CZ6 Slaves

Narrator: A teacher in Zlin
Reporter: Heike Knapova

We had to build barricades against tanks in the valley of the river Becva near Valassky'm Meziricim, but don’t ask me why especially there and why 1000 people had to do it. It was not possible to count the diggers, but t it seemed to me that there were more than 1000 of them. It was not possible to overlook the crowd. The Sudeten Germans who commanded us in their grey SA uniforms must have thought the same, because the only told us to work moderately.

The situation got dramatic when the “Grey Wolf” appeared. Since I was the first in the row, I saw him standing in the fog, threatening, with evil eyes, determined to keep down the slaves. In his hands a machine pistol ready to fire he shouted in a hoarse, sharp voice, “Go back, Bohemian dogs, you have to work, I’m going to fire!” The first rows stopped, “Stop, you know the wolf!” But thunder, fog, snow and loud protests of the diggers were against him. The rows in the back moved and pushed us against the machine pistol which didn’t fire.

There were rumours even before we came to our quarters in a school: “The Gestapo is coming from the border to clear the situation.” So we jumped out of the school windows - dirty and stiff from the cold as we were - and ran away to the nearby villages. “You cowards!” shouted the ones who stayed. “Some fool makes up some nonsense and you start running!”

The Gestapo didn’t show up in the inn. They came to the quarter. They were searching for us. We came back late at night when they had already gone. They had taken all our buddies with them. We never saw them again. Soon after that we left the school building.

Later they made a military hospital for German soldiers out of it. We could see how wounded and frozen to death soldiers were carried. We were watching them without great pity. Some of them had amputated legs or arms, some were blind. Poor, living wrecks.