Alois Holub

"I was looking at him and then I noticed: our capo named Wolfrat was running toward us from the upper gate accompanied by two other men. They checked by the gate and then turned toward us and called out my number and the number of another man. Both of us stepped forward. Those two other men took our places and we followed our capo to the workshop. While we were passing through the gate I turned around and saw the rest of the transported people leaving somewhere. But no one knew where... Once again I tried to tell Sepp that I want to quit the job - I was working there for three years already - he told me: ´Do whatever you want. But Bachmayer won’t ask you if he comes that he wants to make another cassette. He won’t care when you’ll do it or where. So you better...you have a nice spot there, you can work quietly under the roof.´ I knew what he meant though...There were also times when I stepped by the Lageraltester at noon and the capo came there and told me: ´Lojzku, (Lojzku=informally Alois - translators note) I need the cassette tomorrow in the morning. I prepared everything at the workshop; I hid some of the material under my pants. I was always afraid to pass through the gate, because they might have checked through us. But we always made it somehow. Then I had to work all night so I could finish the cassette by morning. All I have had was a cup of sweet coffee and that was about it."

"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...´