Eva Borková

“We came to edge of Chodov. The main road there was so full of German military cars that we couldn’t even cross over to the other side. We stood there helpless, but a Czech constable with a sheepdog took us into his care and led us to a nearby villa, where he stuck me and my brother into the cellar, tucked into a blanket with the local children; and the Czech policeman sat down on the stairs, and his dog sat down faithfully next to him, and he stroked the sheepdog, and then I fell asleep. Mum woke us up in the morning, saying it was peace, that the war was over, and I stepped out into the street, and the constable who had took care of us lay there dead, and his dog lay shot a few metres further on. It was dreadful. Mum cried, I cried. Then we went home, where we were welcomed by Dad. Then the Russian came, and people gathered from all around to the Sokol [gym] hall, so I slipped out after them. The Russians were there, playing on an accordion and throwing out sugar and chocolate to people, and then my parents came to get me and gave me a proper scolding, saying I mustn’t go outside by myself now.”

“Then the trouble was that everything started getting the squeeze [during the normalisation, in 1974 - ed.], and the Central Committee of the CPC [Communist Party of Czechoslovakia - trans.] put us under the supervision of social services authorities, to see if we were educating the children correctly in the spirit of Socialist morals. They began checking to make sure none of the mothers [carers - ed.] took any children to church. They did, of course, and they were reported and got into trouble. Luckily it never went as far as they threatened it would – that they’d close up the village and take the children from us. Professor Matějček comforted us that such were the times and that we should employ caution so they wouldn’t dissolve the children’s villages. I tried not to stick out, so to say. But I would often take the children to visit Grandma and Granddad, my parents in rural Moravia, so I’d take the children to church there. The village management appealed to us that the situation was dire and that the authorities were looking for a way to get rid of the villages. Social workers even visited schools and forced children from SOS villages to show them their snacks.”