Ivo Havlovič

"Then once more, but that was at night, they bombed the station. And that was about three days later, when you could see the station burning. But not the station directly, but rather the so-called depot, that is, the rails where the trains were made, so they completely destroyed that. And, of course, some bombs were dropped - there was... they were slaughtering cattle there, it was a big thing. And they were taking it from there to the shops. So they pretty much destroyed it there, because it was right next door. So the communists couldn't forgive them that they were bombing. But they did it nicely. They hardly hit the main building, so we somehow survived. We saw the huge flames as it burned."

"Towards the end of the war, it was in '45, they bombed Pilsen, and we experienced that twice. The first time was the bombing of the Škoda plant, and they - I mean, the Americans announced or the English announced - that Škoda plant would be bombed then and then. And indeed it was - you could see everybody leaving the Škoda plant, and it fell. I know they destroyed the Škoda [premises] where they had all the models that they were making. So they dropped it in there. Luckily, [it]... well, it concerned us, because there was a bomb dropped nearby too, so we were all hidden in the basement. That was in '45, that was like a thrill because the house was shaking, of course. There was one next door, they got hit, but it didn't kill people. They were hiding in the basement ."