Rudolf Hüttner

One day the farm supervisor took me on his sled, there was so much snow everywhere and he had a lot of business to do in the village. He tied up his horse in front of the school and went into the public house across the road. After school ended the children rushed out, they gathered stones somewhere, made snowballs out of them and threw the stones at me. They could probably tell I was a German, or just knew it. But they also hit the horse which was understandably frightened and the farm supervisor noticed, ran out and shouted at them. The children disappeared and he brought me into the public house where I was given a Vienna sausage. That taste, just thinking about it, I can still remember. It was quite a special moment for me.

There were three of us boys and we had to dig mass graves at the camp in Bystřice. We were hungry. See, we only received two slices of bread, fifty grams a day and a bowl of watery soup. If they gave me today’s dishwater, that would make a more nutritious soup. All of us boys were about the same age. Almost no grass grew inside the camp any more, but we could see the sorrel growing outside. There were four guard towers, and during the change of guards we would tear our sleeves on the barbed wire so long as we could pick some of that sorrel from outside the camp. We then ate that or gave it to our other family members.

I didn’t pack anything. Yes, I wanted to take my toys with me. Even then I had Schuco-brand cars, at the time that was a present only rich people could afford. Around the year 1944, because I was already an altar boy, I was given a toy altar as a present, with all the things you need, a chalice, water, wine and host. I wanted to take it with me, but they said: “Nothing, just the most important clothes to wear.” Winter clothes, it was already cold out. But otherwise – yes, a camera. My older sister hid it somewhere at the bottom of the bag. It was a Voigtländer Vito and I still have it today, but it no longer works.

We were only allowed to bring 30 kg of luggage. We assembled in the Stříbro town square, then we boarded trucks which drove us to the station, from there we were packaged into cattle wagons without windows, thirty people with luggage standing there the whole day until it grew dark. And then the train moved first one way, then another and so no one knew which direction we would be going, whether to the East or West. The doors were closed from the outside so we couldn’t open them. We had only one or two buckets in place of toilets.