Zdeněk Florek

* 1927

  • “In around 1943 the presence of political pamphlets was uncovered in our peers’ class, and that class was exemplarily punished for it. All the members of that class had to leave the school, from their studies, and become employees as craftsmen and so on.”

  • “It was a cantonment, where there were not only those forced to be there as part of the Technical Auxiliary Battalion, but off-duty soldiers as well. As a separate organization we were like a single unit. Part of our duties was helping out in the courtyard. The conditions there were rough, even though us young boys fared much better than if we had been older. But you couldn’t help but be hungry.”

  • “Nobody ever discussed with us whether we were going to be in the Protectorate or the Reich. But the fact of the matter is that our year, 1927, was not subject to being able to leave for the Reich. So, we had to stay in the Protectorate. I was sent to Brno to be legitimately enlisted, and then we were stationed in the Vsetínsko region in Huslenky, where we built a road, and after that period came to close we were transferred from Huslenky to Jablůnka, where we repaired another road, and then we were ordered to go to Kuřim near Brno.”

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    Ostrava , 07.02.2016

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When I was sixteen they stuck us in a forced labor camp in Kuřim

Zdeněk Florek was born on 6 December in 1927 Ostrava-Vítkovice, where he lived with his parents until he was five years old. His father Josef was a public servant at the city hall in Ostrava, while he mother was a homemaker. In 1932, his family moved to a house in Ostrava-Zábřeh where Zdeněk spent his childhood and youth. His recollections are mainly concerned with the war years. He went to lyceum in Moravian Ostrava, but when he was sixteen, in 1943, he had to do forced labor. Among other jobs, he worked as a hand in a work camp in Kuřim, and he recalls the ill-treatment and hunger he suffered there. He also recalls the air raids and liberation in Zábřeh. After graduating from lyceum in 1947, he studied University of Banking until he allowed himself to be kicked out – he intentionally failed his exams on Marxism-Leninism.