大象传媒

WITH THE AMERICANS
So we came into this town, which was already taken over or occupied by the Americans. We stayed there overnight in some house somewhere and the American soldiers were, as the Germans before, very merry and full of alcohol and we were very afraid of that and we tried to hide somewhere because this was as dangerous as being shot by the Germans if they knew who we were. So we just stayed the night there and immediately the next morning walked on, but in the area or zone, which was already occupied by the Americans, and we came to a small village. The military HQ was in a house there and we walked in there and there we said we are prisoners from a concentration camp, Ravensbr眉ck, could they please help us? They all were looking at us as if we came from the moon and were terribly interested in us. Many, many questions. And the Colonel in charge, who was very charming, immediately said 鈥渨ell the best would be you stay here because if you walk about the war is still raging everywhere but it won鈥檛 take very much longer, we are already in a very good position everywhere鈥�. He said he鈥檚 going to find us a house, he鈥檚 going to requisition a house from the Germans and he鈥檚 going to put us into there. Which he did. And could I work with him as his interpreter?
So that鈥檚 what happened and we got a lovely house where we stayed and they came, all the officers from that HQ, came and brought us everything they could think of to eat and mainly soap and perfume and all the cosmetics which we haven鈥檛 seen for many years and soap which we hadn鈥檛 used for many years. And we had a lovely bath. That, by the way, was something we were all dreaming of for years. The first time we鈥檒l be able to be in a bath again. So that鈥檚 what we did鈥o wash our hair and to鈥o this was just sheer heaven and it was marvellous. And I worked with them at this HQ every day and the two other girls sort of kept the house clean and went for walks and went shopping. Of course, the Americans gave us money and everything. And, in addition to it, brought us all possible food every day. And after my working hours I went with the girls and we went for walks in the woods and it was so beautiful and it was really wonderful to feel free again also. There was still a war on but to be there again, human beings and regarded as human beings. And not only that, we were put on a pedestal for what we had been through.
This was all very nice but our main aim was to get back to Czechoslovakia and back home and find out what has happened at home. Of course these Americans tried to give us as much information as possible as they knew what was going on and what had been going on in Czechoslovakia, but still it wasn鈥檛 enough. So we pestered them all the time could they do something about sending us further on. They said as long as the war is on they can鈥檛 do it but if it鈥檚 a matter of a few days, which it was, when on 5 May there was the official Armistice. I still remember in our little place there was the little American band playing on a big lawn the American anthem and there was a speech by the Colonel and the flag was put up and everybody was rejoicing. So the Colonel promised me that he was going to arrange for a jeep to take us to the next sector, which was the British sector, which was on the way south east, which is Czechoslovakia. So a Lieutenant took us in a jeep to the British Sector to the Colonel who was in command there, again to the HQ.

WITH THE BRITISH
It was already late afternoon and we were taken to the villa of the Colonel, who was just having tea there, and he invited us to have tea with him. This was my first encounter with the English. With the Americans it was all very happy-go-lucky, great fun and very informal. Also my work as an interpreter was just sitting next to the US Colonel and interpreting what he was saying and that was it. But from now on things became different.
So I again was employed as an interpreter. I had my own office and I was mainly translating letters which were sent by Germans for all sorts of reasons. Things were already much better organised because time had elapsed already since the official Armistice and things became more normal. So it was really more office work, which was not half as interesting as with the Americans. And I was very, very struck by the terrific politeness of the English. The person who was with me in the same department was a Major and he was terribly polite and said 鈥淭hank you鈥� all the time. To me it was very, very funny that even if I said 鈥淭hank you鈥� he said 鈥淭hank you鈥� too. So I got slowly used to the English and they were, as I say, terribly polite and nice and in the evening I was invited to dinner parties and I was again treated like a princess. And I still only had the same clothes I had when I was escaping. I still had nothing else to wear. But I was already much cleaner.

GOING HOME
Well from there, our main aim was to get home. Not to stay there working as an interpreter. So, again, I asked could we be transferred further east and eventually by then, repatriation was starting to be organised and there was a big repatriation camp, I don鈥檛 know, 5 or 6 hours away from where we were at the time, and when this was established, this Colonel sent us again, the three of us, to this repatriation camp, which was terrible for us because it was again a camp, again all these nationalities, again lice and bugs and everything. Horrible. Again, so many people sleeping together in one little space. So, again, the three of us we said we鈥檙e not going to stay there, we鈥檙e going to get home under our own steam, which was not allowed because there was no method of communication, neither by road, nor by train, nor by air, between the countries at that time because it was only just at the end of the war. We were waiting for an opportunity how to get away from there.
One day a lorry came with somebody who came from Czechoslovakia - it was a girl with her boyfriend and her father was some big government official and he was in a camp somewhere and she was looking for him and going from one of these repatriation camps to the other to look for him. Eventually she found out that he was dead, but she didn鈥檛 know it then. She was going to go back to Czechoslovakia with the truck. So we persuaded her that she should take us along and that at night we should all just disappear from there because nobody was supposed to leave and there were guards in there.
When we got to Prague my two girlfriends who lived there before the war, went to look for their relatives and found them. I telephoned my home but there was no answer and I was told there is no communication, there is only one line open and that is a line which is connected to a repatriation camp in Czechoslovakia. So I rang there and I asked whether they knew anything about my mother. And they said, yes, she is well and at home. So that for me was already fantastic, so I wasn鈥檛 in such a terrible hurry anymore. Yes, and I think, I鈥檓 not sure anymore, they also said that everybody else was well because I was very worried. In the meantime I head heard that Brno was bombed terribly.
When I came back to my home, half of it was in ruins, and nobody was there and I was told by the porter that my family now lived in Brno in the town and gave me the address. I walked there. I had to walk there because the train didn鈥檛 even go all the way to Brno and I arrived at that address and I rang the bell. There was a balcony at that house and after I鈥檇 rung the bell my father came out on the balcony and I said to him, 鈥淗ello, Mr Essler.鈥� And he looked and he said, 鈥淗ello?鈥� Like to a stranger, because he never expected me because they had heard only a few days before that I had died. So that鈥檚 why he didn鈥檛 recognise me because by then I wasn鈥檛 so much changed because I had been already such a long time in freedom and well fed by the Americans and English. So I wasn鈥檛 in a bad state at all. So, of course, when I said, 鈥淲ell, it鈥檚 me!鈥� So everybody came running down the stairs and there was lots of tears and lots of joy and everything was happy again. Of course they were living in a tiny little flat because the Communists in the meantime had taken over Czechoslovakia. They had taken the mill away, had taken our house away, everything. And we had a little two room flat. But I told them, 鈥淒on鈥檛 worry鈥� because I was so well prepared by my Communist ideas which I got in the concentration camp. And I said, 鈥淲e don鈥檛 need anything material. The main thing is we are all alive and all the rest is immaterial.鈥� So at the moment we were terribly happy. We were all alive and survived it all no matter what else happened.
I only knew much later that all but a precious few of the people with me on that march either died on the way or were exterminated in Belsen, the concentration camp which was our destination.

NOTE FROM ANTHONY, NINA鈥橲 SON
Transcribing and editing my mother鈥檚 words has given me a terrific insight into the bravery, fortitude and determination which carried my mother through her wartime experiences. In 1974 at the age of 19, when I recorded the interview, I was unable to grasp the enormity of what both mum and dad had been through and how all this must have affected their lives.
I am incredibly proud of my mother and what she achieved during her incarceration in prison and concentration camp and her subsequent successful escape. I hope that this story can be read by family and friends and appreciated as one of the many unique memories of my mother.

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