“There were just single-storey buildings, nothing else. And there were these wooden plank beds where we would sleep.” - “Did you at least have a blanket or something?” - “We did have some rags, but there wasn't much. We were half naked, half barefoot. They would take away our things, things we had brought with us. They would put them in this shack of sorts.”
“We had to carry water, me and all the kids. As kapos had those small gardens and we had to bring water and we had to water those gardens of theirs. Then there was typhoid fever, my mother felt sick with typhoid fever.”
“They would keep us there for eleven months, and my father, he had to do forced labour, so he couldn't join us. But my mother, she was with me in the camp. She would go to the quarry, to break down stone. I stayed in the camp, in those long wooden barracks, as they made them like this back then, so we were living in them as well.”
“They arrested us and took us to Jičín. In Jičín, they would lock us up, as they would say. They had this municipal prison in one of those buildings on the main square. I would still look that way whenever I would pass by. So they took us to Jičín, then they would wait for more people to show up, then they would take us to Lety.”
Františka Janečková was born in November 1934 in Černevý Kostelec in Náchod Region. Her parents had a family business – they were selling goods at fairs. In 1941, as she wasn’t even seven years old, she was detained in Jičín with her family. From there they were transported to the detention camp, the later ‘Gypsy’ Concentration Camp in Lety in Písek District, where mostly young Romani Czechs were being concentrated according to decrees issued by the Protectorate’s administration. Right after their arrival to the camp, the Janeček family had been separated. Witness’ mother had to work in a quarry, she contracted typhoid fever, and in the end, her task was to pull away the bodies of those who had perished. The family spent eleven months in the camp, in the spring of 1943, the camp had been closed down by the authorities. The Janeček family had survived their time of imprisonment in Lety, yet several of their relatives perished in this camp, as well as in other camps. The witness did an elementary school, after that she had been working in Železný Brod in theglass-making industry; later, she had been working in a jewelry factory in Jablonec nad Nisou. She also has been selling candy floss at fairs on weekends. At the time the interwiev had been recorded (2015), the witness had been living in Turnov.
