“That was Auschwitz-Birkenau, that is the women’s camp. We didn’t work there, but we had to stand for hours on end, from morning to night, and they kept counting us, it was endless. There were no toilets at all, just what they called latrines, where we were allowed only with and SS escort. And in the night, when we slept, we weren’t allowed to go to the toilet at all. So there was a bucket and you did what you needed to into that. We were always afraid we’d be the last one to use it, because the last one had to take the bucket out and empty it in the designated place. There was an electric fence behind the appelplatz, and behind that there were men, men with no clothes. But those were just skin and bones, they didn’t have any body left. Every day a cart would rumble by and they would throw the dead bodies into the cart - it sounded like wood hitting wood, because it was just the bones really. I don’t know where they took them. One woman went and caught hold of the fence, and that was the end of her misery, because the electricity killed her.”
“Someone from Oberaltstadt came and told us to stay there, that we could get a flat and a job. But everyone who came back wanted to return home. The head of the factory was handed over to the Russians. I do not know if they brought her to Siberia. They did not arrest the SS-woman, though, she was good to us, had no job and thus did this. It all went quite smoothly when the Russians arrived. We welcomed them, happy for it all being over. Before they liberated us, one of the prisoners was missing. So we had to stand there and they counted us. Later, they said they caught her and shot her. This was not true, she later showed up because a Czech man was hiding her. As we were returning home, there were no bridges anywhere. In one of the railway cars we recognized an SS-man. We told it to the dispatcher and he brought in some guards. They were all already changing to civilian clothes which they wore under their uniforms, and ran away as fast as they could.”
“We would place the bread behind our heads so that no one could take it, because there were all sorts of people from various countries there. And after the war I came upon one poem which was written by the doctor, Mrs Julia Tauber, and in this context I translated it from Hungarian into Czech [herein translated into English - transl.]: Bread, by Dr Julia Tauber. Do you know what bread is? Black or white? It is all, it is life. It will save you from hunger and death. If you eat bread, or hold it, touch it with clean hands only, watch it with devout eyes. Oh, bread, you lifegiver, you were my hope. I awaited you hungrily, forever blessed you. Who steals bread is no thief, who throws a stone at him has no heart. When a hungry man sees bread, he will kill his friend for it. Do not condemn him, be not harsh, it is not the mind that does it but the stomach, which knows no laws or rules, just hunger and itself. Until then, let there be no peace - always fight for this, for everyone’s right to bread, whether black or white. Because bread is the Bible, there is nothing more sacred. Bread is a prayer, the most holy reality.”
“I then started to attend the local organization of the Communist Party. One of the women there – she was Jewish and called Steiner, a very nice lady working for the Party in Karlovy Vary – told me they were looking for workers. I served there as an administrative force until Slánský times. After that they began announcing all those death penalties through loudspeakers; that was horrible. There I met… There were plenty of young people there. While I worked for the Party we would visit concerts, go to the movies together. There I fell in love with a young man. Later when I was having a baby with him he said he would not marry a Jewish girl. This I found odd. But I did not reproach him for it, I let it be. Only later did he begin to care about the child. I lost faith in communism but it was difficult to return the membership card, I would not have gotten another job. Only when things loosened up I returned it and said that I unfortunatelly lost faith in this organization and that I did not intend to join another one. By the way, not all people there were bad. There were those who during the Slánský court case when people were being fired from the Party would tell me: ‚They are looking for workers in the transport company, go there.‘ Such people were also there. Not all were bad, I cannot judge every one of them.“
“There were only some crannies in the railway car, we could not see through them. We did not know where they were taking us. We rode for some two days. The Hungarian soldiers searched us for any jewellery we had on ourselves. We did not have anything. My mum buried something back there in the ghetto but we could not find it after the war because construction took place there. Suddenly, we found ourselves in Auschwitz. It all took place so quickly. The Germans did everything in half-light. They hurried us around in these striped clothes, quick, quick… We got out. I did not know where my parents were so I held on to Julie, my cousin. They brought us into an unfinished building. There were no windows there so the Germans would shoot over the window just for fun. We sat on the ground and they brought us something in a pot - water with something floating inside. Julie refused to eat it. I told her: ‘Eat or you’ll die. And you want to live.’ So I forced her to eat at least a bit. There was grass growing around the building, a tree and a statue of Jesus Christ.”
“Well, and there was one SS woman there, we heard about her that she was from the town and that she hadn’t had any job, so they told her: join the SS and they’ll give you a job for sure. So she did. But I can say that one room was a so-called hospital room, and she would bring us bandages and various pieces of white cloth from home - she knew we wouldn’t tell on her.”
“There were no windows in the wagon, just a few small openings. The train stopped now and then so that they could put more people into some of the wagons. We travelled like this for about two days. In the end my father caught a bout of hysteria: ‘People, they’re taking us to our death!’ We comforted him, saying we would be working there. It was terrible in there - human faeces and so on. We journeyed for about two days. And the Germans did everything during the dark, they opened the wagons and quick, out, out. There were prisoners in striped uniforms, we had to go out. It was awfully fast, so that I didn’t even notice that my parents had disappeared. I held on to Julia. And then they brought us to one building which wasn’t finished yet, it had no windows and the Germans would shoot through the missing windows just for fun.”
“When I was walking along the street in Carlsbad, I had knee-high socks on. Suddenly a group of people surrounded me, I don’t know who it was, a patrol or something. You’re German, they claimed, provoking with your white knee-high socks. And I just couldn’t explain to them that I’m not a German at all, so I showed them my number tattoo. That had them believe me in the end. I told them that I didn’t have any other [socks]. Trousers weren’t worn in those days. I just had the one knee-high socks which I had washed and dried and put on my feet because it was cold.”
Magdalena Horetzká was born on 18 December 1922 into a Jewish family in the Slovak village of Šurany, where the family lived even when Šurany was occupied by the Hungarian army. A ghetto was founded in Šurany in 1944 and Magdalena’s family was placed inside for two months. In June 1944 they were forced into the prison camp in Komárno, built up in the town’s old fort. From thence they continued to the Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp, where their paths divided at the infamous ramp. Mrs Horetzká was deported from Auschwitz together with her female cousin to the labour camp in Plasov near Krakow, Poland. She was given hard work in the stone quarry. She was sent away once more, without her cousin, back to Auschwitz. Not long after she was deported to work in the Czech border regions, to Ober-Altstadt labour camp (Horní Staré Město near Trutnov). There she was liberated by the Red Army. Soon after, she returned to her native Šurany. In 1947 she moved to Karlovy Vary. Mrs. Magdalena Horetzka died in Prague in 2017.
