Now that the modern slavery was over, I could not believe what I had gone through and that
slavery still existed in the twentieth century, and could not imagine what was yet ahead of
me. Some things still remain unwritten about what happened and what I went through in those
previous years. When I was in prison I wrote down some things, and also did some handwork.
As Medical Corporal I was paid 250 Pounds Sterling onto my account, which was paid out to me
on my release, and I got 1,000 Marks. However, the money that I had before I was imprisoned and
was taken away from me, the 320 Gulden, the 400 Francs and the 2,000 Marks, was never seen again.
On my trip to Wanfried I met two young people who were also going to Wanfried. I stayed with
them because everything was unfamiliar to me. They were kind enough to show me the place where
my mother and sister lived. The happiness in seeing my mother was immense. She was at home
alone, and it was more than 4 years since I had seen her. My sister and brother-in-law came
home shortly thereafter and again there was also a lot of rejoicing. In following day I
registered at the town office. I was hoping to find a job in my line of work at a paper
factory, which however, was not immediately available.
I then found out more about what happened in 1945, about the so-called humane expulsion of
the Sudeten Germans. This all was a lie, and was not a humane expulsion. Benesch of Czechoslovakia
wanted it this way and he won. In the West he was not able to find anyone who supported what he
wanted to accomplish, so he went east to see Stalin who gave him his blessing; and this is how
he sold Czechoslovakia to the East. However he later got what was due to him when he was
miserably ruined. Apparently his wife said she would rather go blind than look at another
Sudeten German, which apparently did happen to her. In my opinion Benesch committed an
even larger crime than Hitler. He put everybody in one pot, and thereby punished also
those who before 1938 would have given their lives for the Czechoslovakia Republic. This
happened to some of the Republican Nationalists, who were taken away to concentration camps in 1938. I personally experienced this in 1938 when everyday had we to fear for our lives. Everything then was make-belief. It should also not be forgotten about what happened in Dresden in February 1945, when at Churchill's request a mass murdering occurred. Through the bombardment of Dresden hundreds of thousands of people were killed, although Churchill denied having given such an order. Do not Mr. Benesch and Mr. Churchill belong to the war criminals as well? This disgrace will adhere to the civilized world and remain as a tragedy of the Sudeten Germans, mainly because of Benesch, Stalin, Roosevelt and Churchill. What was agreed upon during their meting in Teheran and in Potsdam will always remain a blemish in history.
After the surrender of Germany, at the end of World War II, all the Nazi followers in
Czechoslovakia were hunted out of their houses; these were mostly doctors, engineers,
farmers or industrial workers. Their watches and rings were taken away from them, and
they had only what they could carry and they were marched to the border of Germany, by Sachsen.
Many starved and had a miserable death. All the Sudeten German women and children also had to
leave their homes within a few hours. They were permitted to take only 30 pounds per person.
Most of he men were not at home and were somewhere either as soldiers of the war or as prisoners
of war. The women and children were placed into concentration work camps and were guarded by the
military. My wife and children were also in a concentration work camp for six months. After,
they were put on a cargo boat on the Elbe River and shipped across the border to Germany.
All of this was carried out by the Swobata army. The Sudeten Germans had been in Sudetenland for
more than 500 years, and the Czechs came to this area much later, apparently from Asia. The
Empress of Austria, Maria Theresia, also immigrated there. Some Czechs wanted to kill all
the Germans in Sudetenland, or a good part of them. They thought that by putting 3,000,000
Sudeten Germans and all the other Germans from the East into one spot they would starve to
death, and thus exterminate them. But through other circumstances, and through their diligence,
the German people were able to get themselves out of this misery.
