“We kept waiting for the intermission bell but never rang, and then we learned that the Gestapo was at our school. They came and put us on buses. There were many buses. All our class went, so did the boys from the sixth class and one or two classes from another school – the tech institute. Some were not in school that day, maybe they were sick, and the Gestapo collected them and they had to go to Terezín as well. Then they interrogated us. We, the girls, did not know of anything, so they closed the investigation. Things were worse for the boys, they likely knew something. They sent them on to concentration camps. They had a terrible time in Terezín. A German warden beat them with a steel chain, tortured them terribly. Nobody hurt us girls physically.”
“The boys were imprisoned until the end of the war. Some died there. Karel Dvořák because of whom it all started died in Terezíně. He used to go to a German inspector or teacher. He got this idea and threatened him. Our boys encouraged him and prompted him all the time. Although he was a high school student, he was weird and eventually he got us all in trouble. But we, girls, knew of nothing and the boys were sent on to concentration camps. Mirek Lácha died after a month and other boys died soon too. They had probably been infected, their bodies were probably weakened.”
“Silva Rajtrová was there longer than the three months that we were there. She and Chourová were there until Christmas. And Silva sent a card to a Jew in Terezín right after release. They knew it was her – I don’t know how they inspected mail – so they arrested her again and sent her on to Auschwitz. She lost interest in life and died soon.”
Irma Jarmila Anna Nedomová, née Stelčovská, was born on 31 December 1924 in Litoměřice. Her father Josef, a sergeant of gendarmerie, died of pneumonia in 1928 and Irma, aged four, stayed alone with her mother Emilie. They lived in Libčice nad Vltavou. Irma and mother moved to Mnetěš at age 17 in 1941 and started going to a high school in Roudnice instead of Kralupy. During the Heydrichiad towards the end of the academic year 1942, her entire class was arrested by the Gestapo and interrogated in Terezín‘s Small Fortress on the grounds of an alleged student plan to assassinate Alfred Bauer, the headmaster of German primary school in Roudnice nad Labem and an active NSDAP member. Irma‘s schoolmater Karel Dvořák was the alleged leader. She and other female schoolmates were released from Terezín after three months. Most of the boys were sent to concentration camps. Eight boys and one girls died as a result. The witness passed her school-leaving exams after the war and she later moved to Ústí nad Labem and started a family.
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!
