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From my point of view, Sered and Terezin were equally bad. First of all, I missed my parents, I missed school, I missed playing. A kid needs something else than being in jail. Secondly, I was always cold, terribly cold. In Sered there were several dozen of us in a room, and we had only one small stove. People used to call it a "Vincko". We were also very hungry. The Germans had a kitchen, and my brother and I used to go pick through their garbage cans. We used to pick potato peels out of the guards' garbage cans. We'd then roast them on that small stove and eat them.
In Terezin they for some incomprehensible reason put us with the men. That saved our lives. The rest of the children remained with their mothers, and they deported them onwards to extermination camps. We lived in the men's quarters. I left a piece of bread sitting there, which they stole. There was some sort of quarry outside of Terezin. Up front someone would dig something up, and we'd pass the bucket he'd filled along. We stood in a long row and handed the bucket from hand to hand. Originally there had been a lot of children in Terezin. They even put on their own plays. One of them was named Brundibar [13]. But they gradually transported all the children away. Further transport was practically a death sentence. Most of them perished [Of the 7590 littlest prisoners deported eastward from Terezin, only 142 lived to be liberated. Only those children that remained in Terezin for the entire time had a chance to be saved. On the day of liberation, there were around 1600 children up to the age of 15 in Terezin (source: www.pamatnik-terezin.cz) – Editor's note].
I tried to escape from Terezin. There was a section that was guarded by Czech guards, and so my brother and I decided to try to leave that way. Czech guards were more benevolent than German ones. A guard was walking around there, and when he was far enough away, I walked around the Small Fortress [14]. They called it the Kleine Festung. That's where they tortured people. You could hear the screams from there from far and wide. I waited for my brother. My brother didn't come. Several tens of minutes later I again saw an opportunity when the exit wasn't guarded, and slipped back in. I asked my brother, why he didn't come. He told me: "Where would we go, anyways? They'll turn us in right away, after all, no one will let themselves be killed. They'll catch us at the first house, give us to the Germans, who will kill us.
In Terezin they for some incomprehensible reason put us with the men. That saved our lives. The rest of the children remained with their mothers, and they deported them onwards to extermination camps. We lived in the men's quarters. I left a piece of bread sitting there, which they stole. There was some sort of quarry outside of Terezin. Up front someone would dig something up, and we'd pass the bucket he'd filled along. We stood in a long row and handed the bucket from hand to hand. Originally there had been a lot of children in Terezin. They even put on their own plays. One of them was named Brundibar [13]. But they gradually transported all the children away. Further transport was practically a death sentence. Most of them perished [Of the 7590 littlest prisoners deported eastward from Terezin, only 142 lived to be liberated. Only those children that remained in Terezin for the entire time had a chance to be saved. On the day of liberation, there were around 1600 children up to the age of 15 in Terezin (source: www.pamatnik-terezin.cz) – Editor's note].
I tried to escape from Terezin. There was a section that was guarded by Czech guards, and so my brother and I decided to try to leave that way. Czech guards were more benevolent than German ones. A guard was walking around there, and when he was far enough away, I walked around the Small Fortress [14]. They called it the Kleine Festung. That's where they tortured people. You could hear the screams from there from far and wide. I waited for my brother. My brother didn't come. Several tens of minutes later I again saw an opportunity when the exit wasn't guarded, and slipped back in. I asked my brother, why he didn't come. He told me: "Where would we go, anyways? They'll turn us in right away, after all, no one will let themselves be killed. They'll catch us at the first house, give us to the Germans, who will kill us.
Location
Slovakia
Interview
Jan Hanak