A huge blemish will always remain in the history of Europe, and of the world, for the years from
1932 to 1950. I only found out later, after the fall of the Third Reich, what had happened at
home to my wife and children. When the Russian Army came to our home town of Fuellerdorfel, they
stayed there for a few days (Nieder Preschkau) and occupied our house. They were decent and did
not bother any of them, except for one situation when my wife and the woman that lived in our
house, were harassed by a Russian soldier from Mongolia. Being held at gunpoint he wanted to rape
the women. They were brave and were able to prevent him from doing so. They climbed through the
window and were able to run to the neighbor's house, where they found protection. The other
Russians were OK, and even gave the children food to eat. When they were leaving, my son and his
friend traveled with the soldiers to the next city, unknown to his mother. A relative later
saw him with a Russian soldier sitting on the moving military vehicle. She told him to get
off immediately. He got off and then went home. My wife and daughter did not realize where
he was and had started to search for him. During that time, an uncle of mine, whom I treated
like my father, past away as well. He was a brother of my father, and all this commotion was
just too much for him. The Communists, meaning the Czechs, also then woke up and took all
rings, watches and jewelry from the people. The German people were required to give up their
radios. If there were any items which they liked in the houses, they took. The Sudeten Germans
were unprotected and everyone was on their own. During Hitler's time a lot was done wrong, but
strangely enough, what the Czechs did, was not perceived as being wrong. Among
those Czech people, there were many who we had gone to school with and grew up with. Hatred was
not heard of when I went to school, and evolved later around Communism. My wife had to go out
and work and to earn a living after the war. She went to work at the paper factory were I had
worked before. On March 6, 1946, she was forced out of our house. In the evening on that day at
9:00 p.m., they were informed that they must be at the outskirts of the town at 6:00 a.m. in the
morning. They were allowed to take 30 Kg per person and were searched by the communists at
outskirt of the town. Anything that they treasured or was of any value was taken away from
them. They were then taken to Jonsbach to a concentration camp. They were loaded onto a
horse-drawn wagon and did not know their destination until they arrived in the Jonsbach in
the Czech Republic work camp. There they were searched again. They were guarded by the Czech
soldiers and had to work without pay. They had little to eat and starved. They were in this
camp for 6 months, and were waiting to be shipped off to Germany. These were mostly women
and children whose husbands had been drafted into the German army. Only a few older men were
included. Of those people, none had belonged to Hitler organizations. The women and children
in the Jonsbach camp had to dig the military trenches shut. Some had to pull a large wagon
without a horse every day about 6 km to the paper factory to get wood chips for making a fire
for cooking the food. Some had to go to farms and work in the fields, in the same fields that
belonged to the Germans before they were forced to leave. Everything suddenly belonged to the
Czechs. In the work camp there was no warm water. They had no facilities to bath; there was
only an outside toilet. Approximately 400 people slept in a big hall. The bunk beds were 3
high. During the night the bed bugs were biting. When they lifted up the mattress at night
and used a flashlight they could see the bugs crawling all over the bed. They also had head
lice. After six months they were taken to Tetschen to another check point. There, they were
put on a cargo boat on the Elbe River and shipped to Wittenburg in Sachsen, East Germany.
There, they were unloaded and again their destiny was unknown. They only found out where
they were at after they walked off the barge. It took four days to travel from Tetschen to
Wittenburg. During the daytime, they were permitted to sit on top of the barge, but at night
they had to stay below deck and sit on top of their suitcases, which was like being inside a
dungeon. People sat next to each other on their belongings, with no room to lie down. In Wittenberg,
they waited for two days outside the train station until a train car was arranged for them.
They were then transported to Wertlau in Sachsen to a discharge camp and stayed there for three
weeks. After that they were sent to Rosslau in Sachsen, East Germany. In Rosslau they had very
little to eat and had very little wood for heating. To keep warm they had to stay in bed
and cover up themselves with their feather beds. That winter, the temperature dropped down
to -30 C. Many of the water pipes froze. My wife and daughter had to carry water for about
seven blocks. If they wanted to buy food, they had to stand in long line-ups for hours.
Groceries were not available every day and all the food was rationed. Was this a humane
deportation of the Sudeten German people? No, what had happened was grossly wrong! Hatred
was seeded among all these people. Many were deprived of their rights, and for this we have to
thank Stalin, Roosevelt, Churchill as well as Hitler. They indicated that they wanted to make
things better for all of us. This slavery of mankind began in 1938 and for us, ended much
later, when my wife and I, and two children, arrived in Canada in April, 1952.
