Jiřina Somsiová

“Mum lost two boys there. The little girl, when they brought them in those wagons, those pig wagons actually, so the little girl, she was in her mother’s arms, she was eight months old, and in fact the German women were already waiting there to take the children away from them. Mum didn’t want to give her up, she kept holding her, so they started hitting Mum. Well, and the baby started to cry, and my little sister cried so much that the German woman grabbed her and actually bashed her against the side of the wagon. Well, and she died that day. So those were horrors that cannot even be expressed. And Mum was also from twelve children. They had lived near Kyjov, and actually the family... they all stayed there. My mum came back completely alone. I never had an aunt from her side, nor did I see my grandmother, granddad. We never had that.”

“I remember that one prisoner escaped, it was freezing bitterly at the time, Dad told us. And that until the prisoner was found, everyone had to stand outside for roll call, in rows, and there were some, well, I don’t want to be rude, vulgar, some who poured cold water on them, those kapos, in the frost. They had to stand there for as long as that one prisoner was caught. Some of them dropped off, died as they were in the rows, standing as they were, they couldn’t take it. So that was really dreadful. And they had music playing for them there in their suffering. There was orchestra there, and it had to play. Really! The orchestra was made up from the prisoners, and they had to play. And they suffered in the freezing cold just in their prison dress – and they were soaked.”