Alois Kubíček

“We arrived in Olomouc, where we were awaited by non-coms, privates, corporals, and they herded us straight into some old wooden wagons. Then we set off, and we kept stopping and waiting at each station, knowing nothing. We weren’t allowed to get out. So we ended up in Most, and we still didn’t know anything. They unloaded us in Most and took us to the barracks. We were given ragged civilian clothes to wear and work uniforms. I was given some kind of a sailor’s coat with long tails. The boat was still blood-stained. So we started to suspect that something was up, but no one said anything at all yet. We travelled by train for about three days, and all the food people had taken from home started to smell, so we threw it all out. They didn’t hesitate a moment, they had us pick it all up again, and they had us march around it the whole of Sunday, yelling at us to look at it, that there was no love for us, just work and barbed wire. We gaped open-mouthed and started to suspect that something was up.”

“Then they found out that Dad did [dental] crowns, so they all wanted him to do them as well. My father had an alcohol burner, and one Russian drank up all the spirit. Dad said how was he to work now, and the Russian said he shouldn’t worry about it. In an hour’s time he came back with a demijohn of the stuff. They were experts at that. I wasn’t surprised - they’d been at war for six years after all. They had booze and everything. When he did the crowns for him, others came, lots of them, and Dad asked where he was to get the material from. So they hauled in gold from rings and other things.”