Josef Hackenberg

"How do you remember your father? You were not deported. Why weren't you deported?" - "It was thanks to the glassworks. The glassworks asked for skilled workers to stay. Had my father been a locksmith, for example, he would have to go, but the glassworks director kept him. He went to the local authority and asked for a stamp to confirm that my father would not be deported. No one could say 'no' to the director asking to keep my father. He stayed, and that was it."

"Was there a camp for the Germans in Vrbno?" - "There was!" - "Where was it?" - "Behind the post office. There was a post office where the factory was. What did it make? Corks or something like that. It's not there now. They tore down the stack and everything. That's where the camp was. They stayed in the factory. Then they went away. Deported. I was watching them leave until the last moment."

"Do you remember when the Red Army came?" - "Yeah." - "What was it like?" - "My birthday was 9 May, and they were coming from Karlovice. Up here and then they split. Suddenly they were in our yard. Richter's. They came in cars, they had machine guns, and they came straight to us, to my mother. They sat down at the kitchen table, put the machine guns down and told my mother they wanted to eat, that they were hungry. Mum brought eggs from the farm, made a pot full of fried eggs and gave them bread. There were about three or four of them. They ate and started looking at everything. They looked here and there, but they didn't take anything. Then they took their machine guns and left. Nothing. They just ate and left. We just looked at them trembling. What will they do? Start shooting? They just left. But then the others came: "Open the stables! Bring the cows out! All out!' I don't know where they drove the cattle along the road. Maybe to Zlaté Hory..." - "Who did that?" - "The soldiers. Or were they ours? I don't know. I don't know." - "You mean the Soviets?" - "I think so. They took everything from the barn. I was a kid, so I don't know who it was. The Soviets? The Russians? Our people? All I know the stables were empty."