Miroslav Tomek

"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 were at various places, at one bombed piping where we cleaned the area so that it could be repaired. We were eight of us and we took our turnes, four and four. There was an appartment building opposite and a woman approached us that it was on fire. It was during raids on Berlin. And that lady asked us to help her take a camera from that building. Our commander, I think his name was Bichbauer, did not allow us to do so. He was afraid we might die.

“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.”