„My jsme s maminkou pochodovaly před lékaře Mengeleho, který ukázal doleva nebo doprava. My jsme před ním pochodovaly s maminkou a maminku jsme měly mezi sebou. Maminka na svých padesát let vypadala mladě, tak jsme myslely, že by to mohla s námi nějak projít, ovšem on ji vytáhl a nás poslal na jednu stranu a ji na druhou. Ale holky, které tam stály a které nás znaly z Terezína, jí pošeptaly, aby přešla na druhou stranu, že si toho třeba nevšimnou. Maminka tam skutečně šla tedy s námi do normálního, tedy normálního v uvozovkách, baráku, kde byly ubytovány ženy. Pak ale dostala úplavici, strašné průjmy a po šestnácti dnech tam zemřela. To jsme se moje sestra a já dověděly až po válce, protože u ní byla mladá lékařka, která nás znala z domova. Byla z Ústí nad Labem a my z Teplic, což je jen dvacet kilometrů od sebe a ta nám potom řekla, jak maminka zemřela a že byla přesvědčená o tom, že my jsme jely na práci a její manžel jel na práci, takže je vlastně všechno v pořádku. Byla vlastně připravená na konec. Ona pro maminku nemohla udělat nic jiného, než aby neležela na holé zemi, ale byla tam jedna vojenská železná postel, kde maminka ležela do konce.“
„Když jsme po třech dnech cesty s jedním kbelíkem, myslím, že bez vody, dojeli a oni otevřeli dveře vagónu, tak jsme nemohli uvěřit tomu, co se děje. Toho křiku, těch pokynů, reflektorů, zkrátka jako z jiného světa. Oni na nás volali: ´Ven, ven!´, z těch vagónů, rozdělili nás na muže a ženy, takže strejdu už jsme neviděli, ale maminka byla přesvědčená, že ho poslali na práci. Ve skutečnosti, jak jsme se po válce dověděli od očitého svědka, rovnou tam na místě u vlaku, kterým jsme přijeli z Terezína, zastřelili deset mužů a on byl mezi nimi.“
„O zavazadla jsme se nemuseli starat. Šli jsme tedy pěšky z Bohušovic do Terezína, kam tři dny předtím dorazilo AI, ale jinak tam nic připraveného nebylo. Rozdělili muže zvlášť a ženy zvlášť. Kasárna byla pojmenována podle německých měst, muži byli v Magdeburských kasárnách, ženy byl v Drážďanských kasárnách a vlastně se neměli vidět. Tím, že druhý manžel maminky byl lékař, tak měl povolení pohybovat se po Terezíně i po šesté hodině večerní, takže se někdy přišel na nás podívat. Naše maminka byla celkem šikovná a ze dvou kufrů udělala takový gauč, takže jsme přes den nemuseli sedět na zemi, ale mohli jsme sedět na gauči. Přes kufry přehodila něco barevného, aby to vypadalo hezčeji. Ale v noci jsme spali na holé zemi. To nebylo tak zlé, jako přes den stát, to nám právě ulehčily ty kufry.“
„Jednoho dne se tatínek šel projít. Už jsme museli nosit hvězdy, tak tatínek měl hvězdu a šel se kousek v Libni projít. Potkal nějakého esesáka a ten mu dal lístek, že se má druhý den stavit na gestapu. Celý den jsme se třásli, jestli se tatínek vrátí nebo ne. Tatínek se nakonec vrátil z gestapa, ale jeho žena už ho nikdy do konce války nepustila ven. V tom bytě, kde jsme bydleli, byl balkón, kde měl tatínek čerstvý vzduch a všechno ostatní, co potřeboval, se mu teta snažila poskytnout. Na ulici ale už nešel, až i ze smíšených manželství museli do Terezína. To bylo pro česká smíšená manželství v lednu 1945, čili tatínek šel do Terezína.“
„Potom jsme byli několik týdnů všichni v Brně. Naši pomýšleli na emigraci do Anglie. Chodili v Brně do Anglického ústavu a já taky. Moje sestra už mohla do Anglie jet, ale čekala na mě. My jsme tam měly jet na práci do nějaké rodiny, moje sestra jako kuchařka a já jako uklízečka. Pracovní povolení ale platilo až od osmnácti let a mně bylo v srpnu 1938 teprve sedmnáct. Sestra na mě tedy čekala, mohla si ušetřit hodně zlého, kdyby bývala jela, ale zůstala se mnou.“
"My mommy came with us. She looked relatively young and she passed the first check. She then lived with us on the block. It was a former garrison. We slept on bunk beds that had three levels. We slept at the very top of the bed. It was meant to take four soldiers but we were eight taking the same space. Therefore you had to sleep on your side packed like sardines. The only food we were served was soup. Oftentimes, we wouldn't even get a spoon. It came in a bowl and you had to drink the soup from that bowl. The eight of us would pass it around and everybody drank a bit of it. We behaved in a very much disciplined and solidary way to one another. There was no way somebody would fish out a piece of a potato. Indeed, we would drink the soup in such a way as to leave some of it for every single one of us. When there was something left, we passed it around one more time. It was clear to us that it was impossible to survive this and that it even wasn't meant to be possible. Quite on the contrary."
