Oskar Dub

“Když byly ty nálety na Drážďany, stáli jsme na dvoře, někteří vylezli na střechu baráku a čuměli jsme na to. To nebylo daleko, dvacet, třicet kilometrů, dvě zastávky vlakem.” “Jak to vypadalo, ten nálet, můžete to popsat?” “To bylo hrozný. Druhý den, když bylo po náletu, to bylo v noci, a druhý den, když bylo po náletu, zavezli nás tam uklízet Drážďany. Tam jste nevěděl, jestli máte uklízet mrtvoly nebo máte uklízet baráky. To bylo hrozný. Skutečně to vypadalo hrozně.”

“Proslýchalo se, že v Kadani bude velká demonstrace, to bylo v neděli. Vojáci obsadili náměstí a přilehlé ulice. Čekalo se, že k něčemu dojde. Mezi vojáky byla domluva, že když jeden první vystřelí, ostatní se přidají. Na náměstí byly dva největší baráky a na střeše měly taková okna, tam postavili proti sobě kulomety, jeden na jeden konec náměstí, druhý na druhý konec náměstí. [Mířily] do těch lidí. Byl tam nějaký důstojník, který… Tam v kostele v osm hodin končila školní mše, lidi chodili z kostela. Byla tam celá škola, děti v tu dobu musely na mši povinně, byla tam spousta lidí. Jeden důstojník se tam cítil ohrožen, vystřelil z pistole a z kulometů na náměstí začali střílet do lidí. Padlo ji tak šestnáct, osmnáct. Nevím přesně. Mezi nimi byl taky synovec mé matky, tomu bylo čtrnáct let.”

“Before fascism started to gain power in Germany and spill over the border to Czechoslovakia, we lived a tranquil life. There was no difference between a Czech and a German. Especially among the children there were no differences. However, as Germans began to gain power, overnight we became enemies of German children. It felt quite uncomfortable there. Nobody wanted to talk to you. Even the teachers at school turned against us. It was not easy for us. After the invasion of the German army we were thus forced to move to Prague.”

“A German protest rally was held in the town square in Kadaň in 1919. The Czech army feared unrest. The soldiers therefore occupied the town square, and they even posted two heavy machine guns in the attic windows of two houses on the square which faced one another. There was unrest and shooting, and the soldiers were allegedly ordered to open fire as soon as they heard a gunshot. At that time all the people in Kadaň were saying that it was a Czech officer who fired the first shot. The soldiers then began shooting into the crowd from one of the machine guns. Nobody probably knows for sure how it happened, but the fact is that there were quite a lot of casualties. The nephew of my mother died there as well, he was about fourteen years old.”

“He led me to Hagibor in Vinohrady; that is where the labour camp was. I stayed there in the place where there is the Radio Free Europe now, at that time there were gardens there. There were four wooden barracks. We, who were of mixed descent, stayed in one of them. Jews lived in the other two barracks – men in one, women in the other. Toilets and showers were in the last barrack. We were guarded by SS men who had their staff in a stone building which housed the camp’s administration. They had a heavy machine gun aimed at the camp in the little tower of that building. SS men had their guard towers in the corners of the fence. I remember that the camp’s commander and his wife lived in the main building. Both of them were horrible monsters. The Jewish prisoners repaid them for that when the war was coming to an end. When the guard commando escaped from the camp in May, the prisoners caught the camp commander and his wife. They locked them up in the local air raid shelter and left them there without anything until they died.”

“At night before the massive air raid began, several airplanes flew there in advance and they as if placed some positioning lights in the air, which were laid in a square-shaped pattern. The wardens ran away and we remained in those wooden barracks. If a bomb had dropped there, it would have been over for us. We were watching the bombs falling on the city. It was terrible, it was something unimaginable. The following day we went to Dresden to clear the debris.”