Jarmila Štěrbová

"Those cousins of his [dad´s] were Germans. They served at the front. My mum even told me later how their mother proudly showed a decoration from Hitler. Because her three sons had died at the front. Well, my mum couldn't understand it at all. She was completely shocked. How could a mother be proud that her sons were dead, and proudly show her some blood-stained military card."

"I remember we had a crystal radio at home. It was a kind of aerial, there was also a box and earphones. And there I heard about the whole occupation, how the Germans were occupying the Sudetenland. Well, of course, my parents were deeply sad about it. They had already been talking about it at my grandma's house. The feeling that they were crossing our borders... Well, it made me wide-eyed when my dad said there was going to be a war, or that it was coming. They used to talk about it with my grandma or my mum and I'd always listen. So I remember being pretty shocked when it really happened. And then I remember that during the period following the Heydrich´s assassination we were warned at school not to talk to anybody in the street and not to tell stories. Not to talk about anything that was being talked about at home. Dad had a map above his desk and he was always watching how the front line was going, but otherwise the war was not talked about in front of us. And even if there were Czech friends who suddenly became Germans, we all continued to sled together as kids. Well, not with all of them. I know of two - one spoke normally Czech, but his family joined the Germans. But otherwise, we didn't differentiate it much as kids."