Jaroslav Šmitmajer

“The greatest task we accomplished was when... at that time, in 1944 I believe, a project was being prepared, a proposal that an area near Prácheň will be evacuated and a large training ground for the army will be built there. There already was a similar military training in the area of Sedlčany and they wanted to construct another one here in southern Bohemia. And it was already broadcasted by the protectorate radio, that such a plan would be put into practice. So we printed pamphlets, calling on the citizens to protest against it when this plan will become public, to resist the occupation and to prevent the German army from taking this area. Naturally, this pamphlet was illegal and it was difficult to distribute it. But it had a great impact, because this pamphlet influenced the decision of the protectorate government, which later held talks with the German authorities, explaining that this area was not suitable for evacuation of its inhabitants for the purpose of the German army. And somehow, this pamphlet together with their fear from the people’s resistance eventually caused that this training ground was never built. So it was a very important act, which we carried out in the area of Písek and Protivín.”

“In Terezín, there were two or three guardsmen who were not so bad. Such inconspicuous SS men they were, and the others watched them and found out that they are not too tough on us. And those that guarded us were so afraid of being sent to the front, that each of them tried to be as rough and harsh as possible, screaming at us. Only in order to show that they were indeed treating us very roughly, and to save themselves. I remember that two or three of them were eventually dismissed and had to go to fight on the front.”

“I have one such episode to tell. One very old Jewish man was assigned to work together with me. We were digging something and I was loading the dirt on a wheel-barrow. And suddenly the Gestapo boss Jökl came to us. He saw that the Jew worked with a spade and I drove the barrow. So he stormed in and ordered me to take the spade and the Jew to ride with the barrow. And for him, pushing the barrow all the way to the top of that mound was impossible, for he was senile. And this Jökl knew it very well. So I loaded the dirt onto the barrow for him and he started to push it onto that heap. And he beat him so severely that the old man lost consciousness. And he left, did not care about anything. He sent someone else to come there. And when we came back to the Jewish man, we lifted him and carried him to the wall, so that he could sit there. But still, he died the same day in the evening. So this one was story, for you to imagine what life in Terezín looked like. Or I have also seen four internees carrying a wooden box with a dead body on a bier, walking through the middle of the courtyard. And the bier broke...the wood was rotten, and they dropped it and the corpse fell out of the box. The Gestapo man who walked behind them saw it; he ran to him and beat them all. And the one who dropped the bier was lying there unconscious. So they put him in with that dead one... without examining whether he was dead or not. Then I saw them carrying him to the place where the dead bodies for cremation were being placed.”

“When they could not beat any information out of me, they told me then that Mr. Hanzlík, who had cooperated with me, had confessed that he had been giving me the pamphlets – for how long, how many, and so on. That he had also given me a weapon. They simply lied. And I kept refusing it, so finally they brought me the confession they had written down with him. It was a false document, it said that he had given me the weapon, that he had been supplying me with the pamphlets. ´You got it here in black and white. He denounced you. So you still want to deny it?´ I replied: ´I am sorry, but this is not true.´ I refused to agree, and it cost me terrible beating. They had me stand against the wall, to think it over, and I kept looking at that wall, they were walking behind my back, speaking in German. And after a while he shouted at me: ´So what? ´ And as he shouted, I turned around. Which was a huge mistake, because I was supposed not to move an inch. And he smashed my head against that wall and he hurt my nose, I started bleeding. I thought my nose was broken, but luckily it was not. And so many blows with a whip, no need to talk about it, everyone who was there with those scoundrels experienced it. And pulling one's ears, hair, kicking, this was normal. There were many people who did not survive this type of interrogation. I was still quite young, so I was able to survive. But I will never forget it till my death. And there is one more story. Perhaps, what partly helped me....my father was a gamekeeper. And he had been transferred to Jaronín to a gamekeeper’s lodge to replace a German gamekeeper who was to retire. But before that man retired, he had three sons – or actually, he was a Czech, but his wife was a German – and now, one of his sons was working at the Gestapo station in Budějovice. And during this torture, when they were interrogating me, the door opened and I saw him standing there. And he surely recognized me, for he quickly closed the door and stopped the torture, for he was a leader of that Gestapo unit. And by this he probably stopped my further interrogations. Afterwards, they gave me a confession to sign, which I did, and there it blamed me from the distribution of only one single pamphlet. And from there we went to another place, a place a I would not want anyone to experience, where we waited what would happen next, and the situation was worse than in some concentration camps. The conditions were very tough.”

“And here you see the evidence of my invitation to the court in Dresden. So I received this summons. They brought it to my cell, and announced that on November 8th 1944 at ten o’clock I will be tried for Vorbereitung zum Hochverrat, which is preparation for high treason. For this there was a death penalty. Everyone got it written in the same way. So you felt terribly afraid when you eventually came to the court. And here it said: ´Hanzlík und zwei andere.´ Meaning and two others. So this is how I received the summons to the German tribunal.”