JUDr. Karel Ksandr

“Two hours later there was banging on the door again. Daddy opened up and behind it there was a Russian, well Soviet army member and a young Russian, a lieutenant. They had two sacks. In there was food, bread, flour, whatever, in the other a gramophone and LPs. But of course those were all broken as they simply threw it inside the sack somewhere in Most, in the town. They gave it to us and left.”

“When I went to the German school, that was a school, you cannot imagine at all, it was just like barracks. Everything was in a neat order, I must admit. But the relationship between students and a teacher was just like military service. There was much physical punishment. I once forgot, well didn’t forget, but cleaned the blackboard badly. The teacher, mostly they wore an SA uniform, so called Sturmabteilung, it was a brown uniform, black riding pants, black stiefel, black high boots, and of course a belt... He called me to the blackboard up on a step, as the teacher was above the pupils. He cried: ‚Ksandr, an die Tafel!‘ ‚Ksandr, come to the blackboard!‘ He came and I was in charge of the supervision right that day. That was a single student, who was in charge of keeping order in the class. And during the break we had to march along the hallways in two cues without any speaking. We had ten minute breaks. I came up the step and he told me: ‚Ksandr, wer hat die Tafel abgewischt?‘ ‚Ksandr, who cleaned the blackboard?‘ I greeted him Heil Hitler, standing upright and he said: ‚Well, who cleaned the blackboard?‘ And I replied: ‚Herr Oberlehrer, das war ich.‘ ‚Mr. class teacher, it was me.‘ He stood up and smacked me in the face twice so that I fell down immediately. When I came back home, daddy asked me: ‚What´s happened?‘ Without any lying I had finger marks still on my cheeks. But he would have done that to anyone. That was the kind of order, just like absolutism.“