A34 Expulsion from home II

Narrator: Johann Macho
Reporter: Kohlbauer

It happened on May 28th, 1945. In the morning Russian soldiers appeared in our village called Romau, now a village in the Czech Republic, driving 25 pieces of cattle. The mayor had to order some people to drive the cattle on to a town called Neu Bistritz. Some older men from the paramilitary unit (“Volkssturm”) and some teenagers, aged 13 - 16 had to go them and so was I.
We brought the cattle via Reingers to the Austrian village called Hirschenschlag up to a pond. When it was noon, we rested. We lay down on a meadow.

Suddenly we saw the first German speaking refugees coming from a village called Artolz. They had been expulsed from the Czech Republic.

The older men knew the people and asked for the reason. They answered, that they had been expulsed by some Czech speaking people. “And you will be next!” they said. Then we went away and sneaked back home.

At about half past three two military trucks came to my village. The soldiers told the people to leave the houses in a quarter of an hour and take some valuables with them on carts. We reached Austria via the village called Radschin.