Mr. Ota Klinger, Prague I., Betlémská 8, made the following statement available to the Documentation Campaign.

1945.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

To my mother, my fiancée, my comrades, and to all of those who exercised in JPT (Union of Proletarian Sports) with the hero of these lines, Honza Hermann.

I would like to describe for you the final moments of your true hero in life and death.

This roughly 31-year-old athlete in body and spirit, whose politically active brother was killed by the occupiers, was originally a builder, but spent long months in the Theresienstadt Ghetto working as a cook and, later, due to his skillfulness, as the leader of a work group. Beloved by all of his fellow prisoners for his honesty, skill as a worker, and, last but not least, for his great sense of fairness, he is departing on a transport to Auschwitz now. Once there, he is selected from the thousands of the strongest to leave Auschwitz, leaving his mother to an uncertain fate along with the rest of the 11,000 prisoners, 10,500 of whom will be executed in the gas chambers.

In the Schwarzheidelabor camp near Oranienburg, firmly believing in the victory of the allies, he works for 12 hours a day, except for the hours spent in attendance at roll calls and on the way to work. His strong athlete’s body holds out against unbearable suffering, back-breaking work, and hunger, and he outlives many of his friends who are dying from starvation and torture. He rejoices over, and suffers as a result of, the countless airstrikes that we experience in the synthetic gasoline factory. Although we have built many multi-storeyed shelters with 3 meter reinforced concrete ceilings, we have to wait out the bombings close to the factory inside wooden buildings that are subjected to frequent hits.

The bombs that strike here injure comrade Honza so slightly that he recovers in several months and is once more sent off to become part of a work group whose sole purpose is to completely exhaust the workers. He solemnly swears revenge upon those who ignored his injuries and sent him to be destroyed. More air strikes land and we are the victims of the Germans’ brutality. During the last airstrike, comrade Honza leaves the room in which we eat and goes to the room where we sleep. He wants to escape the thought that he could be hit again. The bomb falls several meters from our wooden building, and many shards bounce off the concrete slabs of the washroom that has been reduced to dust and strike dozens of prisoners who are lying on the floor of the house. Our Honza is among the unfortunate ones. Shrapnel has sliced his leg open close to the groin. Everyone is heavily wounded. A punctured stomach, a ripped up back, a sliced off hand, and much worse. We rush to Honza’s side. We want to wrap him in a blanket and carry him off to the sickroom. Honza refuses, and tells us to take those with lighter injuries who can still be helped. He points our attention to his significant blood loss, hopeless condition, his maimed body. This shows what a great man he truly was. His selflessness is a quality one would be hard-pressed to find here above this tomb of thousands and millions of people. It made us shiver to hear his words of eternal, incomprehensibly great friendship. I don’t think I exaggerate when I state that such brotherhood is described only in the Bible. Our friend passed away 3 days later and left us with an everlasting memory – a symbol of humanity, as well as vigilance to make sure that those who caused these atrocities do not go unpunished. Although he helped build the medical shelters that were 5 minutes away from our camp, leaving a little bit of himself there every day, our Honza is taken to a wholly unfit wooden hut. Here, a medical attendant, a German surgeon, operates on him. Prisoners are only allowed to assist and stitch up heavy wounds using a plain needle used to sew bags. The medical attendant operates with a regular wood saw from the camp’s joinery workshop, and dozens of our friends, victims of the bombing, die after going through indescribable agony alongside tens of thousands of others worked and tortured to death.

May they rest in peace.

Signature: Ota Klinger

Statement accepted by: B.Gerzonová

Signature of witnesses: Lebovič 1Note 1: Lebovič - uncertain, unreadable

Simon Alexander

Max Widder

Accepted on behalf of the Documentation Campaign by:

19. XI. 1945

Scheck

On behalf of the archive: Alex. Schmiedt