Else Pecher

“I worked in a little factory. I was assigned to forced labor shortly before I turned 18, being one of two girls from the place where I lived, one of two in 26 girls, who was conscripted to work. It was because of my membership in the SPD. My name was marked red. The other one was a communist. So we were assigned to forced labor. It was in 1942. That year, the winter was very cold. At home, I head a feather bed. In the new living quarters, 12 girls had to share one room and six beds, bunk beds. The place was called Auherzen, about twenty minutes from Nirschan. It was a new labor camp that had been built shortly before. That's where we came to and we had barely any clothes. Most of the time, we had to wear the clothing we came in, as they took away our suitcases. So you had no access to your suitcase and the clothes that you took with you. We worked at a farm, each month a different one. And from work we went to the cloister where we were accommodated. It was called 'Kriegshilfsdienst', and after work we'd go back to the cloister. We had to take a train to get there every day and they kept us locked in there. Then they came from other camps and confiscated the cloister. They couldn't stand us. Then I came to Holleischen, we went every day to a munitions factory and produced small projectiles. We were actually checking them for any flaws. From early morning, before 7 o'clock, till 6 o'clock in the evening and than we got on a train and went back to our quarters. We arrived around half past 7 and got a little bit of food, mostly green peas soup. We only got bread on the weekends in the evening. We suffered greatly from hunger.”

“We had to go to these political classes. It was at Bodensee, yet, and I was sitting in the first row. I was absolutely not interested in that stuff but I had to go to that class. And the teacher asked me when the Führer had been born. I stood up, remained silent for a few moments and then I told him that I didn't know when the Führer had been born. He asked me where I had gone to school and how it was possible that I didn't know that. I told him: 'but I can tell you when Dr. Garrigue Masaryk and Dr. Beneš were born, I know their biographies by heart. But I don't know when that one was born'. So he asked me again where I had gone to school and I told him: 'in the former Czechoslovakia'. He told me to sit down and I was never asked anything again. So it had certain advantages and I was left alone. The other class mates later told me, that it was quite courageous, what I had said. But I was so terribly angry at that moment, you have no idea.”