Věra Holubová

"When I was in third grade, I started taking piano classes in the Napajedla convent. The sisters there had excellent education. Most of them had graduated from university. My teacher was Sister Ludmila, she was a wonderful woman and I loved to attend her classes. I was quite talented. Then the year 1953 came and the convent was dissolved. I attended English language classes in the convent as well which was pretty unusual for the time. The dissolution of convent was cruel to the sisters, they had to leave. When they had entered the convent, they brought a whole dowry, as ladies who would get married would. When they chased them away, they could only take one small suitcase with them. My mother, bless her heart, helped some of the sisters, she let them hide their things in our house and they would later come to pick them up."

"Once my parents rode bikes there with me, we went to Zdětín, and we saw a plane on fire falling towards us from the left side. The airplane was not too big but it was on fire. It was apparent that it would fall somewhere nearby. Parents fell to the curb with bikes and me and we survived the explosion without getting injured. We were all shaken and we continued our ride. It is a rather awful memory but when I squint my eyes, I still see the airplane on fire."