Helena Stránská

“The Russian [woman] Mariya and Vasil came from Crimea, so I guess she was Ukrainian actually, then me, then there was one Italian captive there: he had a rank, but it’d been stripped, but he had the clothes, you know, a pretty Italian type he was, black, handsome. Well, and the five of us serviced the machine. Well, but [our shift was] from six to six, it was so tiring! But at noon - we went for lunch. Except I told myself when I came there: I won’t eat and I’ll die in a fortnight. That was my idea, you know. Because I was awfully, you know, picky about food, Mum had had such a hard time with me, with my food... But when you’re there a fortnight, you get so hungry that you don’t look twice if it’s edible or not, you go right in.”

“It was clean there, but they had to use some kind of ventilation, otherwise we’d suffocate; but a lot of girls fell ill. There was one Anička from Mladé Vožice in my room, and she got boils all over her body. And then I got them as well, but that Anička died [later - ed.]. And so we were sick, we were in our room, and one day she told me: ‘Mum sent me a package.’ And there was a bottle of milk in it, kind of sour, like cream. And she asked me to give her a drink of it, so I did, and she died straight afterwards.”