Josef Pukowiec

“There was the air raid. (…) The transportfürher ordered us to go out to the fields (…). I said to Tonda. ‘I am not going back.’ We were to ford the Elbe River and then walk from Dresden all the way to the train station in Neustadt and from there continue on another train to Hamburg. We ran away from there. We hid in trains and we travelled all the way to Karviná. When a conductor came, we hid in the toilet. This way I got all the way to Karviná. (...) My dad arranged a hiding place for me in the water-station in Sovinec. Our neighbour was bringing me food there. The Russians were near and the war was soon over. I have thus saved my life. If they had discovered it, they would have murdered our entire family. I was a deserter.”

“Look, we mainly worked on the surface and we had to follow the orders of the head dispatcher. We had to fulfill any orders we were given. I worked in the mine, and I know it there. I wanted to work as a machine fitter, but there was no job opening. I worked on rock breaking, behind the locomotive, I worked as a switch-man for the engineer who was driving the locomotive. I worked in disaster response team. (…) The dispatcher received information that help was needed. It was a kind of mutual help. One mine shaft was helping the other. Each shaft had its own rescue team. Rescuers from other shafts were coming to us. When something happened in the Czechoslovak Army mineshaft, the rescue teams from the other shafts – from Zápotocký, Jeremenko, Fučík, would come to us. That’s the way it worked.”