Josef Hasil

"And he wanted me to put my hands up. I knew I had to do something. So I climbed up and grabbed my stomach as if it hurt. And I didn't do anything. I just kept my eye out to see where he had the rifle. And as soon as I saw it, I grabbed it quickly, pushed it back away from me, and as I was holding the rifle, I jerked it. He was holding it, I was holding it, but I pushed him back with the rifle. And, of course, I gave him a hard yank with it, and he let go of the rifle and rolled down the road to the ground. And I said to him, 'Warum bist du zu toll' (unintelligible; in the second recording: 'Why are you so stupid? Why don't you let me go? I won't do anything to you'). I still knew a little German. And he, when I saw him, the poor guy, his eyes were bulging out from how scared he was. He looked like a corpse. I took the rifle and threw the magazine out. I put it in my boots, and then I threw the rifle into the forest when I was safe from him. And when I knocked him down, I fired my gun, too, so he wouldn't follow me, and the woodsmen would come to his help. They thought I was going to hurt him. I had absolutely no intention of doing anything to him. I just wanted to get back to the border. And I already knew where to go. I was almost there. Just to cross that road."

"There were over forty of us. The truck could fit about the first twenty of them and take them to the camp where we were staying. And then they came back and took the other twenty. So the only thing to do was to wait that time for them to come back. So they put us in a room which was guarded by a guard with a rifle, as they called them. One of the workmen, one of the communists, was guarding the place. He stood by the door and watched to ensure no one escaped before the truck arrived. We figured it out and said, 'We have to take a risk'. So I had an agreement with Tonda that as soon as the first ones depart - I told him, 'Look, Tonda, I'm going to jump over to the door, open it and fly out. And you have to follow me. That's the only way we can escape.' But we also took a big risk because sometimes there were some SNB (National Security Corps - transl.) guys guarding outside, and they had dogs. But it happened to work out. The SNBs weren't there, and the dogs weren't there either. And I flew out the door, and Tonda said the guard got so startled that he left the rifle behind. And he ran out and shouted at us (as we later found out from others who had escaped): 'Young men don't run away, I won't tell on you'. Will say, won't say, we were already gone - by the wall, by the high wall. We climbed over it, and there was a path behind it."

"I told Tonda, 'Look, there's a gamekeeper here. We have to get help. We can't go any further,' because the bottom of our feet were blistering. We were wet and tired. So I said to Tonda, "Tonda, wait here behind the logs." It was early in the morning, probably before seven o'clock. As soon as I opened the door, there was a woman just like you. I told her, 'Excuse me, we're no criminals. I'm a member of the SNB (National Security Corps - transl.), I escaped from prison. I was arrested for taking people across the border.' And she said, 'Oh, come in, we have a son, and he wants to escape too, and we don't know if he's already done it or not.' And the gamekeeper came right in and said, 'Come inside, don't be afraid.' They helped us tremendously. They treated our feet with some of that oil they have for animals, they washed us thoroughly, they gave us food, and we waited until the evening. And in the evening, we agreed - the gamekeeper said: 'I know a place in the forest where you will be hidden. Only the gypsies know about it, they go there to give birth.' In the meantime, we asked if they could notify someone from my region. And they said, 'Yes, yes, write a letter.'"

"I had good hearing, which was my luck when I was crossing those borders, transferring. I had the advantage of hearing very well indeed. Just a little rustle somewhere - and I already knew where the guards were. I detected that with my hearing. Sometimes, they smoked, too, which was easy to detect. And sometimes, they weren't smoking, but something rustled somewhere, so I heard it and I avoided where they were and I bypassed them. And then I went across the border. And that's how I eventually got involved - that I ended up transferring people who had wives or parents in the labour camps. So I transferred them across the borders when they needed it." - "And which route was the most dangerous?" - "All of them. When you went to Bohemia, all the roads were dangerous. But it always ended well, thank God. I always prayed before crossing. I prayed to the Virgin Mary and told her not to help me if I was doing anything wrong. But I always made it out all right. Sometimes I saw the guards, sometimes I didn't see them, sometimes I heard them. And so I bypassed them when I heard them and crossed the border again."

"When we were arrested, we were being interrogated, we ended up getting all the way to Pankrác together. Each of us was interrogated separately, of course. They invited Vyleta to a room at the police headquarters that day. They blindfolded him. When you walked in the door, you immediately got kicked, you got hit in the stomach, in the legs, and it was already on. You didn't know who was hitting you. And they would tell you all these "pleasant" things. You can imagine. And then I saw him: his teeth were broken and knocked out, he couldn't speak for weeks, and everything hurt him. So I kept waiting every day for it to come - the beating - for them to call me. But I don't know why, bless God, in the end, they didn't beat me like they had beaten him. I didn't get beaten, but I experienced the same hunger as him. But I wasn't as hungry as he was. I was able to put up with a terrible lot, and I still saved that extra piece of bread at the end so that if I didn't get any bread the next day, I would have at least that one piece of extra bread. So we went through it all together, the whole tragedy."