Zdena Beková

“Two years before the end of the war, they started threatening, that they would send the age group that concerned me to forced labor to Germany. My oldest brother, who was a teacher and had a lot of acquaintances in Ostrava-Přívoz, found me a job at the train station in Ostrava. It was a branch of the station serving only trains from and to the Vítkovice works and then there was the train going to Frýdek-Místek. That’s where I learned to send telegraph about the departure and arrival of trains. It was twelve hours of work and then twenty-four hours of rest.”

“Many of the Czechs who worked for the Baťa company around the world would come back home to visit their families. It took them about a year or so. One of them was the director of an English company in East Tilbury in Essex. I thought to myself that I had to get there so I went to him and asked him if it was possible to get a place at his factory in Tilbury if I could perfect my English. He told me to address one of the staff dealing with personnel, that he’d send me all the required documents.”