After I arrived in Wanfried, in West Germany I stayed with my and sister for eight days. I
then went to the east zone (East Germany) to search for my wife and children. I eventually
found them in a town called Rosslau. There was a tremendous amount of happiness when we saw
each other again. There were also some friends in Rosslau from back home in Sudetenland. The
living standard was very poor then; there was a shortage of food. After staying for a few weeks
I went back to West Germany. I took my son Wernfried (Frank) back with me, and a friend of mine
from home also came along. We took the train to Muehlhausen close the border between East and
West Germany. From Muehlhausen we walked many kilometers to the border, because there was no
further train connection. Shortly before we crossed the border we were stopped on the road
and arrested by the East German police. The police were looking for cigarette smugglers who
apparently had shot someone, which we found out afterwards. We were locked up overnight.
Just by coincidence there was a Border Commissar there who was from our hometown in Sudetenland
and he helped us with getting out of the jail. I told him that I just came back from being a
prisoner of war and came to visit my wife and children. Next day he took us to the border
crossing and let us across. Since my son was a refugee from East Germany he was allowed to
sleep at my sister's place. He also later attended school in Wanfried, Hessen. After one month
I went back again to the east zone to Rosslau to get my wife and daughter. Before I left I got
an Inter-zone passport. I went back the same route as I did the first time. In Rosslau I was
able to get a travel permit for my wife and daughter, and to my surprise seven families came
along with us to West Germany. We rented a utility wagon and on it we loaded the few things
which they still owned. The other people loaded their stuff into the utility vehicle as well.
We rode to the last train station by the border, and from there we made our way to the border
crossing. About one kilometer from the border we were stopped by Russian soldiers with the
Russian word "stoj". They searched our luggage. Some of the women had brandy with them,
which the soldiers took away from them. They also demand 20 Marks from each of us, and we
were let go after that. We left some of our belongings at the border crossing in West Germany
and continued on to Wanfried in Hessen. The other people with us went to some other destinations.
A few days later I found a horse and wagon in Wanfried, paid for them with two bottles of
schnapps, and we went back to the border zone to get the rest our belongings. We were stopped
a few times on the way, and eventually with a lot of difficulties, made it back to Wanfried with
all of our stuff.
I then got a job, and an apartment suite was assigned to us. Later, we were able to get a better
apartment suite. I also joined the Social Democratic Party again. I had already belonged with
them before the war, back in Czechoslovakia. Food was at a shortage, and in the fall we went
into the fields and hoed through the previously harvested potato fields and searched for left
over potatoes that the farmers had left behind because they were too small. We also went to
the harvested grain fields and searched for the remains from wheat or oats. This way we had
a little bit extra to eat. Food was very scarce and we were forced to do this to survive. At
the same time, some of the locals went to the baker with their cake pans, and there had their
cakes baked, which caused some resentment and problems.
I worked in Wanfried for a branch of the Henschel Works (Kassel), a saddlery under the
impression that Germany had a high standard regarding social benefits. But I found out
otherwise; Germany then was 20-30 years behind that which was Czechoslovakia's. The surrounding
area of Wanfried was very nice and there were many mountains, very similar to our home
in Sudetenland. However, we were always looked upon as second class citizens by the locals,
because to them we were refugees; and we often sensed this. I was able to get an acceptable
apartment. When an election for the city government was held, I was elected to become an
alderman for the city. I helped the poor and was also involved in various commissions. Through
my suggestions I was able to provide some people with vegetable garden allotments, a city
swimming pool and as well other things. I was also able to get the city to sell some land
to some of the refugees so they could build houses. There were some things which were not
proper anymore, such as several bylaws that had been made hundreds of years ago and were
still valid; for example, the graveyards which belonged to the city of Wanfried, but only
the Evangelical and Catholic Church had the rights to it. If one was a non-believer or of
a different religion, which was the case for many refugees, then they were not permitted
to be buried in these graveyards. This law was then changed through my intervention.
The local branch in Wanfried of the Henschel Works saddlery was then closed, because it
had relied on the war for their business. When I had worked at the Henschel Works, I was
elected as the second shop steward in the work council. I was thus required to go to Kassel
to attend council meetings. I already had some previous experience as shop steward for
the union with 1,200 members in the Paper Factory at home in Czechoslovakia before 1938.
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