Ernst Weber

* 1930

  • "Those who were displaced first had almost nothing, only the clothes they were wearing, a backpack and something in it. In summer, May or June 1946 the situation got a bit more normal and each person was allowed to carry 30 kg. And when it was our turn in August, the limit was increased to 50 kg per person. So, at that time, we were already allowed to carry 50 kg each. And what did we take with us? The essentials – one suit, some underwear and also some bed linen or things like these, some cookware. We didn‘t take almost any food because we knew or thought that we would be given some everywhere."

  • "It was most frequently at 6 am when several gunshots could have been heard in the village which practically meant the displacement was here, this was how we found out that day was a displacement day. Because the displacement didn‘t take place every day; four or five days or a whole week always passed since the last one and then others had to leave again. So what was it like in our case? It was about 6.30 am, a policeman came knocking on the door, displacement is here. Well, there was no chit-chat, he didn’t make any fuss about it, saying: "You have one hour.” So we finished packing in that one hour and then we put the items we could or might have taken with us on the street, then a cart pulled by horses came, helped us load the stuff, it had already been organised somehow and we were driven to the Rýnovice camp."

  • In the years after 1960 I still occasionally travelled to Czechoslovakia because my granddad or better said grandparents still lived there; my daughter would go with me, too. And what was there on the other side of the border? Well, some things were still familiar to me, the brother of our housekeeper also lived nearby, so we would meet him. On the one hand, it was a strange feeling being allowed to go home again. But at the same time, I was drawn back by what we had built here with great effort while working here. And whether somebody was snapping at me there or something like that? On the contrary, we were well received everywhere. When we were shopping, for example, in Jablonec, the shop assistants even tried to utter a few words in German, the German mark was very sought after in the first years, one would have got anything for the German mark. I was also trying to dig out some Czech words but it was rather poor after so many years. But on the few occasions I was there after 1959 or 1960, we were getting along.

  • “There were about four or five buildings. Foreign workers who were employed or forced to work in the nearby Zeiss plant stayed there for the whole duration of the war. But when we got there, the following year, they had not been in the camp anymore. Forced labourers had left in May 1945 already and we only arrived there in July, or rather August 1945. It was completely normal there, bunk beds, a few blankets, we also had some belongings with us. We were given food, it was quite a normal life in the camp, I would say.“

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    Weidenberg, SRN, 28.05.2019

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    délka: 01:39:10
    nahrávka pořízena v rámci projektu The Removed Memory
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Living together with Czechs was good, it could have stayed the same as before 1938

Ernst Weber with a glass mould in January 2019
Ernst Weber with a glass mould in January 2019
zdroj: Pamětník

Ernst Weber was born on 8 June 1930 in Janov nad Nisou (Johannesberg in German) near Jablonec as the son of Ernst, a glass mould manufacturer, and his wife Emma, née Streit. He was getting ready to take over the family business since he was a child. His native village was inhabited predominantly by Germans, more Czechs lived in the neighbouring town of Jablonec where he was getting his apprenticeship. In Mr Weber‘s opinion, living together with Czechs was good, everything could have stayed the same as before 1938. During the existence of the Czechoslovak state, Ernst attended a German school. There was one Czech class in the school, too, however, the Czech and German children would only rarely get into contact. In 1941 his father Ernst was sent as a forced labourer to the Junkers plant in Germany. He was partially poisoned by leaded petrol there and was dismissed from the factory in 1944. He was suffering from the effects of the poisoning for the rest of his life. The Red Army passed through Janov on 11th or 12th May and as early as in June 1945 a Czech administrator was appointed for the Weber family workshop. The house was then marked “under national administration“. The grandparents of Ernst Weber were declared “anti-fascists“. The parents of his mother were completely spared the expulsion, the parents of his father were expelled into the Soviet zone in a privileged way, i.e. including their furniture and a considerable part of their property. The Webers and their baby son born in 1945 were included in the expulsion relatively late in August 1946. After the stay in Rýnovice (Reinowitz) and Rychnov (Reichenau) camps, the family embarked on a week-and-a-half long ride on a cargo train, passing through Žitava (Zittau), Dresden and Berlin before they arrived at the internment camp in Grimmen. After a short stay in Ballenstedt in East Germany, the Webers managed to acquire a permit for relocation to Bavaria. In 1952 the family moved its newly established company for glass mould manufacturing to Weidenberg. This is where Mr Weber has lived until this day, started a family, and took over his father’s business in order to pass it on to his own son later on.