Rudolf Albrecht

“At Babí lom, the main question was how to bring the material up.” (Interviewer: ”We spoke about a sort of a human chain.”) “There were about 250 workers who made up a human chain and passed buckets with mortar.” (Růžena Albrechtová: “The enthusiasm was strong at the beginning but eventually it faded out. Luckily, we managed to get it all done.”) “Yes, luckily there were about five last enthusiasts who stayed. I wanted to back off but they persuaded me to stay because they would never finish without me. I was skillful with my hands. I knew how to lay tar and bend steel. I always managed to acquire skills, somehow.”

“I went to the court in Brno. It was a time when all political prisoners were sent to Jáchymov or Příbram. I had a friend who was a professor, (he played volleyball as well), and I managed to send him a written message from prison that I would be interrogated at a certain time and certain place. I had the worst prison guard I could imagine. He had a nickname but I don’t remember it. He led me to a waiting room where there were ten other doctors. One of them gave me some cigarettes. The guard later took all the stuff out of my backpack and when we came to the cell, he threw it all on the floor. The doctor who was there with me, his name was Dušan, looked at the pile and he asked me who had brought me to the cell. I told him and he couldn’t believe.” (Růžena Albrechtová: “That's the guard that would even carry things for you.”) “But it happened. Things like this happened.”

“I worked for a health insurance company where I was respected and had certain power.” (Růžena Albrechtová: “Connections, huh?”) “I was always good at it...” (RA: “The boys were always sent to him for medical examination.”) “So the boy was placed in a labor camp or something like that in Ostrava.” (RA: “It was called Totaleinsatz.”) “After he went on leave – he was also from Lelekovice – and didn’t come back when he was supposed to, he was in danger and could have been sent to a concentration camp. When I saw him next he was crying and I told him that I wasn’t sure what I could do. But I went to the director, he was German, and I told him the truth – that the boy was a student and he hadn’t made it back on time. I needed to talk to someone in top management. I told him what happened and he said: ‘I wouldn’t do it even for my own brother.’ So I made for my way out of the office and I said: ‘Thank you Herr director.’ And as I laid my hand on the handle, he called me back and signed all the papers which said that the boy had to stay in a hospital. And a friend of mine, an internist, admitted him to the hospital, so the boy survived.”

“I didn’t go to the second mobilization because I was sick. I was recovering from hernia surgery or something like that. But I knew their mobilization status, so I was quickly declared as healthy and sent to Poličná. That was a tank division.”