Anna Šebková

“They didn’t hurt children. We could gallivant among them. I know there used to be a big barn up on the hill, and the first to arrive where some horse riders. They were quartered there. Each day they went out to eat to a different place. Usually fried eggs. There was no meat. They didn’t hurt anyone. But later on they raped some of the women.”

“Daddy was in the war, but he was soon shot. Already in 1941, so he was home afterwards. He was in a hospital in Poland first, I don’t know where else afterwards, and then he came home. He couldn’t stand on one foot. He’d been shot in the leg and the foot was shorter. And so they didn’t call for him again.”

“We had a female teacher, because our teacher was probably at war. Later on in ’44 we had English captives in our class. They were officers mostly. I remember well that we played games with them. They could already speak German. The teacher always said: ‘These are our Todtfeinde. Our deadly enemies.’ But we played games with them. And they would go help the farmers, and I remember there were two who always came to us. One was named Alex and the other Len. They were always guarded by German soldiers, and they always blew the horn at five o’clock for roll call. But only one of them ever went. They always argued as to which of them shall go. When the one came back, the other asked: ‘How many of you were there?’ ‘Oh, only twelve today.’ Because as they called out the names - ‘Present!’ Everyone was present even when they weren’t. They trusted them that much. One of them even had a child with one of the German women here.”