At that time, in 1945, refugees came to Rögling by truck. The expellees came from Bohemia and Silesia, so they could all speak German. They also came to the neighbouring villages. They were dropped off in the middle of the village. The farmers came to find out who could work for them. The mayor walked around to see who could accommodate more people. We did not have to take anyone, since we had a small house and were already seven children anyway.

The expellees didn’t get anything and had very little space. Four or five people shared one room. I remember how a woman was still standing in the middle of the village, because no one wanted to host her. Her husband had died in the war, and she had two children, a four-year-old boy and a girl who was still in the pram. At the end, the mayor assigned her a house.

The men were mainly active in the quarry then, while the women worked with the farmers. The work was hard and it was not easy at that time. Besides, they did other smaller jobs, like collecting wood or digging potatoes which were still lying on the fields. The children at that time had not attended school, or had only been there for a short time because they had been taken from one camp to another. That‘s why children from different grades came into one class. I was born in 1939 and there were children in my class born in 1936. There were at least ten refugees in my class. Despite the different antecedents, I made friends with a girl.

Everything we – the local people – didn’t need, like household items, clothes or food, we gave the expellees. Everyone was very, very grateful for every donation. We had a neighbour who fled to Rögling, to whom my mother always said, "Come here Mrs. N., take something out of the garden!" She gave her salad or whatever we had left over. To others we gave our second stove. We, the people of the community of Rögling, took care of the people who came to us, so that they felt at home.