Marie Lemarie

"We just once, because we had land up there... And there were three Englishmen in those forests and they got sick there. And the doctor said they needed to live somewhere dry and warm because they had pneumonia. Well, they lived in our country and the doctor went there to treat them. And so they stayed there until the revolution took place again."

"Jelení is a small town, and there is a forest in all directions. It is up on a small hill and four kilometers of forest all around. Wherever you go; left, right, forward, backward, on all sides. And at that time, all kinds of war prisoners were passing through Horní Jelení and we had to accommodate them, of course. (The one advantage for us being schoolchildren was the fact that we didn't go to school that year at all.) We had simply nowhere to go, as the school was first occupied by Wehrmacht soldiers and then there was a dormitory for the prisoners they went through and slept in Horní Jelení, they had to get fed. As a result, they had a huge advantage, because even from that transport, they lost them through the forest. They jumped into a ditch and were right in the woods. And hardly anyone was looking for them. So in Jelení, they housed them in all the larger spaces available, and the locals had to feed them in the evening. It was their duty that they had to give them something to eat, they cooked for them. Potatoes were boiled in every house with a larger boiler. And as for the cooking, we children were considered helpers, and then the food was taken to the hostels, where the prisoners were fed. And that lasted for about two months day by day."