Silver airplanes flew above us

The Allies’ air raids of strategic targets – the Škoda plants and the main train station – were part of everyday reality in Plzeň towards the end of the war. At the time, Ludmila Levá was a student of the girl grammar school in the city centre and walked past the station on her way to school every day. As a child, she never realised how serious the situation was, or how dangerous bombs were. “As a girl of eleven, I would think about what’s worse – an air raid, or a storm? There was thundering noise during either.” Once horns announced an expected air raid, schools sent children back home. All children wore a sign with their name and address on their clothes for easier identification in the event of an injury. The witness remembers running home past the station during a raid: “There were silver airplanes flying above us and we were running. My mother must have suffered terribly, not knowing where her children were during an air raid.”