A journey spent on the chassis of a train

Dostupné v: English | Česky

Jan Wiener, a Czech-German Jew, had escaped in April 1941 to Trieste in Italy. He intended to travel to occupied France, to Marseille, and from there he wanted to get to England, via North Africa, and join the Czechoslovak military units. In Trieste, Slovenian owners of a local dairy shop took care of Jan Wiener and thanks to them he also managed to reach a group of Montenegrins who had uncovered the secrets of illegal travel to him. Wiener recalls: “They advised me to bind myself to a steel plate on the chassis of a train. At the time steam locomotives were being used. I couldn't be in the front of the train, because the steam would blind me there. So I bound myself to a wagon in the middle of the train, but I was directly underneath a toilet, so during the ride, all the sewage was being poured on my head. It was important to keep my head forward, in the same direction as the train was going, otherwise I would be swept away and I’d end up as a hamburger.” Jan Wiener was only a few kilometers away from the French border, when the Italian police in Genoa had discovered and arrested him.

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Jan Wiener

Jan Wiener, a retired colonel, was born on 26.May 1920 in Hamburg. He grew up in a Czech-German Jewish family in Prague, at home they used to speak German. After the occupation of Czechoslovakia he escaped to Yugoslavia (1940), after it was attacked he wanted to cross Italy to get to Marseille, where certain Czechs lived who helped their countrymen to emigrate to north Africa. In Italy he was captured, though, he escaped two times and his second escape was successful. He crossed the front in southern Italy and got to the Allies. He joined the air force and remained there for the rest of the war, in the RAF´s 311. Czechoslovakian bombing squadron. After the war he returned to Czechoslovakia, spent five years in a communistic prison, then he emigrated to USA. In the last period of his life he lived both in the USA and the Czech Republic, taught history at several universities. In 2001 he was awarded the medal "Za zásluhy" 1. stupně (Distinguished Service Medal of the First Grade). He died on November 24th 2010 in Prague.

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Terst

Dostupné v: English | Česky

Železniční stanice byla zřízena v roce 1857. V době Rakousko-uherské monarchie byla železniční trať vedoucí do Terstu zásadním a frekventovaným dopravním spojením mezi obchodním přístavem a centrální částí země. Dnes leží vlakové nádraží Trieste Centrale na slepé odbočce hlavní trati spojující Itálii a státy bývalé Jugoslávie. Za druhé světové války žilo v Terstu velké množství národnostních menšin, hlavně Slovinců a Černohorců, kteří bojovali proti Mussolinimu a Hitlerovu nacistickému režimu. Situace židovské komunity v Itálii nebyla tak tragická jako v nacistickém Německu.

Na tomto místě

Cesta na podvozku vlaku

Jan Wiener