Helga Rügamer

“We spent the night in the farmers’ barns. But they were already partially full, because from the other camps, as we later discovered, from another camp they had already driven some people there. That led to problems later, because one group says we went this way and that way and the others say they went a different way. But that evening we were all in one spot. They came from another camp and we came from the Cvilín camp. The nights were the worst, due to fear of rape. Edit was sometimes shaking so hard, that Erich had to hold her tightly. We were also lucky to find our aunt in all that confusion. She then walked with us and from her we discovered that Grandma was in the tank camp, in the other one. And Kurt stayed alone in hospital. We basically crossed the Jeseníky Mountains, over Videlské sedlo, Šumperk – I’m not sure about those names and order – all the way to Králíky. And in Králíky they locked us up in this factory and that was all they did for us. They just patrolled around the premises with loaded guns.”

“Then they drove us further. On foot, 30 kilometres the first day, all the way to – now I’m not sure about the order of the places, it’s a mess in my head. My brothers were three years and five. They couldn’t walk for long. So they had to carry them. They had a pram for me and it was a good thing there were so many of us and each of us had different skills. Erich tied his trouser belt to the pram, so that we could lift and pull it, so the pram would last the whole way. He soon found that out. The streets weren’t paved back then, it was just gravel. I’m sure they sat Walter on my legs. But for most of the journey they had to carry him, it’s hard to believe! While walking! Erich felt responsibility. He was the oldest. He looked out to make sure all the children were close to the pram, so that we’d be as far forward as possible in the ‘funeral march’. Because from behind we kept hearing screams and shots. We had a neighbour, she lived in Opavská Street at the rear tract right next to us. She was a lady over eighty, she couldn’t walk any further. So they simply shot her in the ditch by the road. That’s why he had to watch out to make sure we were at the front.”

“At the end of March we left Krnov for Rýmařov, because our parents were afraid of the Russians. Because concentration camp prisoner marches had previously passed through Krnov. And they must’ve looked terrible. We always had to go inside the house, as my older siblings told me, and pull all the blinds, nobody was could be seen at the window. But they peeked out anyway. And these must’ve been the most impoverished figures, indeed. We didn’t know where they were coming from, it was all suspicion and gossip. They didn’t have anything on them, it was in January, they were freezing, only cloths on their feet, it must’ve been terrible. That’s why they were afraid of the Russians and so at the end of March, I think, or in April 1945 they moved to my grandmother’s in Rýmařov.”