Albert Iser

"The Germans who worked on the shaft in various professions, such as dynamiter, locksmith, carpenter, blacksmith, roofer, did not pay rent or electricity in their houses. So, we didn't pay rent or electricity or water for our house. And they still got a monthly ration of coal. Because the uranium mines had nothing to do with coal, but there were so-called rations. About the earnings. When there were payrolls, they made a lot of money. That was huge, huge money that they were making. My dad could buy five [cars] Octavia, five Felicia's out of every paycheck. Not the current Felicia, but the Felicia of that time. The Felicia cost nineteen thousand, he brought home seventy thousand. And a Felicia with a tilt cost sixteen, seventeen thousand. Or an Octavia, that cost twenty-one thousand, he could have bought three. But in those days you couldn't buy a car just like that, you had to have a permit. For example, if you were rated the best worker in the mine, you got a document and you could buy a car with the document. But unless he had a permit or some merit, nothing. And that's why they mostly all, to put it in words, drink away the money. They finished work on the payday... Or on the ninth of September, Miners' Day. So, they went out and, dirty as they were, they called taxis, Volgas, six hundred three. They threw a helmet in one, flashlights in another, and got in the third one in their dirty jackets and drove to Pupp. There they got drunk, broke everything, paid for it and went home again. Yeah, so that's how they lived. Money was nothing to them in those days. And in the1953, when there was currency [reform – trans.], I remember that, because I was in first grade, there were thousands [crowns – trans.] flying everywhere. There was money everywhere because there was reform and it was changed 1:50. And then if somebody brought a hundred thousand to change, they didn't get a crown. So, they lit cigarettes with those banknotes and tore them up and threw them around. So, we weren't really in need of anything at that time, because dad had the money. Every month we got what was called 'Russian rations' because the Russians owned everything. Uranium was exported to Russia as a compensation for the liberation of the Czechoslovak Republic. So, they were getting this kind of gifts of food, they called it 'Russian ration'. A kilo of chocolate, a salami, Prague ham in a tin. Or a ten-pound bucket full of jam. So, we'd eat bread with marmalade... And what we didn't have, we'd exchange for chocolate. That's how we did business. That's how it worked."

"That's how it started in that class. Then when I moved on... There's a story, I laugh about it today. In the classes, because there were a lot of us - I was in B and there was A, B, C - there were at least thirty, thirty-five kids in each class. And on average, about sixty, seventy percent of the whole number were Germans. So even in the corridors we were talking to each other in German. And one of the teachers, I don't want to name her, because maybe she still lives in Abertamy, caught us talking German together. So, we had to write a thousand times: 'I mustn't speak German'. And then the revolution came, this one... And she lives in Abertamy, nearby the cemetery. I have a sister buried there, my parents, my dad, my mom, so I go to the cemetery all the time. And I see she had a big sign across the house saying 'Zimmer frei' [room available – trans.]. At the time, it p…ed me of, and today I just laugh about it."