Jaroslava Hoťová

"Well, when they were getting in, he told that story too. He said what they looked like when they went in there, like four of them, because of course they were hungry anyway. It was that they saw a skinny goat out there somewhere, so they arranged to hunt it, roast it somewhere. And the four guys almost couldn't catch that poor skinny goat because they were all under 50 kilos, around 50 kilos, they were all crazy weak. So they kind of put them together a little bit. That said, they were getting a little bit more food, like clothes. He also did a lot of that natural movement, that it wasn't just the physical work, the heavy work wasn´t there. So when they got a bit fitter, then they went to the regiments."

"There were also some soldiers from Prchalov's army who were arrested somewhere and were sent there. He [father] said that these young men were among the first to go to their deaths, because of the work in that winter, in the hard Siberian winter, and in general the hunger and the scarcity... And there were a lot of airmen among them, too, so they had a very hard time with the conditions, so they were among the first to leave. For example, he told me stories like that. He told me, of course, how they were making contacts with the locals there, because of course, they were also - the word trafficking is probably inappropriate, but I can't think of any other word right now - they were trying to get some other means of livelihood, because there was a tremendous shortage of food, a great hunger." - "What were they getting to eat?" - "He said that they were getting for breakfast, that there was hot water, for instance, and some peas in it, he called it by some special name, and some quantity of bread with it. And for supper he said there was pigswill. He said they wouldn't give that to us today, they wouldn't give it even to pigs."