No nation is a nation of criminals and murderers, the guilt is always on the individual
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Uta Reiff, née Jäckel, was born in 1938 in Aš. She spent her first years in Chomutov, but when her father was appointed headmaster of the Žatec grammar school, the whole family moved to Žatec. The witness enjoyed a happy childhood inside the grammar school itself, as her father was issued a small flat there. After World War II the family suffered from the consequences of the so-called wild expulsion of Sudeten Germans. Seven-year-old Uta and her mother and brothers were interned in the prison camp in Žatec; her father fell victim to the tumultuous violence of June 1945 - he was taken to Postoloprty, never to return. Her older brother Hans was drafted and sent to work in the mines in Kladno. After eight months in isolation, a cattle wagon took little Uta and the rest of her family to the German city of Furth im Wald, and from there to the small Bavarian village of Vach. She grew up with her mother and her brothers in an environment of animosity, as the local inhabitants welcomed them with hostility. The witness studied interpreting and later psychotherapy. As a family therapist, she helped and still helps people both in her private practice and in refugee camps, where she visits people with a similar experience as is her own. She now lives with her husband in Amberg.
