Rostislav Novák

“It was the 16th of April in 1945. From the direction of the sugar mill, three airplanes flew. I watched them and suddenly, boom, boom, boom. There were low voltage power lines and one of the bombs hit them and tore them. I kept standing, I didn’t know what to do. Then another bomb fell and tore apart. This one pushed me to the ground. I saw the roofs rising. The roof would go up and then it would fall back down. What a horror! Eight dead. My dad was killed and my sister’s leg was torn off. For all her life, since she was 16, she lived without that leg.”

“He was in jail during the WWII. He was a machinist in a plant where grenades were assembled. He thought that if he would have made something a bit shorter, they wouldn’t blow up.” “He was a saboteur? He sabotaged the production?” “They found out somehow, the Germans, they measured it or something so they locked him up. But he didn’t stay in jail for long. Only for a year.” “And do you know where he served?” “In Prague, that’s where he was lcoked up. And after the war, when he came back home, he said: ‘What am I supposed to do?’ The borderlands were opened [to resettlement]. And he told his brother: ‘Look, Franta, let’s go have a look at the borderlands. Hulín is too small for us…‘ They went there and they returned. Nothing. They went there and the train only went to Šternberk. So they thought, let’s go and look at the main square. So they went there and resistance fighters were assembled there. And they recognised the head of the resistance unit, they were in jail with him. He asked: ‘What are you up to?’ - ‘Eh, I could use a machinist shop.’ - ‘What, a machinist shop? I’ll give you a hotel!’ - ‘But, but, I can’t, a hotel, I don’t know what to do with it!’ So they pushed a liqueur production onto him. And Franta got a smallholding in Šternberk.“