"In short, on April 20 they suddenly told us: 'shut down the machines'! They gave everybody a bowl of soup and a slice of bread and they loaded us up on the cattle cars. They would place 200 of us in one car which meant that we couldn't sit as there was simply not enough space for that. Therefore we agreed to take turns – some would sit and some would stand and after a while, they changed. We also made available a couple of bowls so that we could at least pee. The train moved from one station to another as there was an order that trains were not allowed to stand at one place more than 24 hours. So they would leave us standing at one place for a couple of hours and then haul us to the nearest station again. In this way we even got to the Czech side, to our native Dubí. Together with my sister, we were thinking about trying to escape from the transport because we knew the area. But our hair had been shaved in Auschwitz and we had inmates' clothing with a stripe on the back signaling that we were prisoners. It was less than two kilometers from the train station to the village but we knew of no one who would hide us in this condition."
"We believed that there's something or someone above us and I believe to this day that some things do not happen by chance, but that they happen independently of our will, our effort, and sometimes, they are in our favor, and sometimes they're not. But in the end it always turns out that the way things happened was good. This has happened many times to me in my life. I've been aware that I'm a Jew and I would only later realize that it was actually a nation. A very small nation that happened to be the only one to profess this religion. I realized that being a Jew is a disadvantage but I'm not going to deny my roots because of that."
"I had the opportunity to observe the way they worked there. It was a huge difference! Here, people would come to work in the morning and the first thing they did was to chat about what they had watched on TV the previous evening and what they had watched the day before that. Then, the men shaved themselves and the women made some coffee, because nobody would have breakfast at home – they did all of this in their working hours. But there (in the USA) people came to work in the morning and they just greeted each other. And that was it. In the factories that I had visited, they didn't have proper canteens; it was more like a snack bar. They came in together and they would leave together but they wouldn't chat to each other. They just greeted each other in the evening again. 'Have a nice evening, good night'. In short, they just worked, no talking. Not that they would work faster – they worked as fast as they did anywhere else. But they worked all day long, constantly and without any talking or excuses. That was a fantastic experience for me."
Marieta Šmolková (née Bloch) was born in 1921 in Dubí near Teplice. Her father owned a porcelain factory in Dubí. The Blochs were a Jewish family and for this reason they had to leave Dubí after the occupation of the borderlands by the Germans in 1938. Marieta then lived in Brno until the constitution of the protectorate. In Brno, they were getting ready for an escape abroad but they missed their chance and for the next two years they lived in Prague, where they were already obliged to respect the Nuremberg laws. In December 1941, Marieta, her sister, mother and her mother’s second husband were deported to Theresienstadt. In autumn 1944, they were sent to Auschwitz, where her mother’s husband was immediately shot. Marieta and her sister were transferred after a week to work in the German town of Oederan. Their mother died in Auschwitz of dysentery. In April 1945, Marieta and her sister were moved back to Theresienstadt. The transport took eight days. In Theresienstadt they reunited with their father and remained there until the end of the war. After the war, the Blochs were branded as Germans and were deprived of their Czechoslovak citizenship. They only regained it after three years. Marieta got a job in the field of foreign trade and married Jaroslav Šmolka, who was also a survivor of the Holocaust. They’ve never joined the Communist Party. Marieta Šmolková died on February 23, 2022.
