Zdeňka Štýblová

"So, Daddy said he would go to a friend's house in Šakvice, that he had a butcher shop and a pub there, that he would leave us there for a few days. We stayed with him for two days, but there was always the front line coming back from the Pálava. Russian officers used to stay with that uncle. He told the lady, the housekeeper, that around three o'clock the Russians would attack the Pálava again, told her they should go to the cellar. And my mother couldn't have been more diligent than to send me to the inn. Daddy and that uncle helped there. So, mom sent me to tell them to go to the cellar, saying that the officers sent word, but there were other officers there, and they didn't release them. Dad said: ‘Go to your mom’. So, I ran to the farmhouse to them, but in the meantime, they went into the cellar and locked the main door. Now the air raid started, they started bombing from Pálava, and I stayed in the street. So, I hid between the gates and cried and screamed. Well, as a 15-year-old kid... So, I lived through one more front there, a big air raid. It seemed like an eternity to me, but I have to tell you this: my mother couldn't stand it in that cellar, and when I didn't come back, she unlocked the gate and found me behind the gate. So, she took me to the cellar, but by the evening the Russians had managed to get all the way to the Pálava and it was better after that."