Jarmila Pláteníková

"When they put me in that camp, all the male inmates were foreigners. Most of them were captives. Predominantly Italians, French and such. Even Germans. As for Czech women - there were two hags there; back then I considered them hags. They were the wives of the imprisoned men or something. I was there with them. They put us in a railway post car. There were just some rags there and us under them. It was in the winter, so we were cold. We thought we were in Germany. Nobody imagined we could be in Czechia. Suddenly, we could hear the children yelling outside. Those women pulled me up towards the window and I said: 'Wow, women, it is St. Nicholas Day and there are kids disguised as devils running around!'"

"They drove me all the way to the Pankrác prison. We were in such a cell, women separated from men. Every day, they came in and announced a set of numbers. Those people stepped out, left and, of course, never returned. Every day, a sheet of paper was placed on the main prison door. It said: 'Today, the following people were executed: ...' A list of names followed. My mum walked to Prague on foot, got to my aunt's and told her about it. Auntie said: 'Well, come on, let's see for ourselves, what is written there.' And so they got there and saw what was written on that sheet of paper. My mum told auntie: 'I will be coming here all the time.' So, mummy always went to aunt's to sleep and then returned in the morning, checking for a new sheet of paper, waiting for my name to appear there. Can you imagine what this was for her? It took some three or four days. Then, one morning, they came over. They were leaving me behind, waiting whether they wouldn't call for me from Budějovice once again. Then suddenly, they appeared. Only five of us were left. They called us up and told us: 'Come on, let's go!' We thought we were about to be executed. And they brought us towards the execution ground. There were several of them: for beheadings, for hanging and others. They just walked us through, brought us to a gate at the end and told us: 'You are free!'"

"There were plenty of Sudeten German Freikorps there. Really, lots of them. They used to wear white stockings and walk around armed. They had air guns but even these could harm us. Us Czechs used to go to the Sokol. We considered the Sokol movement as ours. One promenade was ours and one was theirs. They marched wearing those white stockings. Back then, at school we used fountain pens for writing. Inside, they had a dropper. Ink was soaked up there and than it was used for writing. Our way was to unscrew that, put it in our pockets and walk around. When we saw the Germans in front of us, we squirted the ink on their white stockings. We kept track of how many each of us destroyed. They then shot at us from their air guns. When we came to attend the Sokol, they awaited us there, armed. But then the Czechoslovak policemen came over and accompanied us across the gardens into the busy street to prevent them shooting at us. These were the ways we crazy youth fought those Germans."

"I received the summons to Germany for the forced labor. Although the dairy factory where I worked wanted to take up on me, my dad wouldn’t let them to. He told me, it would be better for me to leave, since the Gestapo was chasing me. They will have much more difficult job looking for me there than they would have here. So I left to Frankfurt on the Main. We have arrived there just when the city was suffering from the air attacks. They didn’t have any place to stay for us, nor the work for us, so they sent us to so called Sackisch. They built the ´Barackenstadt´ there. It was something like barracks houses. It was in the wood somewhere in the Klodzko region. When we arrived we all were very tired. We have been on the train for almost two days without servings; we only had some water or whatever each of us brought from home. While we waited at the hall of the factory to girls suddenly passed out. I was one of the very few girls who spoke German so I ran into the office there and told them angrily that we didn’t come all the way here for pleasure and they let us stand there and wait for so long. An old man came out and simply asked: ´Was is das.´ which means: What is it here? in English. So I told him again that we didn’t come here voluntarily and that they just let us stand here at the hall. He immediately arranged a transport to the dorm for us as well as some warm meal - some hot tea and bread to be exact. He ordered me to come to his office straight in the morning. Of course I was very worried what might happen the next morning, but those who already lived there for some time - mostly Moravians and Slovaks - told me too stay calm, because this man is the only nice person here. His name was doctor Bitter and he was in charge of the foreign workers. The next day when I got in his office he told me I’ll be his translator. He told me I would be responsible for the Czech girls at the dorm, I would take the girls who need it to the doctor, and also every morning I would report him the workers status. There was also this weird man named Spruch there. He greated me once by saying: ´Heil Hitler´ or ´To win or to die´. I told to myself quietly: You know what, you idiot, prepare a coffin for yourself. I said that quietly but the girls who stood by heard it. One girl named Hermina Martin sent me a note: Come to the bathroom. And there she told me that I have made a mistake, because this man understands Czech, so I’d better be super careful now, because he is very mean. She told me he’ll be after me now. So from that time I tried to avoid him as much as I could. He even used to go to some girl’s room and was abusing them. And that was forbidden for it was a race ravished."

