Margarete Koppe

“So first of all we had to wear an ‘N’, a white band or that letter. A white band with a black ‘N’ on it. Some people wore something here (on their chest). We weren’t allowed to walk on the pavement, only the street. That was the decree, but not everyone listened to it. And then my brother wrote us letters, at fourteen he was sent to the Czech midlands for forced labour. To one village near Olomouc, I can’t think of the name right now. But I went to visit it later. He had to look after four horses, at the age of fourteen.”

“A few days later, about a week it was, the new Czech priest came, Hroznata. And I have to say the man was half saint. Otherwise people liked to say the Czech clergy were nationalist first and Christian later. But that wasn’t true of this priest at all. He was set up as the new priest. And because Mum could play the organ, that church only had a harmonium with bellows, us kids had to work hard on the bellows. And on that note, I have to say that our family was among the few people in the village who went to the new Czech priest for mass. Our mother, since we were brought up to be tolerant, our mother said: ‘We’ll go to the new priest, whether he’s Czech or Chinese, or whatever else. We go to mass for our Lord God.’ And so mum dutifully played the organ there. And then, every three or four weeks, we were invited by the priest and his cook for lunch, but it had to be a secret, very quiet. Other people couldn’t find out, not even the first Czechs who came along, they chose a house and drove the people out. We didn’t care, we didn’t have anything any more, we only had to take a different room. And of course the priest would say: ‘Oh Ms Koppe, I can’t keep you in my house, that isn’t possible, but I can get you a room.’ And so he looked after us and then invited us to eat. And then we had to go work, for the National Committee.”

“In Opava we lived in Hradecká street. And as I said, across the way was the entrance to the hall of The Three Roosters (U Tří kouhoutů). When we arrived in Opava, in summer, I’m still completely sure about that, that was where the SS were gathered, or who knows who, in the Three Rooster’s hall. The whole road was full of flags, with flags at the sides. And we, our mother and us three kids, we had come from the town or from the station. My brother Helmut, he was the cleverest and in 38 he was seven, he was born in 1931. And suddenly he called out loud: ‘Look Mother, it’s like at the circus!’ and mother: ‘Oh God, stop that!’ If someone had heard we would have been gonners. But children and fools tell the truth.”