Marie Petrlová

"They trashed the whole house, took a hunting rifle, a typewriter, a book, Clay - Eve Calls London, that was about the Bartoš brothers, if you heard about it. And about two thousand crowns. Daddy's sick mother and wife were still there. When Mummy said that even the Gestapo didn't act like that, they told her to be quiet or they'd take her away too. So she had to take care of us by herself, and my mother was very brave. Later on, my sister didn't get to go to school because Daddy had a trial, and so my sister went to work to help mum because then there were two younger siblings who actually went to school."

"I remember the Germans had an ammunition depot at the station. When the Russian army was approaching, they blew it up, and those were terrible blasts. We were in our cellar and the door opened. The glass in the windows shattered, so then they moved us to a safer shelter. Women and children went to teacher Mrs. Domanská's and men went to our cellar. The Germans drained the Vranov Dam at the time until the Morava River flooded; I heard this later from my parents and from my husband whose father was killed on the liberation day. He told me how he made the coffin of boards and took him to the cemetery with his cousin and two uncles. It was terrible because they were tripping over dead people and horses and electric wires. It left him with sad memories for the rest of his life."