We were in Rýnovice for three weeks and for three weeks we went to Rychnov. We thought we’d finally be leaving, but we were just moved to another camp, to Rychnov. It was exactly the same there. There was a “captain” there, he was renowned, our very own Schinderhannes (John the Flayer, a German outlaw), he used to scream at people, treated them as prisoners, everyone was just a prisoner, until we got to the cattle-cars. That’s where we were when we got out of the camp. They brought us together from all corners, none of our relatives were there. Some people from the village were there, but we didn’t know any off them, since we’d lived in seclusion. We didn’t know any of the people we were deported with. In Rychnov we got to the cattle-cars and we couldn’t leave those, they were our home, there was our luggage, our 30 kg. Our mum brought a duvet, that was all. We didn’t have anything to bring. We didn’t have any jewellery or anything, we were poor people. Wedding rings, I know about them. We had a teddy-bear, she cut the belly open and put them inside the teddy-bear.
We were in the camp three weeks, in Rýnovice. One day like the next. Us boys, we were always hungry. I never felt full. I never had enough, always wanted to eat more. I was a small boy. Well we were healthy after all… But in that camp there were also people who didn’t cooperate or played dumb, they were treated a lot worse. And if they put up any resistance, they were put in the bunker. Or if they didn’t do what everyone wanted them to, you had to say “Yes” to everything. And some people weren’t let out of the bunker. Some people died there.
Home is where you’re born. I say I’d never have left my mountain, if there had been work there. I’d have stayed at home forever, never left my home alone. Today when I head out there, sit on a rock, we had a lot of rocks on our property, then I feel at home. A second home is never like the first. But today, understandably, I say: I wouldn’t want to live there anymore, because I have no friends there. There are no neighbours. So what am I even doing there? Your home means your neighbours, friends and so on. Despite this a person longs for that little bit of land, a place they were really at home. Our grandparents had already owned the place. They spoke German. Even my great grandparents spoke German. We’d been on that mountain for centuries.
Rudolf Kiesewetter was born on 26 September 1932 in Nová Ves nad Nisou as the third of four sons of the poor locksmith and toolsmith Hartwig Ernest Kiesewetter and his wife Frieda. At home in the family they talked in German, more precisely the local dialect “Paurisch”. In 1937 Rudolf attended the kindergarten in Jablonecké Paseky, the kindergarten was led by two Jewesses. Their father Hartwig was not forced into the war unlike many others, because he was tasked with the distribution of food stamps and his sons helped him carry out the task. The oldest son Heinz was conscripted at the end of the war to join an anti-aircraft unit and died in January 1945 in Poznań. The second-born, Bruno, despite not being eighteen years old yet, was ordered to join the Reich Labour Service (RAD) in Moravská Třebová, from there to Gdańsk from where he escaped to American captivity and he only got to meet his family in Hessia after the expulsion. Meanwhile little Rudolf went to school – that is until May 1945. At the end of the war the Red Army arrived in Kynast, the women hid themselves. After them came the Czech “resistance fighters”, who behaved significantly worse. In early January of 1946 their grandmother died, their father was refused entry to the funeral. He was quickly forced to join the so-called hunger march (Hungermarsch) on foot to Frýdland and few days later back again. Between the end of January and half way through March of 1946 the family was deported through the Rýnovice and Rychnov camps into Germany. The family was placed in Glauben in Hessia, and when they found their father and brother through the Red Cross, they moved to Coburg. Rudolf didn’t go back to school, from fourteen he moved from one job opportunity to another. He married Gerlinda Dretschak, expelled from Jesenicko region. He worked as a post-office clerk for the most of his adult life.
Hrdinové 20. století odcházejí. Nesmíme zapomenout. Dokumentujeme a vyprávíme jejich příběhy. Záleží vám na odkazu minulých generací, na občanských postojích, demokracii a vzdělávání? Pomozte nám!
