Emília Gáboríková

“Then, the factories V1, V2 in Pfaffenhof were under construction. Prisoners from Theresienstadt concentration camp used to go there over the bridge in Litoměřice. They worked right under our yard. Prisoners were there and I was among them. However, they worked mainly under the ground. On the surface, there were only their implements such as pulleys which they used for pulling the material up or casting it down. But the construction itself and building of various concrete barricades was done under the ground. There were a lot of convicts. In the morning when we went to school, the soldiers usually went to their exercising ground, so we had no place to walk as it was such a narrow road, which had been built during the First Czechoslovak Republic. At the same time the prisoners were being driven somewhere on open trucks, both in winter and in summer only in such thin striped pants. They wore nothing warmer in winter.”

“When loading, men who were still able to walk supported each other and thus got into the car... but those who were no longer able to walk went separately. It was horrible; they were put in the bags in which there had previously been cement or some other building material. Some were even still alive, still moving. Despite that fact, they were put in a bag and thrown into another car. Still alive. When they arrived, they were handsome, well-built men. They spoke Russian, I met them daily. They spoke Slovak as there were many Slovaks. In a concentration camp there also was a lot of Germans. They were handsome and well-built men, but if I didn’t see them for a month or longer, I couldn’t recognise them at all.”

“The girls were afraid of Russians, because they were real rakehells. Therefore, the girls used to hide from them. My father made a hole in a stack of straw, which was a shelter for twenty girls. However, one of the girls didn’t manage to escape. As a girl I went to see those girls every morning to help them. You know, the girl who hadn’t managed to run away was always badly bitten and really pitiful.”