Václav Balon

"The Lagerführer was greeting us. He claimed that we had just arrived in one of the best camps. He said that the conditions in his camps were among the best and that he was a very kind chief. He wanted to prove to us that he is a kind man. There were three inmates standing closest to him in the row. One of the SS men, a young guy, took a rod that was covered by leather at one end, and he started to beat the inmates. The onslaught lasted as long as they could keep standing. One of them was an opera singer. He was singing in Veveří and he had to sing some opera, I don't recall which one it was anymore. Then the SS man stood up from them and said: 'you see how king I am. I didn't kill them, they're alive'."

"So a priest was taking us on a train to Slovakia to Snina, where we wanted to cross to Velká Berezná. However, things were kind of awkward there. We crossed and there were Hungarians there, still wearing their hats with the feathers. So we ran back and we ran into our gendarmes. So they took us and one of them, a young guy, promised us that they would take us across the border. But the Gestapo was already there."

"It was on a Sunday when they usually were putting things in order. Michálek, who was a Colonel, a commander of the unit, at that time and a General later on, was sent outside. The weather was really bad. I was ordered to be inside. I sent Michálek inside and went outside. Štubák came and that was the second time I got slapped in the face by him. He said: 'I put you here. You need to come back and tell them what happened here. That old codger won't make it anyway."

"It started to get tough there. When they were taking us to the cars, Tonda Bartůněk, whom we called 'sheriff', saw the Hitlerjugend. He was a funny guy and we never really knew if he was telling us the truth or if he was just joking. He said: 'Look there, it's the Boy Scouts. It's going to be alright'. And when we saw that they were loading them up. We were tied together with Tonda and there was no third prisoner left for me. In the meantime, I had bad luck again. I was at the Joseph-Bahnhofstraße at the train station, so I was with the Polizei. There, people would throw us flowers and he told me in Czech: 'take it, it won't last long. Don't be afraid'."