Alois Holub

"There were few women, or girls that were pulled out of the gas chamber before their bodies were burned out. I saw them there just before some people came to take the pictures of them. It’s stupid, that you actually dream about what you’ve once lived through. So I tell to myself, that someone who never experienced this can’t see it in his dreams... (Laugh) Sometimes my mind goes back to the past and I wake up completely distressed...I once had a dream: We all were going to be executed and on the way we met Lageraltester and I told him: ´Well, well, you always know how to get...´ (laugh) what a situations those were. You either prepared yourself for that or you just keep repeating yourself the whole time: ´So many people died, one day I would die to anyway, so what...it’s just a split of a moment. And if there ain´t nothing I can do about it, why should I worry about it now?´ Sometimes you really believed that the end is coming: ´I will die, well...´And then when you got back to the reality again you were thinking:´ Oh no, it would be such a shame!´(laugh)"

"The Jews traveling with us, who came from all around the Brno town, they got the most attention. In the morning when we went to give our approval for the cremation, these Jews were lined up and they were so...They might have been lawyers or some officials...their faces were swollen blue and green. I heard that the Jews didn’t live longer than three days in Mauthausen. The SS officers used to train themselves on them. Our transport was the last one with Jews. No other Jews were taken to Mauthausen anymore."

"And if something went wrong, you could expect that it will be your turn now. I’m talking about some countryside commando, which was helping out at the farm. The SS officers held some party there, got some drinks and food, I don’t recall the purpose of it. And some of the alcohol got into the camp, so the whole command group has been executed. All of them. They went out to do their job, they worked - they were loading the trucks, driving them and while working they have been beaten. Those who still managed to come for lunch knew that they will stay there in the afternoon. And you saw the whole group...Or another time: ´Czechs, line up for the exercise!´ That was in 1942. Some people were late as they were jumping out of the windows to get to the Appellplaze. The SS officers were already waiting for them there. The people must have run, marched. They have been permanently beaten. The old people couldn’t run anymore so they were falling down. The SS officers have had their own ways... And once, during the governance of Heydrich, the Czechs have been treated just like Jews: less bread and anyone can slap them anytime. If you were standing alone somewhere and some German was passing by, he could do whatever he pleased with you and there was nobody to help you. But, maybe I’m forgetting the more important things. About 300 of the Sokol club members came. And all of them went t the gas chamber. All that stinky air coming out of the chimney...´

"In the morning, in fact it was three o’clock in the afternoon when the Germans were gathering. And then at 5pm Germans were coming to see the executions. I would say, it was about half or one third of all of us who got killed there. The rest of us went to Pod Kaštany place on October 8th 1941. There were about fifty prisoners there. In the morning, it was about 3am, we got some soup for the trip. Then in the morning they took us to the train station. We took off not knowing where to. We went to Vienna and then around the Danube River, all the way to the Mauthausen concentration camp."