Otto Brádler

“Our daily regime was something like this: we didn’t have a minute of free time, you could say, though that might be exaggerating slightly. Work was from six to two, then a lunch break. We had about an hour of free time including lunch, because we had the same shoes, everything we used at the construction site, and we had to clean it up. Then in the afternoon it was military employment. Either some lecture, or the training grounds.” (Q: “What did you do at the training grounds, if you didn’t have weapons?”) “Without weapons we still had to crawl on the ground, march, right turn, about turn. It was horribly annoying. And we came back from that, had dinner, and then we had to have our time employed some more, there were hobby clubs.”

(Q: “And you stayed at the farmer’s the whole year?”) “I was there a whole year, and maybe some more to boot, I can’t remember the exact number of days.” (Q: “How did they behave to you? Was there any animosity?”) “Oh yes, an awful much. You have no idea how much. Worse than dogs were Germans. Not even human.” (Q: “You weren’t even entitled to ration tickets after the war, were you?”) “Oh, we were. We did get ration tickets.” (Q: “How did the thing with the farmer end after the year?”) “I was only there for the summer season, and when he didn’t have any more work for me, he sent me back to the labour camp. I’d hardly gone in and I was back out again, when the one farmer returned me, another picked me up. He was a vulcaniser, I don’t think they even have that profession nowadays. And he picked me up, and he treated me quite decently. I could eat my fill there, in Jičín. They treated me decently, but the farmer, he had two daughters about my age. No way were they allowed to even look at me. After that year I received citizenship and my Dad came to take me home.”

“I happened to come out, and, well simply I was there, it wasn’t a backyard, it was off to the side of the house, I was doing something, loitering about. The militiamen came along, they were only a bit older than me, they greeted me, and you can tell a German by his Czech. So they realised I don’t speak Czech so well, that I have an accent. And straight off: ‘Are you German, what about Hitlerjugend?’ And I had a revolver pressed to my chest.” (Q: “How did it work out? Did they leave?”) “Well, it worked out fine, thank God, that’s why I’m here.”