Miloslava Stropková

“We arrived to Tábor and there they put us to a flat which was left behind after some court official, whom they had moved out. The women were on left of the staircase, the men on the right. The sanitary conditions there were terrible, there were two rooms, some straw on the floor and that was it. The men’s room was the same. Certain Mr. Knop was guarding in the hallway, he used to be a warden in a German prison. They had drafted them, if he did not want to lose his life, he had to comply with this. He was a very kind man. One morning I woke lying on the bare ground, my mom probably fell asleep under the nervous strain, and the woman who was sleeping next to me, some older granny, was also pressing against my body. I could not stand it anymore; I got up and went to sit in the open door, which led to the hallway. Mr. Knop came to me and asked: ´You cannot sleep?´ - ´I cannot breathe above all.´ For the windows had to be closed, even those in the hallway, because there were guards in the yard, and they had orders to shoot immediately if a window opened. So he let me sit there. The night after, Libuška Fantová found this out, and so there were both of us sitting there. He let us sit there on a bench, and he opened the window and called out: ´Don’t shoot, that’s me!´ And he told the guards: ´There are sick people, they are fainting, I have to open the window, don’t shoot!´ So we were sitting by the open window and breathing. We were happy.”

“(Kaiser, the camp leader – ed.´s note) was stealing so much, that the SS itself imprisoned him. One evening, both of them came. We already knew that there were two of them walking about the camp – the commander and an elderly man, a policeman. We had a roll call; the night was dark and cloudy. We did not have lamps like before, it was difficult to see. This older man did not know how many of us there were. The commander told us that we would remember him as having been kind to us, and treating us nicely, not hurting us, and that he was now leaving for a better position and that this gentleman was to be his successor. Suddenly, a roaring voice was heard, because the older man spoke loudly and he did not know to how many people he was speaking to. The fourth row of us stood higher than the fifth, and he could thus see only a medley of blankets and all the stuff, because we always dressed as much as possible for the night. He said: ´I am a policeman, I am a German, 60 years old. I am here because my commander sent me. I am not here to torture you, but to take care of you and return you safely to your families when the war is over.´ We thought: ´Wow, this is a different story.´ And it was.”

“My name is Miloslava Stropková, I was born as Kunclová in 1922 in České Budějovice. Since a third son was born into the family right after me, and mom and dad wanted me to grow up in a nice environment, which was not possible, with business being bad after the war, they sent me to live with aunt Antonia, the youngest sister of my mom, who was then taking care of me, and who was living in České Velenice at that time. Her surname was Nováčková and her husband worked as an engine-driver for the Czechoslovak Railways. I have fond memories of my childhood in České Velenice. While there, I was going to a confectioner’s shop there, and choosing whatever I liked, and they would pack the sweets for me, and I always said that my uncle would pay for it later. They knew me well, and what is great about this is that today from time to time I travel to Gmünd, and I always stop in that confectioner’s in České Velenice, because the shop still exists there. I even talked to the daughter-in-law of that lady who used to be there then, and now I feel like at home there. When I was four years old, we moved to Suché Vrbné, where my aunt had her own house. My grandfather had one house built for each of his daughters. One for himself and his family, because he was living with his sister in Komenského Street (in České Budějovice – ed.´s note) and he had a one-story house built there. They really were a large family.”

“I said I would not by any means work for the Gestapo, and she (prisoner Pujmanová – ed.´s note´) told me: ´Oh come on, it’s the same like if you go to the municipal office to pick up your ID card. There are no interrogations going on.´ I did not believe her, but she advised me to go to the ones in Tábor. One of them was an old prison warden, whom they had sent there, and the other guy was a young boy, he had no clue yet what the Gestapo was capable of. So I worked there for a few days ad then Steinhauser from the Gestapo office in Budějovice sent for me, and he was a bit angry with me, for how come that I worked for the Tábor Gestapo, when by my place of residence I was to belong to the office in Budějovice. I also raised my voice, for I was really not afraid at all. I was so mad at him: ´Please, do not shout at me. I could not have known that you had this vacancy. Tábor did look for a secretary, so I applied there.´- ´You will work here then! ´ - ´All right then, I will work here.´ Marie Pujmanová from Prague was there with me, the communists later killed her husband during an interrogation, he suffered a heart-stroke. She left her four-year-old daughter at home, who later became a pediatrician when she grew up; Pujmanová was older than me, and she was going with me, she wanted to protect me. What mattered was that here were two of us. The interrogations went on like this: ´Where were you born? What is your name? Where do you live? Where do you work?...´One guy replied to this : ´I don’t work anywhere anymore.´ -´But you are missing somebody at home, aren’t you…´ - ´I don’t know whom I should miss?´- ´But you do have one more son? - ´Oh, come on, he is 25, he has been out of the house for a long time already.´ - ´But we know where he is, and we know what he is doing, and that’s why you are here.´- ´I see…´ Some of them were just great.”