Hugo Drásal

“They called themselves partisans. I don’t know if they were or not. It was something of a militia afterwards. Kind of what they later a national committee. And they played a good bit of havoc. From what I know personally, what I saw, they beat up our mayor to such an extent that he went and hanged himself. I was there when we took him down. I saw that. They beat him up awfully, he was a good man. Those were the times. I don’t like remembering it, but it’s not something you can forget.”

“Father died early. Here in Šternberk, in the internment camp. I was in the mines at the time, and when I came home, I got myself the death certificate. I was interested about the cause of death. It’s written there ‘angina pectoris’, that means angina of the heart. That might be true, but I didn’t find out about the events that preceded it until in Germany, from the people from our village who had been there and had seen it happen. [The wardens] had helped him on with beatings, so that he died in that camp; we don’t even know exactly where he’s buried. No one was there for the funeral. He lies here and that’s it. Later, when Grandma died, we had his name written on the tombstone, and that marks the end of his story.”

“It was the time of year when apricots get ripe. It might have been about June ’46. ‘Pack up, we’re leaving.’ So we thought we were going home. Codswallop. They were taking us to Oslavany, near Brno. There was a big mine there, and a huge camp. How many times did we tell them we should’ve been expelled with the rest. But they didn’t let me go, nor my mother or sister. They didn’t release me till early December ’46, that was after the expulsion was already over. And then they said that we can go when the transport gets put together. But it wasn’t ever put together.”