“He was listening to American news. The idiot left the radio on when he went for lunch. I would always get in the room where I had my drawing board, and the Poles, the Polish prisoners, made maps for me on the reverse side of the drawing board. I was listening to the news and drawing lines where the Allies advanced on the war front. The radio announced that the American units conquered one town in France which was nearly on the border with Switzerland. I immediately grabbed a pencil and I pointed to the town to mark that it was not a German town anymore. As I wrote it in the map and kept looking at it contentedly how the entire France was already covered in red colour (liberated), suddenly somebody hit me from the back. There was an SS man. ‘You will see, I will show you!’ he yelled. But this man was the SS man who had the radio there. There was a regulation that listening to radio was punishable by death. But he had left it on. Then he came to his senses and he realized that if he had reported me, they would have interrogated him about how I had gained access to the radio. They would have then learnt that he had made it possible for me to listen to the radio. But I can tell you, my ass felt quite tight with fear.”
“Marching up that hill was horrible. It was in February, and we had civilian clothing, they gave it to us, and coats. We had to run up the hill, we were sweating when we came there. Horrible. They picked Jews and they had to jump into the electric fence. They gave me a stick to beat them. I refused, and so they started beating me. You will obey here! I have not hit them, not even once, but they beat me. We waited until about two o’clock, and then they led us to a changing room and to showers. The water was piping hot and we had to run away and then it was ice cold. They brought a pile of clothing for us. Some were lucky and found fitting pieces, but some had too large or too short clothes. Basically there was just underwear and shirts. But it was freezing and it began to snow. And slippers. After two o’clock we got to the administration room where they assigned numbers to us. They made us run to block number 13. The murderer, the block leader, Blockleiter... he made us lie on the ground and he was ordering: ‘Turn left, turn right!’ We were like herrings. Moreover, throughout the night he opened the window about three times and SS man jumped in through the window and he was bullying us. It was terrible, and we spent two weeks there.”
“He (Kachlík) somehow got me involved in this, and then certain Kroupa from a different class. Tonda (kachlík) then told me that the guys got arrested. There were others in my class, too – Zbyněk Sekal. They came for him during a class and he has never returned to the classroom anymore. Some two men allegedly came there and they asked for him. Some boy from a lower class ran out to the staircase and as the two men in leather coats were descending, he called at him: ‘Zbyněk, where are they taking you?!’ and they asked: ‘Who is it?’ Then, about a week or two later, suddenly there was an announcement through the school radio: ‘All class leaders need to come to the teachers’ room.’ I was the leader of my class, the graduating class. I came there, and there were many of us. The principal and two men in leather coats. The principal said: ‘Do you know if there is a student whom they call Mára?’ I my heart stopped, because Mára was my nickname. We thus shook our heads that there was no such student. It looked good. But then the two men in leather coats left and they brought some boy who was crying and ordered him to look at us. And he pointed at me.”
Miroslav Maruška was born on April 23, 1923 in Prague-Dejvice into the family of František Maruška, a successful cook who later became a restaurant owner and the chairman of the Association of Czechoslovak Cooks, Waiters and Hotel Managers. His mother was a housewife. The Maruška family later moved to Prague-Karlín, where Miroslav‘s father had a restaurant. Miroslav was a member of Sokol while he was a student at a trade academy, and thanks to his grandfather he also attended the Hussite Church for some time. He joined the resistance movement during the last years of his studies. At first they were providing financial aid or food ration stamps to families whose members were imprisoned. Later they escalated their activity and in the evenings they were putting up posters and disseminating pamphlets with anti-Nazi content. Miroslav Maruška was arrested and taken to the Petschek Palace for interrogation in autumn 1941. From there he went to the prison in Prague-Pankrác and then to the Small Fortress in Terezín. He worked on the fortification of the camp and he also did work on the railroad track in Ústí nad Labem. In February 1942 he was transported from Terezín to the concentration camp Mauthausen. There he worked in the commando called Planýrka and he was preparing the space for the construction of the so-called Russlager, a camp for Russian prisoners of war. He witnessed killing of Jews in his commando, and he had to take the corpses out and throw them onto wagons. The camp staff injured him with a non-diluted anti-lice solution and only several days later they allowed him to receive treatment in a hospital. Following the bullying of Czech prisoners as a repercussion for the assassination of Heydrich, Miroslav was selected and transported to the auxiliary camp Gusen. Although he did not have any technical education, he followed advice from others and he applied for a technical job. He inspected fighter planes, and in spite of various problems he thus had a relatively good position. Miroslav even tried to support the resistance movement by listening to news about the movement of the war front. After the liberation of the camp he led a group pf Czechs who set out for the journey to Linz and from there to Prague. After the war he worked at first as an accountant and then he studied the University of Economics. Thanks to his language abilities, in 1948 he began working at the Ministry of Foreign Trade. He administered the publishing house Artia which produced books for foreign markets. He knew Jaroslav Seifert or Jan Werich, among others, and he was in touch with them through his work. He strove to conclude the most advantageous contracts for Czechoslovakia. Miroslav Maruška died on September 14, 2010 in Prague.
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!
