František Cenkl

"I used to go to church for blessings or confirmation and I don´t know what else. And then when you see...If only God could watch that...These camps...Indescribable...It didn´t happen in our camp, but in other camps they used to gather the dead bodies into the ditch with a digger. That was something terrible. You realized there that you´re nothing. I´m still having nightmares about it even though it is so long time ago."

"As soon as the Germans began to rage they became more visible as well. Hitler had all the power and promised them the moon and the stars. The fights have begun. The girls started to wear white knee socks (the terry ones). They started to behave as they are something better than...So the boys brought the gloss used on the horse´s hoof, it contained a bit of the globins. They took the painting brushes and as the girls were passing by they caught them and painted their sock with it."

"It happened in Přáslavice village. One Russian soldier ran into one house and stole a bag with grain for his horse from the grandmother. The old lady came out and started to scream. Another Russian soldier came on horse, shoots the other Russian soldier and continued in his ride. The old lady was crying. I told her: ´First you were crying that he took the bag, now you´re crying that he´s dead.´ She shouldn´t have screamed."

"They arrived on their motorbikes to town. Germans who were already in Olomouc were celebrating. They brought big boilers in front of the Town hall and began to cook. They were offering soup to poor people. It was the German typical dish - the Eintopf (German, lit.: "one pot"). There were lines of people waiting and the Germans were taking pictures of them. They made propaganda out of it - if Hitler wouldn´t feed us we would all die here. And it was exactly the opposite."

"It was awful in general. The made a rule all of a sudden that nobody is allowed to smoke after 10pm. They announced it as a n order during the evening line up. I came back to my room and light up a cigarette. They caught me and put me to the correction room. ´Why am I here? ´ - ´Don´t you know it is forbidden to smoke? ´ - ´I don´t.´ - ´So the others should told you that.´ I spent the whole night there. The room was made out of concrete so it was freezing cold in there. And since I wore only my underwear the boys threw me some coat and covers inside."

"It was really terrible in Přerov. The town was under permanent supervision. Přerov has always been sort of central town for Moravia, all trains were going there. It was awfully stinky on the platform. There were packs, luggage, everything what was sent to Germany. But they never loaded it in; they needed the trains for other things. Those packages could have been there for as long as two years. It was rotten and stinky; nobody cleaned it. Later I have asked one Přerov resident about it and he said: ´That´s where the epidemic started.´ Just then they started to loading it on the train and taking it away. There were thousands of rats! It was disgusting."