Jan Klus

“We started going to kindergarten. We were four closest neighbours, two girls and two boys. Back then, there were no large fields but small fields with baulks between them. The baulks were so grazed that it felt like a carpet because cows, goats and every animal possible grazed there. We used to go to school through those baulks. And not far from us, there was a track, the Košice-Bohumín railway, where there were crossing barriers. Today everything is automated, but back then, there was a railwayman with a red flag. There was a post, a wheel, and he lifted the bars by hand. We arrived there; the gates were closed. We were there for the first time, so we wondered what it was. Suddenly there was a train, a locomotive, passing through. We were about to cross to the other side, but the attendant called at us not to go, saying there would be another train. We counted the railway cars. There were maybe fifty of them, but we could only count to ten at the time.”

“Dad’s brother, the second of the siblings, his name was Adam, he went to primary school in Košařiské. At that time, they taught only in polish and german. Czech schools were not established until after 1918. And the teacher told the mother to send her son to study in Těšín in Poland, where there was a grammar school. There he studied, graduated and became a Polish patriot. That’s how they led them in that school. Then the Germans came and summoned them to sign the Volksliste [Deutsche Volksliste, German People’s List]. He refused because he was brought up in the Polish spirit. He didn’t sign it. They took him to the Gestapo, beat him up, and he ended up in Auschwitz. About two months later, a note arrived, and I remember it as if it happened today. It was 14 August when the letter from Auschwitz arrived. We were cutting rye at the time. Dad mowed; my sister and I carried sheaves. And dad was sharpening his scythe, and suddenly the whetstone fell on the ground, and he started crying. Mom said: ‘Children, go to dad, something must have happened to him.’ The scythe fell to the ground, and he started crying terribly. In the distance, he saw his sister coming in a black dress. He knew what it meant.”