Description
Object description
Czech civilian member of the Czechoslovakian Resistance, 1939-1941; inmate of Mauthausen Concentration Camp, Austria, 5/1941-5/1945
Content description
REEL 1 Recollections of background in Turnov, Austria-Hungary and Czechoslovakia, 1919-1938: family circumstances; family's religious and political background; education; relations between Germans and Czechs; living standards and degree of freedom; relations with Communists; personal politics; attitude of Czechoslovak fascists of National Fascist Community; relations with Jews; Francophile attitudes; relations with neighbouring countries.
REEL 2 Continues: visits to foreign countries; visits to Berlin, Germany before Munich Crisis; Czechoslovakian reaction to Munich Crisis, 9/1938. Recollections of involvement with Czechoslovakian Resistance in Czechoslavakia, 1939-1941: contact with senior British civil servant Charles Fish who was sympathetic to Czechoslovakia; beginnings of resistance to Germans; sight of Germans moving into country, 3/1939; German restrictions against Jews; degree of collaboration with Germans; impact of declaration of Second World War on Czechs, 9/1939; organisation of resistance group; narrow escapes from Gestapo.
REEL 3 Continues: Recollections of arrest by Gestapo, 1/1941: reasons for arrest; interrogation in Prague; treatment of Jewish prisoner by German policemen; transfer to Theresienstadt Concentration Camp. Recollections of period as inmate of Mauthausen Concentration Camp, Austria, 5/1941-5/1945: train journey via Linz to camp; character of fellow prisoners; beating by Schutzstaffel (SS) personnel; reception in camp; quarantine period; allocation to work in granite quarry; Schutzstaffel (SS) beatings on route to quarry; work done in quarry.
REEL 4 Continues: forcing of inmates to carry stones to the top of quarry steps; hospitalisation for foot infections; aid given to him by Polish officer prisoners; cruel jest by Schutzstaffel (SS) guards; how he became a blockschreiber; injection of petrol into inmates hearts; question of the danger of knowing too much; aid given to him by fellow Czechs after witnessing injection of inmates.
REEL 5 Continues: transfer to main camp and role as interpreter; arrival of women prisoners, spring 1945; aid given to English female inmate; contact with British agents; murder of Jewish inmates by throwing them down into quarry, 1942; meaning of term 'Muselmann'; mutual aid amongst inmates; memories of Jehovah's Witnesses; resistance organised by inmates; question of survival factors.
REEL 6 Continues: receipt of food parcels by inmates; story of moral Czech safe-cracker inmate; witnessing execution of escapee, 30/7/1942; attempted mass escape by Soviet prisoners of war; degree of contact with surrounding population. Recollections of liberation by American troops of Mauthausen Concentration Camp, Austria, 5/1945: threat of destruction of camp by Schutzstaffel (SS); disappearance of Schutzstaffel (SS) guards; manning telephone exchange; arrival of American troops.
REEL 7 Continues: organisation of camp; role as interpreter; sight of gas chambers and crematorium; revenge taken on kapos; American action in stopping lynchings; question of forcible repatriation of Russian prisoners; return to Czechoslovakia and resumption of education. Aspects of medical experimentation carried out on inmates at Mauthausen Concentration Camp, Austria, 1941-1945: giving evidence at post-war investigations of German war crimes; nature of experiments.
REEL 8 Continues: effects on inmates of experiments; effects of imprisonment; question of German Government compensation for former inmates.