Zdeňka Dvořáková

"It was about the third day, when we were getting up in the morning, if you've ever seen - there were these little transistor radios, and we used to have those with us at the hop picking, to make it a bit more cheerful. We put it on in the morning to make it easier to get up, and now we're all saying, 'Well, instead of songs, there's a war play or something.' Then the teachers came in and told us we were occupied, so we had to get ready for it. We went to the hops, that was still good, but the next day we went to the hops and there were cars and tanks at the village. We always went in groups, but you know, guys. We were always all women, because only women went to medacl school. It's different nowadays. The boys from the secondary technical school came with us and they used to provoke them. The soldiers stood outside the cars and the tank. Suddenly they jumped into those tanks, and what happened: they turned the barrel against us. So we were just waiting to see what would happen, if they would kill us... well, they didn't."

"I remember it because before it happened, my father and I - my sister and I - went on holiday to the former GDR. When we crossed the border, the army was already there. We didn't know. Dad says, Dad says 'Look, they're having an exercise meeting, let's keep going.' So we were in the GDR for a week, we went on holiday, and when we were going back, the army was still there."