Josef Petrů

"They went to destroy us and reached the ridge and had to go down to the meadow. And from the other village towards Slavičín, the Romanians were already in trenches there. And they started firing the first artillery shells from the cannons. At first, they began to fall into the forest. The Gestapo stopped and returned to Vizovice. It was a matter of less than a day and our village and its people would have been destroyed. No one can explain that… The Russians did not come to us at all. They chased the Romanians in front of them to make the Romanians die first. Then the Russians only came to steal."

"They found out that there is a large distillery in the village, where not only plum brandy was burned all year round, but also other things, pine tree distillates and other sorts. The great distillery Andrýs owned it there. They took various vessels at the barracks and carried plum brandy in pots, buckets, putty and skewers and drank it from cups. Within an hour it was a disaster to see the army. It was so decimated, so drunk… Before they were very drunk, they became uncomfortable. They started looking for women. The women were running from them. Then they had to hide in the evening. All the women in the village were buried somewhere in barns, straw or hay overnight so that the soldiers would not rape them. There have been two cases where two women have been caught. Then they were so drunk that they fell and didn't know what they were doing. I thought about it later and thought that maybe it would happen to me if I got into such a situation. The boys were dirty, lice were crawling on their faces, overgrown and plowed. They must have been covered by the blood of their friends. It was fear and horror to look at the soldiers. They were looking for some encouragement in the alcohol."