Margita Hildegard Rajniková

„Na nádraží, jak nás tam prohlíželi. A to jsme si hlídali. Když jsme našli dobrýho finance nebo špatnýho, tak už druhýho jsme nenechali. A vždycky to stálo to zboží tam. Kufry, tašky, všecko stálo před tým nádražím. A řekli, no, že musí prostě, že musí to znovu prohlídnout. Tak pokaždý, když vás někdo prohlídl, tak něco vám vzal. Odcizil pro sebe. A my jsme měli, byli chudí. My jsme neměli žádné velké majetky. Vím, že mi říká ten pán, no, že: ,Saně musíme ti sebrat. Abysme aspoň něco ti vzali.´" „To vám řekl takhle?" „No. Abysme vám aspoň něco vzali, jo. Babce vzali tu velkou mísu, z porcelánu takovou, jídelní mísu velkou. A já jsem brečela. Já říkám: ,Prosím, prosím, nechte mi tu panenku.´ Měla jsem takovou panenku velikou, co jsem dostala na poslední Vánoce od mámy, když mi bylo pět roků. Říkám: ,Prosím, prosím, to mi nechtě. Neber mi to.´A tak potom. A já říkám: ,Maminka mi to darovala, ještě na Vánoce mi to dala, a ona mi umřela.´ Tak možná byl takovej trochu lítostivej, víte, ten pán." „Tak vám ji nechal, tu panenku." „Nechal. A mám ju dodneska! Potom jsem přidělala, copy jsem měla, tak až, až jsem si jich ostříhala, jak jsem měla sedmnáct, tak mi jeptišky udělaly paruku z ní. Na tu panenku. To je unikum."

„Za kousek chleba takový jak kůrku, jak prst, tak jsme se tam pobili. Ale myslím jich třináct nebo čtrnáct děcek. Že mě tam potom jeden kopl do hlavy, že jsem šla na ošetřovnu až. Navrch mě odvedli a ta sestra zdravotní mi říká: ,Buď tady. Neříkej, že tě to už nebolí!´ Tak mi zavázala pár dní hlavu, abych byla trošku lepší." „A kdo vás kop do tý hlavy?" „Jeden policista." „To byl ten, co vás tam hlídal, jo?" „Jo. Tam jich bylo těch takových. A měli ty boty s těma cvokama. Zima byla. Tolik sněhu! Ježišmarja."

"(It was somewhere on a farmer's field in Uhelná.) He had to leave the horses on the field; they stamped a paper with a stamp saying ´army horse,´ and they took Dad to Hlučín or to some place nearby. From there he went to Poland, I don't know where. He was in Africa as an infantryman and eventually ended up in Russia. He was wounded three times. Two times he suffered a penetrating wound in his legs, and then he suffered a head injury. He was sent to a military hospital. He suffered frostbite on his wounded legs. Then in 1943, when they were chased into that hell, he somehow managed to get out of there; that was when he suffered the frostbite. That's how he got to the military hospital. Later he told me: ´I felt sorry for the young girls most of all.´ The boys were always sticking their heads out: ´We´re going to the war.´ They were curious. But it was horrible in the trenches – if the enemy just spotted your cap, you were dead. He would say: ´The katyushas, they had so many of them there.´ He got to Dresden with the other wounded men and treated there. They were so miserable that the Americans threw them a bag of coffee when they approached their military hospital. They had nothing. Later, they were even eating human flesh from the corpses in order to survive."

"I spent ten weeks in Muna. The guards would make fun of me. They would ask me every day: ´What can you do? I knew a few words in Czech. We worked for the baker there. He allowed Grandma to come work at the bakery, too. His name was Kartuzo or something like that, and they had three daughters. He would always give us bread. Our old grandma was in Muna with us. She had to stay at home. In the evenings I would always return with a loaf of bread. The baker would always cut out a piece of bread from the bottom of the loaf, and insert a lump of butter or margarine or a pear inside. He was giving us a little food this way. After ten weeks, on the Saint Nicholas Day, we were given a lump of margarine for the first time in the camp. Every day we would get a coffee substitute made from grains, and two pieces of potatoes. That was supper. For lunch we had some sauce from pickled gherkins and potatoes. There was no meat. The sauce was made thickened something, and we were getting this meal day by day. Since that time I cannot even stand the smell of pickled gherkins. I never eat pickles with meat."

"Five years. He spent the last six months in Jáchymov. He was also working in the brickworks in Neplachovice. And in some ironworks near Opava. He was… because he was a skilled and hard-working man. Unfortunately he suffered an injury in Jáchymov. After that he spent six months in the prison hospital in Karlovy Vary. He had already served his sentence, but he still remained in the prison hospital. They did not place him in a civilian hospital. I went to see him there, and he had a hole in his leg. The wound was burnt through about an inch deep. They were picking bones from his body. It had been scorched by the uranium. On top of that, he had been buried in the mine towards the end, and he suffered a head injury. Then, when he returned home, about half a year later…Grandma didn’t even receive any allowance for him. Nothing. They asked him whether they had been beating him there, and uncle said: ´Leave me alone, I don’t want to hear anything from you anymore.´ He died after he had returned from the prison. He suffered from severe asthma."

"I still have a scar from a blow when the guard kicked me because of a piece of bread. The guards wore high army boots with studs. We were hungry kids and we jumped for that bread… He would laugh at us, or... There was only one shower for the whole camp. It was up on the hill. There was also an ambulance with a nurse. If something happened we had to stay in that ambulance room. The guard beat me. There were fourteen of us children and all of us jumped at a small piece of bread. There were three-level bunk beds, infested with bedbugs. The guard kicked us so brutally. The nurse then stitched my wound. I have the scar here: just touch it, you can still feel it there."

"They bombed the place in 1945, in March I think, and then they let the Russians pass freely. There were convoys passing through here for three days. Horse-drawn wagons and the captives and soldiers and what not. They passed through Vojtovice. The bishop displayed a white flag and so they had a free passage to Landeck. From Vojtovice they all went down to Landeck. They came from Vidnava: here in Javorník, a cup didn’t even move on the table. But there, there was hell. We were just on our way to Hraničná. Our aunt lived there. The Tatars were also coming there. They had hats with a feather on their heads. They were awful men. I was a child, and so they didn’t do anything to me, but the young girls were terrified. We were hiding in the forest with my uncle. He was a gamekeeper and he knew about it… Behind a rock, behind a mound… We were looking down at those soldiers. It was terrible. Interviewer: "You mean they were violating them? They were raping the women?" M. R.: "Yes. But if they did it, their commander would then make them stand up, and phew, phew, and that was it."