René Šírek

René Šírek was born in 1923 in Prague. In June 1942, he passed his final exam at Jirásek Grammar School in Prague. Few months later he was called by the Prague municipality and enlisted as a forced laborer in Germany. Since he wanted to continue his studies and avoid the forced labor at the same time, he enrolled in the language school in Hradební Street in Prague, as well as in a business school, where he signed up for a two-year graduate course. Despite the fact that he started to attend both of these schools in September 1942, he was nonetheless sent to Germany. Together with a large number of other Czechs he boarded a train to Hamburg in early October 1942. Upon their arrival, the forced laborers were given firemen uniforms and transported to the port city of Kiel, where they underwent training. They fell under the category of Zwangsarbeiter. René Šírek was trained by the Luftschutz (anti-aircraft defence), and by the Entgiftung (clearance services). His duties included fighting fires and clearing rubble, as well as searching for, arming, and defusing unexploded incendiary bombs. He remembers fighting the fires in the Hamburg main train station and the hospital.