Vladimír Prchal

* 1922

  • "Face the wall, and that was because the commander at that Wuhlheide was named Novak and the deputy was named Shramek. But his name was Schrameck. That was the head of that camp, the second one I was in. Someone else said to me: 'There was no camp there, there were no executions there.' As I read in the book here, that's where a general was executed, at Wuhlheide."

  • "So face backwards and there's a wall, yeah? And now there were wooden floors, in that wooden camp, and a platoon marched in there. They were giving some commands and loading rifles. I was like, 'This is it.' I couldn't even turn around to look at my buddy to see if he was scared too. Suddenly it passed, they marched away and we could face back again."

  • "It was nine o'clock, we had to go to work at six, and it was nine o'clock and nothing was happening. So I said to the janitor, 'Could I go get a snack, okay? And he said, 'Yeah, go get something to eat, it's already nine o'clock.' So I went to get food, and instead of eating, I went up on the roof. There was this rabbit hutch. The Germans had a rabbit hutch. There were Sudeten Germans who were also stationed in Berlin. I climbed over the rabbit hutch, jumped over the wire fence and raced to the station. At the station, I bought a ticket and I got that without checking."

  • Celé nahrávky
  • 1

    Pardubice, 12.02.2014

    (audio)
    délka: 02:01:31
    nahrávka pořízena v rámci projektu Stories of 20th Century
  • 2

    Pardubice, 05.03.2014

    (audio)
    délka: 02:21:12
    nahrávka pořízena v rámci projektu Stories of 20th Century
Celé nahrávky jsou k dispozici pouze pro přihlášené uživatele.

After three days of interrogations, I wanted to jump out the window

Vladimír Prchal, historical photograph
Vladimír Prchal, historical photograph
zdroj: Archiv Vladimíra Prchala

Vladimír Prchal was born on 26 May 1922 in Slatiňany. From 1942 he was forcibly deployed in Berlin in Reinickendorf as a toolmaker in an aircraft engine factory. He was then transferred to the Ambi-Budd Presswerk factory. Here he met a communist anti-Nazi resistance fighter, through whom he became involved in the distribution of anti-Nazi leaflets. Before that, he had a fight with a German colleague at his first workplace, and after some time he was arrested for this and imprisoned for three months from December 1942. After his release, he was again assigned to the Ambi-Budd Presswerk factory, but in February or March 1944 he decided to flee to his parents in Pardubice. Due to the numerous visits of the gendarmes and the fact that everyone already knew that Vladimír Prchal was hiding with his parents, he decided to turn himself in. After his arrest, he was transported to Ruzyně prison and then to Alexanderplatz prison in Berlin, where he was interrogated for distributing anti-Nazi leaflets. He was sent to the „chopping plant“ in Plötzensee and then travelled via Dresden, Plavno, Leipzig and Ingolstadt to the Dachau concentration camp in October 1944. He stayed there until the liberation by the American army on 29 April 1945, but due to forced quarantine and convalescence, he stayed until May. On 23 May 1945, he returned to Pardubice and then worked in Trutnov in a textile factory and then at the post office. He disagreed with the emerging communist practices and, after the police intercepted a letter criticising the situation in the estate of the late minister Jan Masaryk, he was arrested and sentenced to a year‘s imprisonment for insulting the minister on 23 December 1948. However, he was amnestied almost immediately and was able to return to his wife and newly born child. He then worked at Plynostav until his retirement. At the time of filming (2014), Vladimír Prchal lived in Pardubice.