He experienced not only the period of revolutionary events in Prague in 1968, but also the fall of the Iron Curtain in Germany in 1989/1990. Symbolically, he returned home in 2004, when the University of České Budějovice awarded him an honorary doctorate.
Hrdinové 20. století odcházejí. Nesmíme zapomenout. Dokumentujeme a vyprávíme jejich příběhy. Záleží vám na odkazu minulých generací, na občanských postojích, demokracii a vzdělávání? Pomozte nám!
