Ingrid Petříková

„Mum was quite a pretty lady, a temperamental one and next to us there was a widower, Jaroslav Starý. He already fancied mummy and was sorry that we ought to get displaced and he´d stay here. So he went to the committee to marry her, because he liked her. Hence we could stay here as he was Czech. So we did. He had a high position as a communist and so we could stay here.“

„My brother Erich and Jenda lived in Moravia at her granny, because mum as I said, she had seven foster mothers and when she was pregnant, they were not glad and they´d chase her away. Then she served in Prague and she came back as she had difficulties to feed us all. So she kept us two here and Erich and Jenda were well off living with our Moravian granny. I remember we traveled by train in 1945 and everyone was there. When we went another time granny and daddy nor the boys were there. We would ask around and people said they´d displaced them. Only later, when we found my brother, I was sixteen then, he said they had to march a long was and it was terrible and granny and grandpa died then.“

„I remember it all very well, when the Russians came. In Vratislavice we have a pharmacy, a church, the House of freedom. That´s a kind of a main street. When the Russians came I had a pink bag and they gave me some chocolate and some sweets. Brother was two years older and he jumped up their tank and went almost to Jablonec with them and marched back on foot. That´s how I remember the event. It was jolly, the tanks and Russians. Mummy then cooked and helped around. There were Poles and Russians here.“