Miroslav Kočica

“We would get up at five o’clock and go to the dining hall with our mess-tins for food. Breakfast was the same all the time: coffee and a quarter of bread. Those who fulfilled the work norms for hundred percent received something extra. These extras were marked as number one, two and three. Number one meant that you got one extra egg, for instance. If somebody met the norms for more than hundred percent, he would get for example an egg and a little cube of cheese. Those who worked even more received food coupons number three and they would be getting an egg, cheese and a bit of lard. One had to work, otherwise he would not have enough to eat.”

“I watch the documentaries from the war which are broadcast on television every Monday. I liken the Minkovice prison to concentration camps in Poland and Germany, it was the same as Minkovice. The communists adopted it precisely from Germans, it is absolutely the same, as if copied over a stencil. The only difference was that they cremated the Jews in Auschwitz, and this was not happening in Minkovice, but on the other hand they were using us for work. That was because Russia was a huge country and the costume jewellery that was produced here was all exported to Russia and to those developing countries. They needed us, and that’s why there were no old people; all prisoners there were young people, otherwise they would not be able to keep up with the pace of the work.”