Miroslav Tomek

“As soon as the bombing ended, we helped pull people out of the demolished houses. Sometimes we found dead people there. Children were killed there, for example. One time they called us to a water-pipe shaft. We started digging, so they could repair it. One lady came up to us from a house that was on fire, asking if we’d help her take out her photography machine. Our commander forbade it. He said he’d lost enough of his people already. There were beams falling from the burning house, you see. We pretty much did auxiliary work everywhere, and after the air raids we also helped extinguish the fires.”

"I had this accident. There were several abandoned villas with gardens. And I saw there were fallen fruits in the gardens. In my free time, I gathered about 2kg of apples in my shirt. I shouldn't have done this since there was a decree that any trespassing on bombed property will be punished by death. And when I walked back, I came across my commander who had a gun by him. He was accompanied by a German soldier who worked with us. My commander allegedly wanted to shoot me, ransacking of Germany was punished by death, but the German soldier covered his gun and saved me.

“The worst was on 22 November, when our commander came into our room and took several students with him for some task. We fulfilled it, and when we returned in the afternoon there was some danger [alert], and more friends were assigned to another big job in Berlin. The alarm blared and everyone clambered into the shelter. There were about twenty-five of them. They survived the bombing there. There were two German siblings with the Czechs, and when the bombing ended and they discovered the house was on fire, they started organising rescue work together. Our boys helped clear the rocks and bricks to begin with. I know the details from two of my friends who were saved. They got out together with the Germans, and then the ceiling collapsed again. Twenty-one people died there, burnt up. We came there some two days later and saw their dead bodies lined up. They were lined up on the pavement. There were some twenty-one of them, burnt to such an extent that we couldn’t recognise them. We held a small mourning for them.”

"We were on service one day and it was when the worst case happened. We volunteered for the morning service and those who did not want to go in the morning, had to go in the afternoon. They stayed there till the evening, somewhere near the police station, but then a major raid came. Those fifteen boys went into a shelter, but the house over the shelter was hit. They realized they couldn't get out, so they talked, and around eight they found out that the building was on fire.

“We met some Soviet captives there. We knew they were poor sods. Young boys. We gave them bread to help them at least a little bit. They had pretty dubious grub. And we had quite decent food. We didn’t go hungry. Our wages included money for cigarettes and confectionery.”