Jiří Pötzl

* 1936

  • "It happened that at the age of fifteen, or in 1955, we were integrated as Czechs. I was given a green book with my photo on it and it said that I was without nationality. It was only later that I got an identity card." - "But you had a different first name." "...I was always called Georg and suddenly I was given the name Jiří, because they said that the name Georg didn't exist in the Czech calendar. That's how it was explained to me by my mother. Since then I've been Jiří. But when I started working in Germany, so that I wouldn't have to apply for a work permit every year, I found out third-hand that I could apply for a German passport. I brought all the papers I had, went to Prague to apply and took my German birth certificate there. That's how I got the name Georg back. I didn't have to apply for a work permit in Germany, I have a German name, residence in the Czech Republic, etc."

  • "Then the Americans were here and below us, today it's the U Muzikanta pub, it was a pub then too and the Americans were there too. They were sitting in the windows, they had their feet out. We used to go past them and they used to throw us chewing gum, chocolate and as they had these rationed diets, we were there every day. And I remember one time, it was after the war with a friend of mine, before he got displaced, we were sitting on the back hillside by the woods. An American came and sat next to us. We were talking with our hands, with our feet. He pointed to his boots, pulled out a knife and cut them along the ankle, smeared them with dirt, and the next day he came in with brand new boots to show off." - "Like he destroyed them in front of you?" "Yes. And once I remember... We found a gentleman in the bushes, he was wearing a uniform, probably a German soldier. And he said he was hungry, so we brought him a piece of bread and a turnip from home. He thanked us, and the next day he wasn't there anymore, he was probably running away from the war and he had moved on."

  • "When the third air raid came, we were going to the bunker. Down behind us, next to the viaduct, there was a factory where they made flypaper, and there was a bunker carved into the rock where we used to go. There had already been water down there, when the bombs were being dropped, so the ceiling of the rock was crumbling. The women and men told us that we had to cry or hum so that our eardrums wouldn't burst, they said. We came outside, there was a lot of smell from the bombs. We came to the house and it had already collapsed. All we had were the things we had with us in the bunker. From there we walked to Dřenice, where my grandmother was still living."

  • Celé nahrávky
  • 1

    Mariánské Lázně, 18.05.2023

    (audio)
    délka: 01:59:14
Celé nahrávky jsou k dispozici pouze pro přihlášené uživatele.

They had their suitcases ready for three years, but they finally were not displaced

Jiří Pötzl in 1942 in Cheb
Jiří Pötzl in 1942 in Cheb
zdroj: Witness´s archive

Jiří Pötzl was born as Georg Pötzl on 1 April 1936 in Dřenice near Cheb. He came from a mixed marriage, his father was German and his mother Czech. During the bombing of Cheb at the end of World War II, the family lost their house. His father was hiding from enlistment in the Volkssturm, his brother left but never returned from the fighting. After the war, father‘s entire family was expelled, but the witness and his parents and siblings were allowed to stay because of the mixed marriage. Georg Pötzl did not obtain Czechoslovak citizenship until 1955 and had to change his name to Jiří. Because of his German origin, he could not train as an auto mechanic. He became a bricklayer, but most of the time he worked as a bus driver for the Czechoslovak Bus Transport. From the 1960s he visited his relatives in West Germany, but he never wanted to emigrate. From the 1990s he became involved in the activities of the Union of Germans in the Cheb region. In 2023 he was living in Cheb. The memories of the witness were recorded and processed thanks to the financial support of the town of Cheb.