Came late for roll call and ended up with a torn ear drum

In the summer of 1944, the Gestapo paid a visit to Karel Freund. They handed him a paper instructing him to come to the train station in České Budějovice on the 15th of August. The transport was headed for the Jewish Mischling camp in Bystřice near Benešov. Upon their arrival the prisoners were divided into the affiliate labour camps in the area, and Karel found himself in Tvoršovice (Sonderlager B). The camp was located on a military training ground. The prisoners slept on triple bunk beds in the stables of the local manor house. They would walk to work through the forests below Château Konopiště, where they built concrete ammunition bunkers. They were poorly equipped for the heavy labour, and they worked under constant surveillance of SS guards. The camp was organized in a military fashion, and even the slightest offense was punished. Karel arrived late for roll call once, and he ended up with a tooth knocked out and a torn ear drum. He is still deaf in that ear. Some of the prisoners had tried to escape. “There was a pond nearby the camp, and a group of prisoners managed to dig all the way there. But they were out of luck, because the area was still in range of the lights and the guards’ guns. We later discovered they had killed thirty-five men.”