"We noticed the cellar window was not covered. My granddad ran quickly up there and put a stone and some wood there. And someone started shooting, so he shot the door fast and ran to the cellar. And it all started. There was much noise, rumbling and shooting, and we were thinking, what is going on out there. Is it some kind of a bomb that is going to kill us all or we die by artillery. My granny was pious, she prayed all the time, we just sat there wrapped in blankets as it was rather cold.“
"My parents even managed to get some fat... and my granny got some lard in the country. So we made a hole in the baked poppy-seed cake and put the lard and fat in and sent it as a package. My mother´s schoolmate got a package and on the next day he went to a death march. They emptied a concentration camp, lined them in a queue and led them about hundred kilometres to another place. Meanwhile the weakest and sick ones fell, and anyone falling was shot by the Germans walking on the side. My mother´s mate got the package and ate it before marching, and so did his two friends. Thanks to which they were ok. Him and his mates were saved. When the war was over, his mate came here and started hugging them and said: 'You saved my life. From my family, only I survived. All my relatives, my wife and children died in a concentration camp.‘“
"Naši říkali paní Negelové: ‚Jestli chcete, tak tady Fredyho nechte, protože jedete vojenským autem a budou po vás Rusové střílet. Vy nemusíte dojet, můžete zahynout. A Fredy je hodný kluk, nechte ho tady. A po válce vám ho nějak dopravíme nebo si pro něj přijedete.‘ ‚Ne, když zahynu, tak i můj kluk.‘ Takže strčila Fredyho do auta a odjížděli. Fredy se loučil a říkal: ‚Když si zachráním život, tak vám napíšu.‘ S tím odjel. A víckrát jsme od něj žádný dopis, nic, nedostali.“
Zdeňka Dvořáčková, born Šidlofová, was born on 10 June, 1937, in Prague. Before the war, she moved with her parents and a brother to Chotěboř, where her father built a small villa. He worked as a teacher, but lost his job during the war and had to work from home; he made decorative fired boxes. The family had to move from their flat on the first floor and live together with her grandparents on the ground floor; two wives of German officers with their sons stayed there instead. The witness and her brother made friends with those boys. Her father survived the end of war in a concentration camp, from where he returned all right. The whole family was liberated in Chotěboř and witnessed the following settling with the Germans. After studies Zdeňka Dvořáčková worked as a teacher and lives in Jihlava today.
