Bohumír Hájek

“An idealist. An idealist forever. Three of us were sitting there: me, my cousin Pepa, and Jara Berger, a friend from school. We were sitting on a bench and suddenly our talk turned to discussion that we should go abroad. The situation at that time was already such that soldiers were fleeing abroad. There were rumors that general Prchala in the Carpathian Ruthenia and his regiment crossed over to Rumania. We thought that we, boys, should go abroad, too. The patriots we were… We agreed that we would leave the country and we would try hard abroad. At that time, it was already known that legions were being formed with Prchala, or that soldiers were going to England or France. With such illusions one day we agreed that we would leave the country.”

“We always had to run through the village. Soldiers were standing on the road, and along the road there were gardens with villagers. From time to time, they would throw something to us, a piece of bread, an ear of corn or a potato. But you had to run, you were not allowed to stop. I had a perfect razor, the Solingen brand. I played a trick, I pretended I was tying my shoelaces by the fence; there was some old man standing behind it. I showed him the razor and told him that I wanted bread. I threw the razor to him, he grabbed it and walked away. I kept tying my shoelaces so that the Germans would not make me run away, and waited for the bread. I thought: ´Oh God, perhaps he deceived me and now I will have to run without the razor and without the bread.´ But the old man came, he threw a small loaf of bread to me, I hid it under my shirt and started running. I was eating this bread for one week.”

“I was in such a bad state that I thought: ´Fine, so it’s over, that’s the end.´ There was the roll call in the evening, we had to stand in rows to be counted so that they could make sure that nobody escaped, and during this roll call, they were selecting specialists to go to work in Germany. I raised my hand, too. In the evening, I stepped out of the line, there was the lagerführer, certain hauptmann Kappe from northern Germany from Hamburg. He snapped at me: ´Was wollen Sie?´ I had learnt German and so I reported: ´Ich bin aus Protektorat Böhmen und Mähren, ich bin kein Soldat, ich bin Zivilist, Interniert.´ Telling him that I was interned there as a civilian. He stared at me, thinking whether he should believe what I was telling him. ´Stellen Sie sich ab!´ He ordered me to step aside. ´Delouse, and new clothes for him in the morning!´”

“We kept waiting and waiting there, and then the 1st September came. I was lying on the bed, which was by the window, and as I was looking out, I saw anti-aircraft cannons blasting on the horizon. It was about to happen; we were going to dig trenches on the outskirts of the Katowice city. Shovels over our backs, and when we were walking down the street coming from work, we were singing Czech songs, and the Poles, who were standing on the pavement, were admiring us. We were heroes already, even back then, but heroes with shovels, not with rifles. And then on 1st September, the Germans attacked Poland. What to do - we were on the borderline! Groups of twenty people each or so began to be organized immediately, and we were evacuated to the country’s interior, away from the borders.”