Rudolf Pompe

“We’d built ourselves a new house, so we were one of the first to be evicted. My brother was fifteen years old when they locked him up. I was twelve, so then I was the oldest sibling, and I had to help sustain my grandparents. We didn’t have anything. They evicted us at an hour’s notice. They loaded us up on to a hay wagon and took us to upper Domašov and deposited us there. They didn’t even give us a tin tub to wash in - my youngest brother was born in 1945. They took everything. Later on, my brother returned, so we got some wood from our neighbours so we could at least light a fire. And leave. Then [the authorities] decided they’d let us go to Germany. I stayed to care for my grandparents, but the rest went to Liberec. They were in Liberec for a year, but they didn’t let them leave, because they knew that my brother and I were capable of military service.”

“We didn’t have Czechoslovak citizenship. We didn’t take it, because they sent the Germans to the mines. So I received a letter saying that if I didn’t accept Czechoslovak citizenship, I’d have to pay about two thousand crowns monthly for the privilege of living here. We couldn’t afford that, so I had to take the citizenship. I went to Jeseník and told them that if I took it, they’d no doubt send me to the mines. [The man there] said that was out of the question, that they needed people like me in the army. I believed him and signed [the citizenship application]. I was drafted in autumn, and they sent me straight to Ostrava [the largest mining city in Czechoslovakia - trans.].”