Antonín Zajíc

“There were so many lice there, masses. I myself saw a man lying on his bed, he couldn't move any more. And he was covered with lice, one crawling over another that there was no spot on his body left. And it happened sometimes that they were somehow under your skin. They hatched and when you cut it, it was a nest of lice. It was your end if you didn't hold a bit. Then they were crawling over your neck. Once in seven weeks we were taken at a factory. It was called Bunawerkde. We were transported in carriages by train. We came and had to take everything off. They put all our clothes into some kind of kilns. And there was a bathroom next door, showers. We went there, washed all over and we got our clothes from the kiln back. It was totally warm. They killed the lice, of course, with steam in there. So we put our clothes on again. It was killed there – the lice – once in seven weeks.”

“He took me in the morning and I was transported by train to the Gestapo in Plauen. There I came into his office. He was sitting there at his table, the Gestapo man, such a small man. And he started reading the denouncement. He had the denouncement from my boss there. He started reading all I had done. That I ran away from work and didn't want to join the Germans. That I did sabotage, he read it all there and the typist put it all down. Then he took it: 'Sign it!' I said: “It is not true, I will not sign it.” He sprang, punched me so badly that I spat a tooth out. I was beaten and they sentenced me. Well, an escort took me to prison and I was sentenced within a quarter of an hour.”

“Then some Italian prisoners came. They were called 'Badoglio guys.' They were the supporters of general Badoglio. Badoglio supported the kingdom, you see, and Mussolini was the Nazi, of course. The Germans put all the 'Badoglio guys' that they arrested in prisons. They were something like the guerrilla those guys. Well, we also got a transport of the Italian prisoners. And they were sort of good friends of ours. The Italians were very religious. There is a memory of one of them. It was a coincidence, there was a Czech guy among those coming from Italy. They already had their own Army as there was the Protectorate here then. It was not an ordinary Czechoslovak Army, as it used to be but a Czech one. They used to call it the 'Government Army.' Hitler sent the Army to Italy to order it there somehow or something like that. And the Czech guy, his name was Strnad, he came from Olomouc. Well, he deserted to the 'Badoglio Guys.' And he was arrested and he came to us into the camp.”

“Can you imagine what our sanitary facilities looked like? It was a huge hole dug in the ground. There were laths – well, rather planks across with gaps between one another. We used to go there. You stood on two planks, that sort of hygiene was there. Dysentery carried on like mad. There were lice, hospital fever, I also got it, and dysentery. Those who didn't look after their hygiene, they stayed there. They never returned from there. There were men who had it in their trousers, well, as people say. They shit themselves and didn't clean it up. They took their place somewhere at the fire, let it dry and went on with it just like that. Those people didn't last there. They stayed there. We were about nine hundred people there and there were about four, five, six dead people every day.”