Václav Šulista

"Then we came to the shaft with two hours of training. And I confess to you that there were times when I cried. Even though I've never been a sissy. If you could see what it looks like there, broken by handstands, anything is possible. Something is falling on you now, you can't see because of that lamp. That miner is pushing you like a dog. Unfortunately, I got to the most significant follower of Stakhanov in the Mír mine. He looked at us as if they were selling slaves, touching our muscles. I was very muscular, so they put me to his team. But I was a college student. The boys who were farmers, they said, we rest here, we work here for eight hours. We work hard at home twenty hours a day, and they still chase us. So, it was awful before I got used to it. "

"When they were wailing that there would be a raid and you went to the cellar at home, how long were you in that cellar?" - "Three, four hours. I know I was shaking, I was fourteen, I was shaking like that with fear, because it was banging quite close. If you take the Šternekovka, and take the court, behind Malše, the bombing was there too, which is close, and you take Lannovka, the bombing was also there. So, the shots were terrible, and the whistling of those bombs before it hit was awful." "Have you ever gone to look at those broken houses?" - "I was, of course." - "If you were to describe how did that affect you?” - “Awful, awful. A demolished house, for a man who is settled in his home and now he sees those people who have lost everything. What now? Some were wounded, some were dead. You know, we rejoiced at the Gestapo explicitly, openly."