Marie Drnková

“And some of them, when I was at Homman and Katz, the Germans who were there, they knew already they were loosing. There was a front approaching, they were thirty kilometers from Pforzheim. They knew already they finished. There was a picture of Hitler on the wall, a photograph. It was in every factory. Yuck, yuck, they spat and said Scheisse (shit). And they swore at him. What was it good for when loads of Germans stayed there in the war. They also lost their lives. And there were so many women, widows. They swore at Hitler, all of them. Hitler started the war and he ended up like that. And when we were there, they attempted on his life in Pforzheim many times. He had similar body-doubles. And they always got the wrong one. The one who was no genuine Hitler, he always paid for it.”

It happened on Sunday, February 28th. A couple of planes flew over Pforzheim. Girls were writing a letter that they didn't want to let us go home, that our term, the year, has already expired. Well, we were supposed to be there for a year and the year was over. I ran out. We lived in Russian labor camps outside the town. Well, we had a good time there. They dropped nothing on the Russian labor camps. They had notes about it all, they took the notes when flying over by planes. So they dropped nothing there. When I ran out I saw there were already trees reminding of Christmas. A bright yellow one, a green one, a blue one. When they shot the rockets out, they stayed like Christmas trees hanging in the air. Such wonderful colors. And it was a sign for the other planes. At first, a few flew over ahead and they shot out the trees there. And the other planes flew as they saw the sign. When they shot out the rockets they had the sign where to fly. So they flew directly at Pforzheim, they had already had it planned. Well, and I shouted: ‘Girls, stop writing. Jesus, there is an air raid.’ Well, the girls stopped it. They ran and we went to hide under a little bridge because we didn't make it to the big one. It was too late. It was such a way, it took over five minutes. Well, we didn't make it there, we went right at our camp as we were in the Russian one. The Russians were there as well. Some of the Russians were hidden under the big bridge. We were hidden under the little bridge. There was water and our feet were wet. There were no heights at that time so our stockings were wet half leg deep. It was bad. The raid lasted two hours, there were three hundred air craft. They destroyed Pforzheim. Boys, friends who were born in 1924 as we were, their camp was in the center of Pforzheim. They had a kind of shelter there so they escaped with life and limb. One of them was a chef in a restaurant, he was also Czech. And he was killed there in the air raid. He didn't come back. The raid started at eight and it was over at ten. They flew away. And the boys were heading towards us to see if we were all safe and sound. I mean our Czech boys from downtown. Only a finger of one of them was injured but otherwise they were all right.

And the Germans, they were damned. It was only singing, there were the Hitler's youth. They were beating the drums all over the town. I couldn't hear a sound of it. It was every time I was on my way back from the factory. There was also a streetcar, we used to go by streetcar, by a tram. So I rather ran away. I couldn't listen to it, what it was.

It was in 1950 or 51 so you had no money. People hanged themselves, they jumped out of the windows. It was like that, it was awful. So many people in Prague were said to have jumped out of the windows because they had no money. A neighbor of ours hanged himself. We had a little cow then. The old man, the neighbor, used to say: ‘You see, Mařenka, I've got some clothes but when they take money from me, well, I've got some money. It would be worse.’ And I replied: ‘You see, when you've got some money and you have your little cow. Don't worry, it will have to be solved somehow. And you'll be all right again.’ We always used to keep cows out at grass. He had his own cow and I had my own one. And he used to say: ‘Of course, Mařenka, you're right. And it will be all right again, won't it?’ ‘Of course it will, look, they have to give us some money again, what would we live for.’ And it happened one morning. He, the neighbor, hanged himself in a cowshed, in a little cowshed on a ladder. He hanged himself. And I said I used to reason him out of it. He used to say: ‘You're right, aren't you?’ He agreed but he fell down soon again. And he changed his mind again and kept saying: ‘How shall I live? How shall I live?’ You know, old people.