“I could play violin, guitar, mandolin or other stringed instrument. Once I was called upstairs to play guitar for commando members. I thought some party was happening there. They borrowed me a guitar and I had to play to provide accompaniment for executions. People were beaten up there and I had to play guitar. Once we even played soccer in Auschwitz against the guards. I personally did not, but our boys played. We were forbidden to win even if we could. That was the deal. Otherwise the consequences would be dire. Even among prisoners were squealers who were betraying others for a slice of bread. One such man from Vienna lived among us. We realized he had been informing on us, e.g. if someone had rolled a cigarette. We beat him up and than threw him onto the barbed wire. As I have mentioned Nazis had murdered more than million of children. One of the methods was to infuse them twenty cubic centimeters which had caused embolism. I dislike speaking about it. On one occasion I was taken with another three men – I have no idea why – to a room to watch a film about experiments on animals with cyclone B. There was some doe, fox and a bigger animal pig – probably due to the different weights. I can never erase this from my memory. Never! It is even impossible to replace it with anything else. I can’t get it out of my head. Once the polish guards – they represented some kind of elite there – put a boy in a stockpot and boiled him. Then they gave us this soup to eat.”
“There were not enough workforces in Nazi Germany at the end of the war, so they selected 1000 young men from Auschwitz for Reich. We thought we are going to gas chambers, but we were put on carriages instead and transported to Schwarzheide, which lies approximately 40 km far away from Dresden. In Schwarzheide was a factory processing coal into gasoline. The factory had been bombarded. A labor camp with wooden barracks was built nearby. Prisoners of war from Italy, France and Poland were working alongside us. We were working really hard, e.g. we were digging trenches and carrying stones. For example the SS-guard got an order to return back five men less. He simply killed them. Or he seized someone’s cap, threw it away and ordered the man to go and get the cap. When the poor man followed the order the SS-guard shot him and than reported the incident as an escape. One day a bomb hit the village Schwarzheide. We were sent there to remove the ruins. With one guy we got into a farmhouse. The homeowner who left the house during the assault had left there a wooden trough filled with potatoes mixed with nettles to feed the geese. We had gulped it down completely. It was so delicious I can taste it even today.”
„In 1938 when the danger of Nazism was rising we had established our illegal group. We were connected to another group led by Dušan Šubrt – he was later executed in 1942. I escaped form Prague after Hitler had arrived. I was hiding at Rakovnik area where our group had connections. Our meeting spot was the well known pub U Rozvědčíka. Our group was the only one truly Jewish illegal group. I had been working at one farm in a small village Tytry. I had involved my brother in the group as well. We had produced false IDs for example. All members of the group are already dead. Only I have survived.”
“Finally we set off for 300 kilometers long march of death. Only 600 men lived still from 1000 originally selected. German refugees were moving all around from Poland. A horse had dropped dead along our path, so we got it from the refugees by begging and ate it. In the end we arrived to Litoměřice. During the march we were tide in pairs to a rope. We were towing a wagon full of SS-guard’s stuff. In case someone was too exhausted to carry on, he was pulled out of the line and shot dead. Only 200 of us were able to reach Bohemia. We literally grazed on the meadows, we ate dandelions. I weighed only 28 kilograms in the end. The SS-guards disappeared on one day. We were lucky they didn’t shoot us; probably they had no more ammunition. Russians saved us. I was lying finished in a roadside ditch. They drove us to Terezín.”
„We were brutally driven off the train, guards were shouting at us. Some old exhausted woman was lying on the ground. The camp was relatively far away from the railway station. So I carried her to the Auschwitz in my arms. After we had arrived I had been standing barefoot for ten hours in the snow. My feet got frostbitten of course. But others had lost their feet completely. At first they shaved our heads clean, the rest of our bodies as well. Then they tattooed numbers on our forearms. This was done by polish guards. Around 1.000 people had arrived in our transport. We were given no food of course.”
„I was about to commit suicide. When I was released from hospital, I was not able to sleep. When I fell asleep I got back to Auschwitz. There is nothing you can do about it“
Jiří Richter was born on 4th of December in 1919 in Prague in a Jewish proletarian family. He was trained in trade but he made his living by working as a manual laborer. From his very youth he inclined to political left. In 1936 he became a member of communist party. During the war Richter with brother joined a resistance movement in a Jewish communist group connected to Dušan Šubrt operating in Rakovník area. The main meeting spot of the group was the well known pub U Rozvědčíka. When Richter realized his parents were called up to a transport to Terezín in 1942, he decided to join them. His father died in Terezín shortly after. In December 1943 Richter was transported to Auschwitz together with his mother. Richter got there a good place in a sick bay. This probably saved his life. He was able to survive in Auschwitz until the year 1944, when he was selected among other 1000 men for work deployment in the Third Reich. It was then that he saw his mother the last time. His brother perished in Auschwitz as well. Richter was transported to a labor camp in Schwarzheide to a factory processing coal into gasoline. He returned back to Bohemia in the spring of 1945, on a 300 kilometer long march of death. Only 200 men survived from the 1000 originally selected in Auschwitz. Richter arrived home to Prague via Terezín on the 8th of May, 1945. He weighed only 28 kilos. After the communist putsch in January 1948, he took up career in education. He graduated at University of Politics and became a professor of political science at Charles University of Prague.
Hrdinové 20. století odcházejí. Nesmíme zapomenout. Dokumentujeme a vyprávíme jejich příběhy. Záleží vám na odkazu minulých generací, na občanských postojích, demokracii a vzdělávání? Pomozte nám!
