We had to use a pickaxe to open the railway cars

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Marta Kottová arrived in camp Mährensdorf in December 1944. She stood in a courtyard in a group of about one hundred Czech women, whom were all waiting to see what would happen next. They were soon to find out that they would be working in a flax processing factory and that they would be sleeping there too. Marta Kottová recalled: “The German who acted as a foreman in the factory said, when he saw us: ‘You're going to freeze in here like geraniums.’ The factory was below the Krkonoše Mountains and we were half naked and barefoot with no stockings. I'll never forget the word geraniums.” Most of the Czech women worked in the factory, where they worked alongside women from Poland who had arrived there earlier. There were about two hundred of them. Later, around a hundred Hungarian women arrived via Auschwitz. Apart from working in the factory they also had to go to so called transports – to unload goods at the train station. It was always necessary to use a pickaxe to open the frozen railway cars, (the water that was poured over them after being bombed had frozen), and unload them.

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Marta Kottová

Marta Kottová was born February 22nd 1929 in Černovice u Tábora to Robert and Gabriela Lašová. Her brother Viktor was six years older. They had been living in Černovice till Marta was three, then the family moved to Prague. Since she was five, Marta was an avid scout and Sokol member, and as she says, had a happy childhood. She remembers the First Republic era and President Masaryk fondly. After the rise of Nazism, the persecution began, which Marta experienced most poignantly when she was forced to surrender her dog. Then there came the transports to Terezín. On December 1st, 1941, her brother Viktor boarded transport AK2, and half a year later, Marta and her parents followed in transport AAR. At first Marta stayed with her mother in the Hamburg barracks, but then she was moved to a so-called children's house L410. However, the worst was yet to come. On October 6th, 1944, they arrived to Auschwitz, where both of Marta's parents eventually died. Before Christmas of the same year Marta got to Mährensdorf via Gross-Rosen, where she worked in a flax-processing factory and also performed jobs like opening frozen wagons with a pickaxe. After the liberation in May 1945 and her adventurous return to Prague, she was reunited with her brother Viktor under very emotional circumstances. He miraculously survived the Nazi horrors, even though he was sent from Terezín to bury the men of Lidice, and thus he was to have been exterminated afterwards. Today, Marta enjoys an abundant life, she is a great-grandmother, and she visits schools, telling children about her experiences, and she is also the head of the Auschwitz Historical Group. On October 28th, 2008, the President decorated her with the State Medal for Merit in the field of education.

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Marciszów

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The village is situated near Kamienna Góra in Poland’s Lower Silesia region. At the end of the World War 2, Jewish women from other concentration camps such as Terezín, Auschwitz, and Gross-Rosen were taken to the local labor camp. They were forced to work at the local Kramsta-Methner textiles plant as well as doing other, heavier types of labor.