Rosemarie Kraus

Of course we children were also growing. Our feet were growing. And we still had to fit them into tight shoes, do you understand? That’s why as a child, because we didn’t have any shoes and I had to wear the same pair for three years, well one of my feet was completely mangled and to this day I have problems walking. Later in Bavaria my father, when they allowed him to make shoes again, just had make one shoe a different shape.

And then we drove off for the Všebořice camp. My cousin who is ten years older than me told me about it later. We were there for eight days without any food or water. Our grandmother kept walking alongside the fence to see if anyone would throw something over it, but nobody could throw anything: they were being watched. Our cousin said people ate the worms from the rubbish bins, that’s how hungry they were. But I personally don’t remember that. I only know we were in some kind of large space and that there were a lot of items of clothing on the floor. I had a small wooden angel who hung above my bed and they wanted to take it away. A beautiful wooden angel. I can still see that angel lying up there on the bedclothes. My mother pleaded with them to give the angel back and eventually they did. And so today it’s still hanging over my bed!

And then, because of my aunt’s two children (she was locked up in Skřivánčí pole), we had to stay in Chlumec, but many had to leave immediately in 1945. The Westphalen count and countess with their children had to leave right away. They had a beautiful chateau in Chlumec, but they went straight up and over the hill with a hand-cart. They still do come to Chlumec once a year. We were allowed to stay, but then we had to leave our aunt’s place and go down to the truck on foot. It was by the church, you have to go down and round the bend, “drehe” we used to call it in our home dialect. And there was an open truck at the church, as they used to be, all open at the back. My parents lifted me up I had a rucksack with my dolly peeking out. We had to leave everything else at home, all our toys. I remember it well, across the way from that place was the farmyard of my great aunt. There were a lot of people standing about down there, my acquaintances and distant relatives who weren’t being deported yet, everyone was crying. And one good Czech woman, who had already taken over the farmyard, she handed us up a bottle of milk.