Oldřich Stránský

"The supply was quite good there. When the people arrived on the transport trains they usually had plenty of food for the journey to save them from starvation. And after they went to the gas chambers, all their belongings were left here. People who were separating the things couldn’t eat all of the food, so they would exchange it with other people, like for an example Franta was. He used to ride the local buggy, so he took the food and came back later with something else. It was a never ending business. And if someone knew how to do it, he could stay alive."

"We have been already in Schwarzheide camp, when the bombing of Dresden town began at night all of a sudden. The Schwarzheide is situated about 50-60 kilometers away from Dresden town. When we looked to the South we saw this great red blaze over Dresden and the ground was trembling there too. That’s how dreadful the bombing was. The very next day we heard the news about how terrible it was. It was the first time when we saw the SS officer being obviously shocked. It left a huge impact on them. Today, we remember only how the people were suffering, how bad it was for them, but it was probably for good reason. The Germans, especially the SS officers still believed that they can win the war; that the victory is in their hands. Only after this bombing we recognized their fear from knowing they were wrong."

"When the Fascist started to cal the Jews bad names, I remember once one of my class mates, whose family owned a grocery shop in town, was shouting at me on our way from school : ´Jew, you’ll become a screw.´ Later after I returned back from the concentration camp I could admit that he was right. I hope I don’t need to be concrete..."

"We used to get up very early in the mornings. At 4 am or at 5 am. The first thing in the morning we did was the lining up. We wanted to wash up first, but most of the people were still exhausted from the night that they just skipped it. I always washed myself, no matter what. That was one of the things the Scouting taught me. You have to wash yourself; you have to brush your teeth or boots. To be honest I didn’t really clean my shoes though, but washing my face or cleaning my teeth, that was essential for me. It helped me to think positive."

"The Jewish associate came to my father once and told him: ´You have two sons, so one of them could go to that farm.´ It has been agreed, that it would be me for three months and then we would change. When I recall it now, the time we spent in Lípa town saved us from the Nazism. Back then in Český Brod town, when I was saying good bye to my family, I used to tell them: ´Don’t worry, I’ll be back in three months.´ None of us knew that it was forever. Not even three months after our arrival to Lípa town new order came. The transports of Jews to Terezín and further to the east began. Therefore I’ve never seen my brother and my parents again. On June 1st 1942, the transport train from Český Brod town to Terezín left, but three days before that the assassination of R. Heydrich had been carried out. This, of course didn’t stay without a punishment. The Germans ordered a special treatment for people who were on the transport trains to Terezín. Instead of to Terezín they took them to Lublin town. Women and elderly men went to the gas chambers and the rest of the people could work on the road constructions. But their living conditions were so poor, that most of them died in about two months anyway. That’s how my family ended up."

"When I got out of the hospital, I had to go and find myself some job. But I didn’t know where to go, because all of my contacts were gone already. At the end I got more or less patronage job by the Leichenkommando. I was the ´dead body carrier´. It had some good sides too. For each man who died in the house and I took it away (actually there were the too of us, because it would have been too heavy for one person), I got an extra portion of soup. So when I took out two or three dead bodies, I got two or three soups. And that was quite an allowance. I didn’t get dollars anymore, but I got soups instead."

"Only people who were allowed some extra portions were able to get some cigarettes too. Those were mostly people who were in charge of each house. People like the ´Blockälteste´ - the chiefs of each block could get cigarettes for an example in exchange with portion of soup or piece of bread. Or they used their friends who knew how to get cigarettes. Of course I wasn’t able to buy something in advance and save it for later. We had to buy it and then eat it right away. If I had some extra cigarettes, I took five more of them and I could exchange it for extra portion of soup. I could share the cigarettes with somebody with the intention, that when he’ll have something extra too, he’ll share it back with me."

"During the morning we arrived to Schwarzheide where a huge factory producing the synthetic gas was. On our way from the train station to the houses we were supposed to be staying, the warning disturbed us. We saw all the people running out of the factory into the shelters, where they could hide from the bombing. We were kind of laughing inside seeing the Germans running away. We only laughed once though, because regarding our previous bombing experience we were in a hurry to hide too. All together we have experienced four air attacks, and one of them was really very long. It was really dreadful air attack and it basically destroyed the whole factory. We were terrified from the attacks, because we were not allowed to go to hide to the shelters. We stayed inside the houses that we lived. We used to open all windows to prevent them from breaking due to the blast waves. We have just lain down on the floor and all we could use for our protection were our meal plates. We covered our heads with them to protect them from the bomb shells. It was quite naive, but it helped us to feel better at least."