Irma Rubaciová

"There were coupons for everything until 1953. There were coupons for food, clothes, everything. When I was graduating in 1953, there was a currency reform and the coupons ended. Then aunt sold her cows, somebody bought the three cows from her, and we had money at home. Mum said to me afterwards, 'They say there's going to be a currency reform. Here's the money for the cows; it doesn't belong to us - it belongs to the state.' She sent me to the local branch of the Agrarian Bank to deposit the money. Less than three weeks later, the currency reform was announced. The ratio was was one to five; who knows how she would be able to pay. It was one to five, and one to fifty from a certain amount up. It was rated based on how much money people had."

"We didn't use the shelter, we didn't. As far as I know, we just went into a shelter once; the house was still standing. My mum couldn't walk, so they took her there. There was also a Pole who was on total deployment at that time. He came and said: 'Are you alive?' We were in the cellar, and he said it wasn't very smart: 'If it burned to the ground, you could burn in there as well.'