Alexander Venglář

* 1920

Participant in antifascist resistance, Prisoner of a Nazi concentration camp, Participant in Czechoslovak resistance during WW2, Prisoner of the Auschwitz concentration camp, Diplomat
1. 9. 1939 - The outbreak of the WW2, 1941 - 1945 - Transports to the concentration camps, 1945 - The liberation of the concentration camps
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    Transport of weapons

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    “I agreed with it. I remember that we met where the dockyard is. He then made a phone call and it all got revealed, and the weapons were thus not transported. Massive arrests began in spring 1943 in the Jawa company, where I was working at that time. Zbrojovka Brno (arms factory), engineer Janeček, or Jawa here in Pankrác. Many people got arrested and I was among them.”

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    Liberation

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    “The Englishmen came first, and they deloused us. They were powdering us with tons of DDT and giving us pills. I remember that at the time they were treating us, there was an announcement that Roosevelt died and that Truman became president. It was at that time. When these Englishmen came, they gave us food, powdered milk, various biscuits, and so on. Many people died, of course. They have overeaten. There were tins with food. Before, food had been scarce, and now all this. They had kicked the bucket this way at the end the war. That was terrible.”

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    Illness in Auschwitz

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    “When he was shaving me, I suddenly began vomiting. He quickly handed me a white bowl, the kind doctors use. He put it under my mouth and I was vomiting. I remember that the vomit had blue colour, like ink. He just said: ´Typhoid!´ He quickly told me to go to bed. I was on the first floor, not on the ground floor, and I lay down and I don’t remember anything that followed. I woke up later in a different ward, and I had horrible herpes.”

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    Cannibalism

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    “At that time I also learnt that they had caught the guy who had been eating human flesh. There was no crematorium in Elrich. At first there was a crematorium in Buchenwald, and then they opened another in Dora. They were thus bringing the corpses to Dora. There was an unfinished tunnel, and in one of its parts there were beams with hooks hanging from them, resembling those in a butcher’s shop, and the corpses were hung there by their chins. The man was a Pole, they even said that allegedly he was a teacher, and he would be going in there, and cutting out their testicles or flesh, there was not much of it, though. He carried a tin into which he was putting it. He had the stuff stewed in it. Somewhere in the camp, I don’t know where, he would then heat it or cook it and eat it. I learnt this immediately, when I was waiting for that surgery. That was in the morning. The word spread quickly through the camp.”

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    Interrogation

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    “One day during the interrogation they brought Rudolf, and they closed me in a closed and brought Rudolf (Osvald) into the room. I heard them telling him: ´Venglář is here, he will come.´ He didn’t know that I was inside, and I could see him through a crack. ´Venglář will come, and you’ll either agree on it, and he will affirm or deny what you are saying. There was talking about it, but now it depends on him.´ They let me out of the closet and he fell down to my knees and said: ´Saša, tell them how it really was, what it was about.´ I was just staring at him. If I didn’t say it, they would imprison my mom. My parents.”

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    Praha 4, byt pamětníka, 30.01.2010

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My name probably sounded Polish to the Poles. This has saved me

Mr. Venglář
Mr. Venglář
photo: V. Janík-pamětník
photo: V. Janík-pamětník
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  Alexander Venglář was born April 22, 1920 in Kecskemét in Hungary. His mother was a healthcare worker. He has never seen his father, because he had died before Alexander’s birth. The incomplete family then moved to Slovakia and they eventually settled in Bratislava, where Alexander’s mother married a Czech man who worked there. Soon after they all moved to Prague and settled there. At the beginning of the war Alexander Venglář worked in the Jawa factory which produced pumps for Junkers airplanes. A three-member resistance cell formed there, and worked jointly with the illegal group Pankrác-Vozovna. Their task was a transport of weapons. The plan was however discovered by the Gestapo, which began with arrests in spring 1943. Many employees from the Jawa company got arrested, including Mr. Venglář, who was tricked to go out to the gatehouse and arrested there. He was interrogated by the Gestapo several times in the Petschek Palace and he had to face confrontation with his coworkers who were also interrogated. He was imprisoned in Pankrác and then sent with the others to Terezín. Later he was sent to the east to Auschwitz. After cruel introduction, when the prisoners had to stand naked and wet in a snowstorm, Alexander Venglář became sick. He survived only by a miracle. The camp administration didn’t send him to death, and he was thus lying in hospital till September 1943. He has passed two selections. The second selection sent him to the concentration camp Buchenwald. After entry procedures he went to hospital again. After his treatment he began with regular work in the camp. Czech prisoners were transported to the ancillary camp in Dora, which was infamous for its underground factories where prisoners worked and slept. Mr. Venglář was repairing cars and toiling hard when doing stonework. In 1944 he got to the ancillary camp in Elrich. He worked in a storage room where he was responsible for everything which was stored inside. This was a difficult task in times of great hunger. At the end of the war when the front was approaching, all the prisoners were taken to the camp Bergen-Belsen. He experienced liberation in this camp. After the war Mr. Venglář married and began studying the Pedagogical Faculty. Till 1988 he was working as a civil servant, at first at the Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs, later at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Owing to his work, he also lived in Iran, Bangladesh and Pakistan for some time. present he lives in Prague with his wife. He is a member of the Czech Association of Freedom Fighters and the historical group Dora.

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