Josef Schicho

* 1930

  • "Then, the next day, it was November, yes. We had to go to the line-up again and one commissioner, a Czech partisan, was sitting so serious with a gun and everybody had to walk past him. And he asked me, he said, how come I didn't wash my feet? I had been running barefoot all summer, now of course I had feet…, we had washed them too, but anyway... And then they had a former SS man there, because the Czechs couldn't keep hitting somebody, it hurt their hands. So they had this SS young man, he was a guy who was always being ordered, you have to give this one fifty blows and twenty and so on. And then with me he told him to give me ten blows. He really beat me, he had to, yes. Then this Czech suddenly said, that's too little, then he jumped up himself and this Czech beat me again, showed him how to do it. Then they threw me towards the door and that was the last time they slapped me in there, beat me. That was also the last time in my life, then I was never... Yes, that was then in the internment camp (KZ)."

  • "I walked into the room and there were about, I don't know, twenty people lying there. They were all lying on the floor, there was one blanket, but no more. They were just lying there. And they were moaning. I know that one elderly farmer had his face so broken that all we could see on it was bare flesh. He was lying there. Then another one, there were three Austrian young men, they were here as labourers from Klagenfurt, they were here too. A head teacher, a medical student, a doctor from Cetviny, I was lying among them. And others, about twenty. I can't say exactly, anyway, I was lying there. I had to keep my head tilted because of the wounds. Yes, that was the first day."

  • "And then we were driving past my home, past my parents' house. I saw that there was already a Czech flag hanging in the window. My father had never had a Czech flag. Then we drove on and a local Czech saw me being taken towards KZ, the internment camp, as it was called in Czech. We got there and they herded us up to the KZ building, to the warden. He was a Czech partisan, that's what we called him, 25-30 years old. When we entered the office, there was this Czech and two others sitting there. Then he said with such a face: 'Stand up!' I did, and so did my friend. Then we had to turn around and then it came. Then they were slapping us. But how! Until I was covered in blood. Then they threw us towards a door, into a toilet, poured cold water on us. Then they locked us up. It was the 30th, 31st, something like that."

  • Celé nahrávky
  • 1

    Freistadt, Rakousko, 04.09.2020

    (audio)
    délka: 01:44:48
    nahrávka pořízena v rámci projektu  Stories of the Czech-Austrian Borderland KPF-01-210
  • 2

    Galgenau, Rakousko, 28.08.2021

    (audio)
    délka: 01:45:06
    nahrávka pořízena v rámci projektu  Stories of the Czech-Austrian Borderland KPF-01-210
Celé nahrávky jsou k dispozici pouze pro přihlášené uživatele.

I experienced a brutal, unlawful expulsion from my homeland

Josef Schicho (1932)
Josef Schicho (1932)
zdroj: Witness´s archive

Josef Schicho was born on 29 January 1930 in Kaplice. His parents ran the family farm there. The Schicho family were of German nationality. He grew up with his younger sister Anna Maria. He attended primary school in Kaplice. In 1944 he completed military training in the Alps. In the spring of 1945, he was drafted into the Volkssturm units to defend the area around Nové Hrady. He escaped from there before the front arrived. At the end of October 1945, Josef illegally crossed the border into Austria. He was caught by the Revolutionary Guards and placed in an internment camp in Kaplice. There he was brutally beaten several times. In November 1945, he left for Austria with his father. His mother and sister followed them in February 1946. The family made their living by working in agriculture. Josef graduated from a two-year agricultural school. In 1952 he rented a farm with his parents. In 1958, the witness purchased a farm in Galgenau in Upper Austria and began farming independently. Four years later he married Helene, née Schläger, and together they raised four children. In 2021 Josef Schicho was living in Galgenau.