Rajisa Kamlerová

"But then again I remember the war, how they enlisted, they all had to enlist. My grandmother stayed in Staviště alone, my aunt stayed in Novošulki alone, my mother stayed in Újezd [Újezdec] alone, so the women all gathered at my grandmother's and worked some of the fields, because there was a farm there. First of all, there was this - what was his name - Bohoušek, who fell - well, now it's slipped my mind - he has a memorial there - he fell at Dukla, he was about twenty years old. He was said to have enthusiastically said [that] he had to go and fight and avenge Milka and Josífek. Both of his uncles, Pepík and Rostík, were wounded, they were my mother's brothers, they saved themselves by being wounded somewhere and that they were just at that time like... But what Uncle Joseph said was terrible. Once, when they were reminiscing, he said he was driving a truck. All of a sudden he couldn't get it going, they got stuck, they were revving up, it wouldn't go, he got out of the truck, looked to see what was in front of him, and found out it was dead soldiers. He said he started vomiting and couldn't go any further, it was a horrible experience."

"I'll tell you how I witnessed the burning. Early in the morning a vehicle was driving - we lived in Újezdec, we called it Újezd - early in the morning I was awakened by a terrible rumble on the road - a vehicle, a Ukrainian was driving it and shouting: 'People, run, the Germans are coming at us!' Daddy's sister came running, dressed me, picked me up, told me to go... because Mum had just gone to the dairy with milk. She left my brother, who was three years old, to my mother. As people were running away, she threw me on some wagon, there were blankets, so she threw me in the blankets. I know we ended up in some wood where there were a lot of wagons, children. My mother, when she came home, she took my brother and they went to look for me. Somehow she found me there, and we went to my aunt's place in Novošulky, that was on the side of the front. In the afternoon people started shouting: 'There's a fire somewhere! Come and see!' We went up on this higher ground and we saw a terrible black smoke, they said: 'It's Malín on fire!' That's how I remember Malín burning. The next day, my mother left me with my aunt and went to Malín to look for her sister and nephew, and because they were all burned, she looked for a place to... She found them in the barn, the remains of clothes. One more story like that, later we found out that really in that barn there was also Josífek, he was about twelve years old, and when the barn started to burn, a girl of about eighteen and Josífek somehow got under the roof and jumped into the corn, the girl crawled on, while he started to choke and stood up. A German came up to him and stabbed him and threw him back into the fire. She, all burned up, saved herself - my aunt somehow talked to her afterwards - and told the story about Josífek."