Alois Kubíček

“We arrived in Olomouc, where we were awaited by non-coms, privates, corporals, and they herded us straight into some old wooden wagons. Then we set off, and we kept stopping and waiting at each station, knowing nothing. We weren’t allowed to get out. So we ended up in Most, and we still didn’t know anything. They unloaded us in Most and took us to the barracks. We were given ragged civilian clothes to wear and work uniforms. I was given some kind of a sailor’s coat with long tails. The boat was still blood-stained. So we started to suspect that something was up, but no one said anything at all yet. We travelled by train for about three days, and all the food people had taken from home started to smell, so we threw it all out. They didn’t hesitate a moment, they had us pick it all up again, and they had us march around it the whole of Sunday, yelling at us to look at it, that there was no love for us, just work and barbed wire. We gaped open-mouthed and started to suspect that something was up.”