"In the meantime the Gestapo agents were looking for me in Frankfurt, but they found me in Sackisch forced labor camp. They immediately moved me into another barracks building which was surrounded by the barbed wire and I have become a prisoner. They didn’t call it concentration camp but it was prisoner camp or cage. It was very large property. So I had to stay there and I have ´really enjoyed it´. My teeth knocked out etc. As the front line was proceeding the Germans had to back off through our territory and we had to be evacuated. There was one air attack followed by another one, but all of us who were in jail must have stayed inside, we couldn’t go anywhere. Those who were in the other half of the barracks (where I worked before) could go and hide in the woods at least. They were so nice; they would always throw some bread or something to us, when they were passing by us. After the air attacks they evacuated us and put us on the train. We were always riding during the night only. During the day the train stayed in some train station. We didn’t know where we are, or what the date is, nothing. Sometimes we looked out through the tiny windows. They would always call us by numbers; thank god they never called me up, because some of the chosen ones never came back. In this train there were mainly the French, the Italians or Yugoslavs, because it was also a captive camp. Luckily for me, they rather ignored me all the way to Prague because I was the youngest one, I was student. In Prague they transferred me to Pankrac jail where I stayed for only three days. After that they told me they had a lack of space so they moved me to Benesov town prison. It was already December and the situation wasn’t so good for Germans anymore so we were not so afraid any longer. In the Benesov prison wasn’t free place for me either so they placed me to the Janecek factory under permanent Gestapo supervision. Sometimes I would get slapped sometimes not. I lived with my parents. I wasn’t allowed to work among the others at the factory so I worked at the phone center and I was mostly announcing the air attacks. If there was some attack everybody left and I had to stay there."

"We were a great team there. We had a lack of food. We were given some kind of black bread on the work days and on Sunday, when the kitchen was closed, we got a loaf of bread with a piece of salami no more than 7 oz or less. At least every morning they brought a big cooker filled up with tea. We must have heat it up on our stove...We had this big stove there, but they would provide much of a heat as the buildings were built out of concrete panels. So during the winter time our blankets were not much of a help. We had to sleep in our clothes. And we had lice! All of us. That was awful. When I got home later and my mom poured the petroleum on my head I remember how bad it stung! I also was in the hospital, because I was suffering the kidney seizures. In fact we can’t talk about any drinking regime in the camp. We had the tea in the morning and in the evenings, but during the day we were not able to drink at all. Only I was lucky, because I was coming to the office to report the worker’s status regularly so I drank some water from the water tap. And the others...While I was working inside the factory - I was winding up the engines - everything was dirty and dusty there, there was no chance to drink anything. There was some water though, but it was so filthy you was afraid to even touch it." And what about the hygiene? "Well there was a little stream down the hill, so we used the stream water. During the summer we could simply wash ourselves in it, that was great. The girls held a piece of the stream and so did the boys. It was worse during the winter. We took a laver full of water and three, four or even five of us had to wash in it. So the hygiene there was so poor in deed, but it could have been worse like elsewhere. Our camp was situated in the woods so we had the streams there where we were able to wash our face, hands or wash our clothes. And our parents were allowed to send us clean clothes or these kinds of things too."

"I was already pregnant a lot, it was in the summer - my daughter was born on September 2nd. We rode on the tram nr.21 to visit Henry. As we rode by the riverside I spotted this man sitting right in front of me reading his newspaper. I looked at him and recognized this sun of a bitch Spruch, the one who was shooting at the people! I told to my husband: ´Olda, Olda that’s him. That’s Spruch! ´ I was shouting loud I forgot where I was. My husband told me : ´Stop shouting, be quiet!´ But this man, Spruch looked at me and jumped out of the tram - there used to be the open kind of trams back then. And I jumped right after him, even with my big belly. My husband went with me, because he wouldn’t leave me on my own there. This man was walking very fast and so was I. Suddenly I saw some police officer passing by so I yelled at him: ´Please, catch the man over there! ´ the policeman stopped him, checked his and also my ID card and wrote a report. Then he let him go. ´You just let him go? Why? Do you know how many people he killed? ´It was still very alive inside of me. I just had to say that. The policeman told me:´ don’t worry, ma´am, I have his home and job address I wrote it all down. We will investigate that. And then we will call you up.´ so I was waiting. My daughter was born and still nothing was happening. I had other better things on my mind now so after a while I simply stopped to think about him. Then one day when I took my daughter for a walk I passed by one police station near our block. I decided to go inside and asked how the investigation was going. I told the policemen I would like to talk to their commander. They asked me why. I told them: I have met some guy who used to be the Gestapo agent.´ they told me to go upstairs so I grabbed my daughter from the stroller and we went to the upper office. There I told everything to the head officer and he told me to sit down. Then he has been on the phone for quite a time and seemed to be angry. I held my political prison and repatriation ID cards. Then the policeman said: Well I don’t have good news, but I have to tell you this anyway. The man is alright, are you sure he was the one who you thought he was?´ And I replied : ´I’m sorry, but I’m absolutely sure. I used to see him every day, I saw him shooting the people, I saw it real good.´ and he told me: The man has underwent the lustration committee and he is a member of the communist party. So please don’t talk about it anywhere, otherwise you might get into some trouble.´ I ripped my political prison card and smashed it on his table and told him: Send it to the communist party committee I don’t want to have nothing to do with it.´ So finally I didn’t get any recovery money for being a political prisoner, I was only listed among people who worked in the Germany."

"My uncle was the director of the post office and one of the establishers of the resistance group. He was involved in it a lot, but none of us knew it. After some while he would ask me from time to time to deliver a letter to someone and soon I noticed that those are not ordinary letters and I knew what my uncle is doing. Once I found out about it I liked him even more and was really proud of him. I was happy to help him carrying those letters or sometimes it was money for the widowed mothers with kids. Those who’s husbands have been executed or in jail. I told my uncle I knew about his work and promised not to tell his wife- my aunt- for she would be scared to death."