Vladimír Lihun

“I remember that when the war was drawing to the end, dad arrived home. We were specifically told not to talk about it anywhere. When the original factory in Germany had been bombed out, father got transferred from Vienna to Dubnice nad Váhom, where there was another underground factory for aircraft engines. The production there still continued. Dad ran away from there just before the end of the war. When the war front was approaching, he was in the militia in Rokycany. The guys were watching the roads and guarding the town from Germans who were leaving Czechoslovakia and who might do some harm in Rokycany. Mom was bringing dry clothes for him there, because it was raining all the time and they were lying there on the ground and guarding the roads. When the war ended, our life got better because dad returned home and began earning money. He worked in the rolling-mill in Rokycany, it was called ‘walcwerk,’ and he was getting a regular pay, whereas during the time when he had been doing forced labour in Germany, my mom and I were only getting one ten-Crown voucher a week.”

“My name is Vladimír Lihun, I was born on 5th March 1938, a short time before the outbreak of the Second World War. In 1942 my father was sent to Germany to do forced labour. He worked in the factory FO Werke which produced aircraft engines. From that time – from 1942 until the end of the war – we lived alone with my mom and sister. It was a difficult time. In summer when there was nothing left to eat, mom would put me in a pram and take my sister and we would walk from Rokycany to Raková. A farmer lived there, and mom was helping him with planting potatoes in spring and with harvesting them in autumn. When we went back home, the farmer’s wife would sometimes give bread to my mom. It is hard for me to talk about that it, I might even start crying. My mom was doing all kinds of work; she was making bags from straw, for instance.”