Anastázie Králová

“One time Mr Hájek said he didn’t like the situation, and what to do with me. Mrs Hájková was expecting soon. I couldn’t go home. My parents lived by the factory. I said I’d go to the hospital, that I’ve got water on the knee. One time they had some kind of meeting at the saw mill, and we saw gunfire there. There were dead people there. I don’t know. That there was supposed to be some confidante there, and the Germans ambushed it and things were bad. Mr Hájek didn’t come back either at night or in the morning. So I told Mrs Hájková I’d have to go to hospital. Do you know how much fear I experienced in hospital? Eyes glued to the door, waiting to see if the Germans would come in, if they’d happen upon me there in hospital. Afterwards, when I returned home, they locked up Mrs Hájková. But she was to give birth soon after, so they released her. So I went there again. And again both the Germans and the partisans would come. Mr Machálek had his nerves ruined from it, and he went crazy.”

“Or when we went to Vsetín, we went barefoot. Before Vsetín there was a kind of trough there with water flowing through it and a bench. We washed our feet there, put our shoes on, and entered the town. And when we were returning we took our shoes off again and went barefoot. Not just us. All the children did that.”