"On the ninth of May we had to be taken to a monastery in Prague-Břevnov, where we were locked up. We were there for a month and from there we were taken to Kolín, and there we were separated." - "And in that monastery, what were the conditions there?" - "Terrible. The Russians used to go there and attack the women. It was... We hid when we could. We even went into the closet, we were young girls, I was 19 years old. Or the old women would take us under the blanket so they wouldn't see us. "And how about the health conditions?" - "Nothing. I don't know where I washed once. I [don't] really remember. We also had fleas everywhere." - "And were there any guards there?" - "Hmmm... I said, I don't know how we survived there, I don't know. We were there for almost a month, and then to that Kolín, there the farmers chose who they wanted. And I was lucky there."
"Towards the end of the war I was in Austria. We were deployed there to work. Now we knew as the Russians were approaching the border, so those who were guarding us there told us they couldn't see anything we were doing. If we were going to run home or whatever. So there were three of us, two girls from Liberec and me. So we said - we were all the way in Austria in Steyr - and we said, let's try to hitchhike to Prague. It was the closest as the crow flies. From Prague, we’d go to the station and head to Liberec. So we hitchhiked to Prague on May 5th. And by then, the revolution had already started, right? So we were at the station, wanting to go home—and then suddenly, no trains were running. So we couldn’t leave. We ended up staying at the station in Prague from the 5th to the 9th." - "And did you sleep there too?" - "We stayed in one room there. But even so, I don’t know… suddenly there were almost only Germans there. Where did they all come from? In Prague, you know…
She was born on 26 March 1926 as Ingeborg Peuker to German parents Anna and Rudolf Peuker in the settlement of Ferdinandov, which is now part of Hejnice in the Liberec region. Her grandfather, Gustav Augsten, ran the popular Lesní Zátiší (Waldfrieden) in Ferdinandov, now known as U Cimpla. She was educated in German at the municipal school and town hall in Hejnice, and during the war she graduated from the trade school in Liberec. During the war she also worked in a textile factory in Hejnice and in 1944 she was deployed to work in the Austrian town of Steyr. Before the end of the war, she escaped and hitchhiked to Prague on May 5, 1945, where she hid at the train station. From 9 May 1945 she spent a month in internment as a German in the Břevnov monastery, then worked for six months in Kolín with Czech farmers. At the end of 1945, she returned home to find that her family had lost all their possessions through confiscation, but she did not have to move. Her father was one of the indispensable German specialists, her mother worked in her father’s confiscated inn. The witness joined the textile factory where her father worked as a foreman. In 1948, she was dismissed and got a new job in a horticulture factory in Hejnice. After twelve years she joined the textile factory Česana, where she worked in the office until her retirement. In 1952 she married Rudolf Zajíček from Bílý Potok. Together with him, she raised her daughter Eva from his first marriage, whose mother was sentenced to 20 years in prison in 1951 in a fabricated political trial. Widowed in 2013, she lived with her family in a house in Bílý Pokot in 2023. We were able to record the story of the witness thanks to support from the village of Bílý Potok.
Christening of Ingeborg Zajíčková - sitting at the bottom parents Rudolf Peuker and Anna Peuker, née Augsten, grandfather Gustav Augsten and his second wife, above on the left is mother's brother with his french wife, who died in childbirth, the highest is a relative of aunt Ferdinand Porsche's family (from Vratislavice), between the parents is midwife Resslová, who gave birth to Inge, on the right is aunt - mother's sister with a friend
Christening of Ingeborg Zajíčková - sitting at the bottom parents Rudolf Peuker and Anna Peuker, née Augsten, grandfather Gustav Augsten and his second wife, above on the left is mother's brother with his french wife, who died in childbirth, the highest is a relative of aunt Ferdinand Porsche's family (from Vratislavice), between the parents is midwife Resslová, who gave birth to Inge, on the right is aunt - mother's sister with a friend
Anton Peuker - grandfather from father's side, owner of the spinning mill in Ferdinandov, who tragically died there in 1916 (see excerpt from contemporary newspaper in additional materials)
Anton Peuker - grandfather from father's side, owner of the spinning mill in Ferdinandov, who tragically died there in 1916 (see excerpt from contemporary newspaper in additional materials)
The ceremonial hanging of three bells on the pseudo-Romanesque church of the Holy Trinity in Bílý Potok during the First Republic. A few years later the bells were taken away and their metal was melted down for German weapons
The ceremonial hanging of three bells on the pseudo-Romanesque church of the Holy Trinity in Bílý Potok during the First Republic. A few years later the bells were taken away and their metal was melted down for German weapons
Rudolf Peuker (first from the right), the father of the witness, in the company band of the Lausitz spinning mill (MKS - Mildenauer Kammgarnspinnerei) in 1937, in which he played the drum
Rudolf Peuker (first from the right), the father of the witness, in the company band of the Lausitz spinning mill (MKS - Mildenauer Kammgarnspinnerei) in 1937, in which he played the drum
Uncle Gustav Augsten, a musician, played cello and piano, traveled the world, later ran a tourist lodge called Hubertka, he also did not have to move out
Uncle Gustav Augsten, a musician, played cello and piano, traveled the world, later ran a tourist lodge called Hubertka, he also did not have to move out
