And there I lost my teeth

The labour camp Sackisch (Zakrze today) was just two kilometres from the Czech border in the Kladsko basin. Helena Pláteníková, née Hrubínková, came here for forced labour in 1943. She could have evaded the labour but she came here without any hesitation. She worked with a resistance group that was compromised and she wanted to hide in the labour camp from the Gestapo. At first she worked in a factory producing aircraft engines. The labourers walked to work every day except Sundays to a place that was about twenty minutes distant. Mostly they started at seven, in winter sometime later. After work they were allowed to go out picking bilberries, forest strawberries, cones and pieces of wood for heating in the wooden sheds. Thanks to her excellent German, Jarmila got a prominent position – she accompanied the camp physician Bittner as an interpreter and each morning she reported to him numbers of workers. Soon the doctor’s wife came to like her too and she came to them each Saturday and Sunday to clean. 

In summer 1944, when the front drew nearer, the Gestapo found Jarmila and she had to move to the prisoner camp. She spent only a few months there but she lost some of her teeth when one of the guards beat her and she fell ill with inflamed kidneys. She was saved by the front as the Nazis evacuated the camp.