Vladimír Ráček

“We were bringing macadam there, the same material used in road construction, and the place was wet and they found out that nobody knew how much macadam had been issued... I was a leader of students of theology. Our performance rate was 140 percent. We were supposed to work over hundred percent, and our leaders, the officers, were paid according to how much we exceeded hundred percent. There were regulations for that. We worked for the Metrostav company and they paid us, but we had to use this money to pay for our accommodation, food, and everything, and what was left was being sent to our savings account and we were receiving only some pocket money.”

“The three of us agreed that we would set out for Brazil. We were eighteen years old and in July 1945 we set out for some port in France. We chose Cannes and we planned to board a ship there and go to Brazil and work for the Baťa company here. Baťa’s son escaped to Canada, but he died in an airplane accident, and Baťa had left for Canada before the Germans came... His brother was in Brazil and he grazed cattle and built factories there and we thus decided that we would go to Brazil.”