"We spoke only Czech so he would also speak Czech with us. We were cautious, mistrustful and he was mistrustful, too. There was a library in the camp and we would all browse through books in one of the corners every now and then. Once he came there to borrow a book. He was looking through a book when one Czech guy who stood behind him said: 'Why did they lend it to you? How can such an illiterate understand these things?' It was some classic book. He didn’t say a word and left."
"We got a card with a number. We had to attach it to a button on our shirt and make sure to never lose it because it was something like our identity card. They interviewed us, asking for our date of birth and the like, and then we could sit down again. So after they had recorded all the information about us they needed, they gave us a number and put down our personal data. Then we sat there until the early morning when they sorted us into lines and we set out to the train station which was located across the street by the barracks. Nowadays there is a night shelter for the Ministry of Defense."
"In Prague, I enrolled at the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering and got through the first year quite well as I managed to pass a lot of exams at the end of the semester. Then I could happily leave and go back home for the summer holidays. I used to spend my summers in the village of Pašinovice located by the small river of Stropnice. I used to go there as a little boy and I usually spent the holidays fishing. The people of Pašinovice knew me as a boy and later as a young man. The second year of my university studies was remarkably more heated. In 1938, there were big preparations taking place for the Sokol gathering. It was the last pre-war gathering and it was preceded by school games in which I had participated in before in the year 1932. However, this time I was just a spectator. Even at that time the situation was quite tense so when I got back to Hlávka’s dormitory after the holidays, there was a lot of debates about what was actually going to happen to us."
"Of the 150 boys, they drove out approximately 18-20. The rest were hidden by the block chief. The SS-man didn't mind that, he didn't ask for more, instead he called on some others with shovels and the first group had to lie down while the others buried them in snow. So they lay there underneath the snow."
"There was a strong spirit of resistance among us students and we wanted to go to Prague to demonstrate our opinions about the protectorate. And so it happened. No one could prevent it. There was a huge group of students at Charles Square shouting in front of the Czech Technical University and then they proceeded to the inner city. They were shouting things like: 'Shame on the protectorate', 'Freedom', 'long live the Czechoslovak Republic' and so on. Of course the whole Czechoslovak national anthem was sung including 'Nad Tatrou se blýská' which was strictly forbidden back then."
Rudolf Šindelář was born on April 7, 1919 in České Budějovice. After completing elementary and secondary school, he went to study Mechanical Engineering in Prague. He was accommodated at Hlávka’s dormitory and successfully completed the first two years of his study. However, after the death and the funeral of Jan Opletal, he and other students were arrested on November 17, 1939, and taken to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp near Berlin. After his release in 1942, he worked in Prague, at first for the Swedish firm SKF Ball Bearings and later for the Labour Office. In May 1945, he participated in the Prague uprising. After the war, he completed his studies and worked in a power plant in Větřní and in a paper mill in České Budějovice. Currently, he lives in Roudná nearby České Budějovice and he is a regional chairman of the Czech Union of Freedom Fighters. Died in May 2012.
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!
