Eduard Šlachta

“Six people were executed, it was a weird feeling.” “And when was it? And how did you get there?” “There were interrogations, and I sort of shared something with them, and then there were official executions. They were partly public.” “And what year was it?” “It was probably 1947, they caught them after the war.” “And you took part in it? You sat on some interrogation committee?” “Not really a member, but three times I was offered to help to convict… I was interrogated by them, but I was not a ... Most of all, we were happy that the war was over, we danced on Glen Miller, and Armstrong, and music was playing everywhere, and two or three years after… we all rejoiced. You understand, at that time everyone had at least two or three kids, and people lived outside, they did not sit at home with their computers or TV sets. There was Sokol, music choirs, and what not.” “So you helped to convict them, those people on the Gestapo?” “Well, that’s the way it was, I was one of the few who were present there, in fact I did not participate in all that as much as those who were there for a longer time. I was there as a member only, let’s say, just saying: ´Yes, that was him.´ I could have been there longer during all those interrogations. They brought them in. The executioner was from Prostějov, I think, and of course he had a hood over his face. And this Kohoutek, this informer, who had them all drowned, he was an informer through and through and he arrested all. This is all written in books. A his words were: ´Good-bye, my friends,´ and there was a lot of people. And when they brought him in, he had a noose around his neck and the executioner put a hand on his head, so that when the trapdoor was opened, he fell down and died quicker, because the weight of the body and the pushing of the skull aside breaks his neck on impact, the executioner knows the trick. They let him hang for ten minutes, then the doctor lifts him up, there is a coffin under him. And there was another one, a woman, I don’t know her name, she was an informer and the Gestapo arrested her, and she, I don’t remember exactly, but she then served as an informer for them. They told her something to test her, you know, there were no mobile phones then, and she went to a meeting with partisans. The partisans had some hiding place there, from the other side of the Lysá Mountain. And she came there and said these things to them, and they also did not know that they were being arrested, at that time there was no way to find that out. And people did not even know each other, they had no clue. It was not like today, when I just pick up the phone and speak. Like I just spoke with my son, he was in America, and I was sitting in the toilet and speaking with him at the same time. No way. She knew some things, and they trusted her. She was probably instructed so during the interrogations by the Gestapo. And thus they believed her that she was a paratrooper, that she was a Czech, and that she was deployed there from Russia. And she was also executed.”

“We were behind the city. Voralarm. Richtung fest. That was a total mess. When planes were approaching, we had to set out. We had a long garage behind the town, and it was used as a school. But it was actually a wooden garage, which had twelve gates and we had to get into our fire-fighting cars and set out… If bombs were dropped on the garage, everything would go up in a smoke, and therefore each of us had his tree, about 50 or hundred metres from each other, under which we were waiting. So a Voralarm was sounded, we jumped into the cars, we were called at nights and during the day as well. Americans were bombing in daylight, and the English were flying individual bombers or in smaller formations at nights. We got out and we tried to help those women who were there. Each of them with three kids and no men around, because the men were already dead, or on the sea, or somewhere on the front. If we had time, we took the children, and there was a concrete bunker in the ground, there was no other place to cover. We led the children there, and when possible, sat with them inside for some time. But mostly, after the bombs have been dropped, we got orders to go and we did not know whether we would come back. The Americans were flying in formations. And you were called to set out, and two formations passed above you, and the roar resonated throughout the town. And then the first group began dropping bombs. At first we were called to the castle, there was a bay, fifteen kilometers. On one side of the bay there was a Kruppwerke submarine, on the bottom part, just like in the town. And we were called to the castle, that there was a fire. They bombed at noon, the bombers always flew in at half past eleven. And I did not know where exactly, and then I heard that there were four more formations, 60 pounds each, heading toward Kiel. They could also be flying toward Hamburg, Hamburg was hundred kilometres away. But you were headed towards the town, and in the roar of your car, you don’t even feel the horror. I was lucky, I was even burned one time, just look at it here, it happened when I deactivated a bomb.”

“I only don’t understand this, you said you worked in a court?” “I wanted to study law, I was in Prague twice, and I was summoned to the factory’s committee, and I was told that I received this decision from Prague, but that there is the issue of Party membership, and that the Party cannot have lawyers like me. But at the same time there was recruitment for lay judges. So I applied and became a lay judge, at that time this position was held by old grannies, who were retired, and sleeping during the proceedings… I was assigned to do divorce cases, and then in the regional criminal court, I was deciding murder cases, rapes, and damages over 5 million crowns, then it was raised to 5 milliard crowns.” “And as you said, you worked in the Vítkovice factory, and besides that, you served in the tribunal?” “That’s right.” “And at first you worked on divorce cases, and than you moved to murders?” “Lately I was deciding only murder cases…I quit a year or two ago.”

“I was in prison over Christmas, and I was terribly lucky. In the place where we lived before, next to the Sokol gymnasium, there lived some Fischer. He was not that old, but he had shadows under his eyes, sickly-looking… a German. And all he would always say was just ´Morgen,´ when my mother greeted him. And his wife had two children, I don’t remember exactly, during the war we would only meet in hallway of the building, it was seventy years ago. And he always… walking slowly… And then during Christmas, I was locked up in the cell, they did not have much information on me, they did not know that I was involved in the resistance. But they must have found out my name on some list, and therefore I got arrested as well. Because most of our people had been already taken to Breslau, and some were still in court. And that night I was terribly lucky, after several days the door opened, and there he was, in a uniform, I don’t remember whether they also wore the Totenkopf (skull) emblem. Well, he was a warden there. And this sickly Fischer, whom I only heard utter ´Morgen,´ now speaks to me in Czech and asks me: ´What are you doing here, Mr. Šlachta?´ And I looked at him in surprise, at his uniform. And he had apparently seen my name written on a list of prisoners in the prison office, and thus he came to me at midnight. He asked: ´What do you need?´ I replied: ´Are the others here?´ He told me: ´Don’t be afraid.´ I would have never thought in my life that he was a German, we did not know each other much, he lived two floors above our flat. And he asked, ´Do you need anything?´ I asked again, ´Are they here?´ ´Yes, there are four more.´ Kenkúš – the others were in Breslau, unfortunately, in Dresden there was a heavy air-raid, and my good friends died there – Jura Novák – during that bombing… And he asks: ´Do you need anything?´ I kept asking : ´Are they here?´ ´Don’t be afraid,´ he said: ´Yes, he is here,´ he said. Láďa Kenkúš, who was sort of our boss when we organized our group. A very intelligent boy. They were students, but when the Germans closed colleges, they went to work in the Vítkovice factory, and they also carried out sabotage in smaller scale there, like inserting something into bearings they made. And he said: ´You will have him here tomorrow midnight.´ There were probably two of them on duty, and on top of that they all knew that the war was coming to an end.”