Ing. Petr Polakovič

„After the outbreak of the war, as her father was of German nationality and young, he had to enlist in the army for the Wehrmacht. He fell near Stalingrad in 1942. My grandmother was alone, a widow and left alone with four small children, alone. She remained a widow practically until the end of her life.“– „In what kind of army was your fallen relative, your grandfather?“ – „It was my grandfather Wilibald Tomasch. I think he was with the infantry.“ – „Have any of his letters from the front survived?“ – „Some have survived. My uncle has them. He wrote them to his wife, always greeting his children. I think he went on vacation from the front a couple of times. At first, I think he was in France, in Poland as well at the beginning of the war perhaps. Some of the letters were preserved, I saw them once, I did not have the opportunity to study them in detail, I did not burden them at home. They were letters of a man writing to a woman he loves and passing on his feelings and greetings to his children, whom he had never seen much. I don't think he saw his last son at all. He was born after his death.“

„I also met a lot of bitter displaced Sudeten Germans. I was at conferences and one lady scolded me for caring, for collecting old postcards, that they were their postcards, their villages. It was exaggerated on the other side. We are friends with those who come here, those who were born here or have already been born in Germany, but have a connection to it here. The encounters are nice and enriching, they want to learn, like me, like us, about the extinct villages and how our ancestors lived there. And what they tell me at the end of life is especially important; when a person goes back to their roots a lot and has memories. Like the gentleman who wrote us the preface to the Museum of the Upper Villages, Werner Friedrich of Palohlav. He was displaced at the age of fourteen with his brothers and his mother, so he knows a bit more about it. He remembers, for instance, how there were water tanks to catch water in the Upper Villages. There wasn't much there, so they built reservoirs in Palohlavy from sandstone blocks. His mother always sent him there and said, 'Go up the stairs and wash your feet in the reservoir.' That's what he always did, and he has a fond memory of it. When he comes once a year, we go to Palohlav. Last time it didn't work out anymore, since it was overgrown. But the time before that he washed his feet. It seems to me that it makes sense before the very last moment to enrich themselves like this. They come to their hometowns, and most importantly it's hopefully not sad for them and we help them, the elderly. That we talk to them and laugh together.“