Jaroslav Pánek

“It was Sunday, the sixth of May, and I took my bicycle and rode home, to Vlkov. And when I got to Sloup, that’s the intersection of Dráchov, Jindřichův Hradec, or Veselí, Soběslav, Prague, and so on. When I got there I saw a convoy, a huge convoy on bikes, of German soldiers. So, I didn’t know what do about passing them, I had my tri-color lapel here. What to do? They were fully armed, would just take their machine guns, boom boom boom and off they’d go. So, I had no idea what to do. I was scared, that’s the truth. So, I decided to risk it. I took off my lapel and put it into my pocket. I passed them, pedaling, and looking. They passed me by, on bikes like I was saying, and there must have been two hundred of them or maybe more. They were retreating from the Russians, from the Red Army. And they were retreating toward Sloup, taking a left through Dráchov toward Týn nad Vltavou, not far from where the Americans were waiting.”

“I always tear up when I talk about this. Imagine that we were running outside all day and then we would get home and say: ‘Mom, were hungry!’ And we really were very hungry. And our poor mom had to tell us: ‘I can’t give you anything, I don’t have anything.’ Can you see how that must have been for her to say? It was awful, and I’ll never forget it. But we had each other. We lived in poverty, but in love. The thing was had most was water and poverty, hunger. Of everything else we had very little or nothing.”