„As we arrived, they put us on the ramp. There was no selection so all of us went. It took over half an hour. Then they put us into one block with a room, a cellar and a little window high up. It was about two and a half meters. We stood one next to each other. We had to pee on each others feet. At half past two we left this prison in Ostrava. When the alarm went off we knew we were on our way. Where? Nobody knew. SS-men stood in the hall so there was no way of escaping. Jump out of the train? It would have been no use. But if we had known already then I don’t know... its reputation was horrible already. We thought gas was being produced there. There was this Buna and talk about cyclon being produced there. But it was produced elsewhere. A train was transporting it here and there.
„I returned to my barracks and they asked me straight away: ‚What’s up?‘ I ran straight to my guys: ‚Boys, pick up some weapons and hide them.‘ So they hid 6 rifles in the kitchen. The next day we took them away. Those were the first rifles for the resistance. Then again, others broke a number of rifles because there was an order to hand the weapons over. If they had found anyone keeping a rifle after twelve hours, he would have been shot.“
„This doctor was Alexej Čepička. The other day, he told me: ‚You've got to know that there will be selection. You need to disappear, because on Friday, everyone will be gased.‘ – ‚How can I disappear?‘ – ‚I’ll bring you a ticket tomorrow.‘ He gave me back my rags and immediately I saw a pile of corpses in the hall to be burnt. I received a three-day ‚dokšalung‘, which meant being free from work for three days. I would just do some sweeping around the bloc etc. A prisoner was not allowed just to stand there. So I finished it up that way. The third day was Sunday and a message came that we would be moved to bloc 23. There was a classroom there and we were selected for a course. Well, I didn’t die.“
„I had a girl, she was from Orlová. She was eighteen and I was twenty-two years old. She worked for Landenzeitung (Country Newspaper). They printed newspapers but mostly ration coupons. She had to go naked to those machines before she was given any clothes. And on the way back, she needed to leave her coat and walk naked to the bathroom. I have no idea how the girl managed to smuggle the coupons through. She would hand me the coupons in the evening. A whole roll. I then brought it to Čeladná, to the butcher and he handed it to the guerilla soldiers. Perhaps those Ušiakovec’s received it.“
„Initially, we were all accommodated in Jemnice, in an old can factory. Probably a vegetable can factory. Half of the crew kept guard and the other half were in the factory. But from time to time, those „ordners“ were shooting at us when we went on guard. We couldn’t shoot back or even chase after them. These ordners were in some way provoking us all the time.“
„The commandant came in. We were standing in rows and he walked by. I looked at him and he said: ‚Come on.‘ I have no idea what he want from me. To look at the ground or at the sky? He assigned me fifteen men and showed them where to dig. Then he split up the rest and took them to a different workplace. My men just sat down. Even Bohuš Dorazil, a judge of a district court in Ostrava. But they overdid it. They were just sitting there. They thought that if nobody with a club in his hand was there to shout at them ... I should have taken a club and at least lean on it or shout. But the commandant made a notation of this. He knew that we did little. He grabbed me and ran after me so that I ended up getting pneumonia. Leap-frogs, crawling in the largest of slops... Then he stomped on my kidneys. He hurt my spine. I was recovering for fifteen years and spent eighteen months after the war in a plaster bed. Just you live and work with that in a concentration camp.“
„The camp was closed on March 14th and we were confined to the barracks. I was just returning from a slaughter-house where I did some stamping. Then I went to a butcher in Sviadnov to check whether the meat was stamped already. They were supposed to distribute it to us the next day. While returning from the butcher I could already hear machines moving from Příbor and some motorcycles coming from Ostrava. At that time Hitler’s army was supposed to move to Slovakia as they had made a protection request. I therefore left the road and went on foot through a field and came to the square in Místek, from behind. Some soldiers were already in the archway and others were moving towards the 8th regiment. At once I saw the convoy slowly approaching the main road towards Czajanek factories where they stopped. But even before they stopped I rushed into the barracks. The moment I got in, they were already arguing and at once one of the guards opened fire. That 84th regiment officer limped away as his leg was hit by a splinter. That’s when the bustle began. A battle broke out. I was handed a light machine gun as well. Standa told me to get as low as possible because the angle for shooting from above is high and they were on the ground.“
„We were crammed in that house and waited until the second day, that was something terrible. The next morning we changed into uniforms. We had to strip first. It was freezing, about minus seventeen degrees. We were jumping around like monkeys. As we stripped, they sprayed us with hot water, then cold water and then they sent us out. So that we would be clean. Then they started clothing us. Shoes first, no shirts or anything. We could keep none of the clothes we had.“
Miroslav Šolc was born in 1918 in Řepiště near Místek. In 1937 he joined the 8th infantry regiment of the Czechoslovak army. He graduated from an officer school and afterwards was assigned to border garrisons near Jemnice as a group commander. There he experienced a couple of gun battles. After the Munich Agreement he was reassigned to garrisons near the Polish border, where soldiers were attacked by the Polish militia. After the annexation of the Těšín area by the Polish army, Miroslav was called back to Místek. By coincidence, he was in Czajanek barracks on the 14th of March, 1939 and took part in the only armed conflict between Czechoslovak units and the occupation forces. Soon after, he was released from the army and took part in the resistance by helping aviators cross the borders of Protectorate. He also established contact with a resistance group Lvice at his workplace. He took part in several train sabotages, distributed illegal print and smuggled ration coupons for the guerilla soldiers. On the 13th of January, 1943 the gestapo arrested him and after a series of brutal interrogations in Ostrava sent him to Auschwitz where he worked in a gravel-pit. He was nearly beaten to death by the German commandant. Alexej Čepička, the future communist minister of defense, helped him out after that. Later, Miroslav Šolc was assigned to a group which was to exsiccate Pin swamps in today‘s Belarus territory. But instead of that he was transported, in August, 1943 along with a group of prisoners to Buchenwald and three months later to Dora-Mittelbau concentration camp. He worked in a fire brigade and then in a surgery at nearby Mittelwerk factory where V-1 and V-2 rockets were produced. In May 1945, Dora was liberated by the Russians and Miroslav Šolc was transported to the Red Cross in Leipzig. During the next several months he recovered from the injuries he sustained in Auschwitz. Before Christmas of 1945 he finally made it home. After the war he received a disability pension and a tobacco shop in Nový Jičín. The work did not satisfy him, however so he became a mining directorate. Died in 2016.
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!
