Else Pecher

* 1923

  • “This was when the American was still there. And the refugees came into the Holzlager. We came to Mettenheim, we were there in Mettenheim. Imagine 45 persons in a single room. It was a garrison and there was one room where 45 persons were accommodated. And what did my parents do? There were a lot of youngsters there and we only had these field beds. They put those four beds together and me and my sister had to sleep in the middle, my dad slept on the one outside, my mother on the other. They were afraid something might happen to us. We spent 3 months in that camp, until November, and we only stayed because my dad had work, he was in charge of it. Thereafter, some Czech social democrats moved into the house next to us and they warned us. They told my dad that we had to move immediately, otherwise he would be eventually arrested.”

  • “I worked in a little factory. I was assigned to forced labor shortly before I turned 18, being one of two girls from the place where I lived, one of two in 26 girls, who was conscripted to work. It was because of my membership in the SPD. My name was marked red. The other one was a communist. So we were assigned to forced labor. It was in 1942. That year, the winter was very cold. At home, I head a feather bed. In the new living quarters, 12 girls had to share one room and six beds, bunk beds. The place was called Auherzen, about twenty minutes from Nirschan. It was a new labor camp that had been built shortly before. That's where we came to and we had barely any clothes. Most of the time, we had to wear the clothing we came in, as they took away our suitcases. So you had no access to your suitcase and the clothes that you took with you. We worked at a farm, each month a different one. And from work we went to the cloister where we were accommodated. It was called 'Kriegshilfsdienst', and after work we'd go back to the cloister. We had to take a train to get there every day and they kept us locked in there. Then they came from other camps and confiscated the cloister. They couldn't stand us. Then I came to Holleischen, we went every day to a munitions factory and produced small projectiles. We were actually checking them for any flaws. From early morning, before 7 o'clock, till 6 o'clock in the evening and than we got on a train and went back to our quarters. We arrived around half past 7 and got a little bit of food, mostly green peas soup. We only got bread on the weekends in the evening. We suffered greatly from hunger.”

  • “We had to go to these political classes. It was at Bodensee, yet, and I was sitting in the first row. I was absolutely not interested in that stuff but I had to go to that class. And the teacher asked me when the Führer had been born. I stood up, remained silent for a few moments and then I told him that I didn't know when the Führer had been born. He asked me where I had gone to school and how it was possible that I didn't know that. I told him: 'but I can tell you when Dr. Garrigue Masaryk and Dr. Beneš were born, I know their biographies by heart. But I don't know when that one was born'. So he asked me again where I had gone to school and I told him: 'in the former Czechoslovakia'. He told me to sit down and I was never asked anything again. So it had certain advantages and I was left alone. The other class mates later told me, that it was quite courageous, what I had said. But I was so terribly angry at that moment, you have no idea.”

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    Waldkraiburg, 24.07.2014

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I was so angry, it’s hard to imagine

Else Pecher 2014
Else Pecher 2014
photo: Miloslav Man

  Elsa Pecher was born on June 15, 1923, in Tisová (Eibenberg) near Kraslice (Graslitz), in the vicinity of Karlovy Vary. The Bavarian border to the Vogtland was situated just a few hundred meters outside of their house. Both of her parents were workers who were active in associations close to the Social Democratic party. Her father was the chairman of the council in the factory where he worked. He was also a member of the trade unions, the SPD and of the Worker’s Association. Thus, Elsa Pecher was predestined to grow up in the children’s and youth organizations of the worker’s movement, such as the Worker’s Gym Association. After the Sudetenland had been annexed to Germany in 1938, her father was assigned to forced labor in the Reich. Pecher herself was sent to forced labor in 1942 - being just one of two of her whole class - for her political beliefs. Until the end of the war, she was assigned to forced labor in various labor camps throughout Germany, the last one being nearby Augsburg. Shortly before the end of the war, in April 1945, she was released from the camp and had to take the troublesome journey home. In the period following the war, her father at first had a job and the family was thus not immediately banished to Germany. It was only in 1947, when an Antifa transport took them to a refugee camp in Mettenheim. In 1948, she married her husband, who likewise originated in the Sudetenland. They shortly afterwards moved to Waldkraiburg, where she lives until today.