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Welcome to a place that requires not only attention, but above all silence and deep inner thought. You are standing in the valley of the Kamenice River, in an area that may be perceived today as calm, green and natural, but its country carries the enormous weight of human suffering. Look around you. You see trees, you feel the humidity, and you hear a distant, constant stream of water. But this beauty of nature is just a thin layer that covers the dark past of this place. What you are seeing in front of you is not just an ordinary landscape, but a vivid testimony of a time when humanity has almost disappeared in this valley. Feel the atmosphere that exists here, feel something invisible, but very strong.

Let's move forward in time together and understand why this place is so important. To understand the tragedy, we must return to August of the year one thousand nine hundred forty-four. At that time, the world was in the flames of World War II and the need to produce weapons and machines for fighting was absolutely absolute. It was at that time that a branch of the Flossenbürg prison camp was established. But it was not just an ordinary prison squad or a working group. This group was created with a very specific and cruel goal. It needed a huge amount of human power to run an underground factory. This factory belonged to a company that specialized in aircraft production. Prisoners were brought here to help build machines to continue destruction in the depths of the earth, in hiding from bombs and air attacks. The whole process was driven by the relentless need of a war machine.

Now pay attention to what you see around you. Although most of the buildings that once stood here have long since disappeared and left behind nothing but emptiness, the very structure of the landscape tells you a story. Feel this position in the valley. Feel the steep slopes approaching the river and the space narrowing. It was here, in these sandstone quarries and stalls, that the most important and terrible took place. Look at these rocks and their structure. That was sandstone, material that was a relentless enemy to the prisoners. Working in these stalls was not only difficult, it was intangible, constantly changing and deadly dangerous. Even if you can't see the walls of those underground spaces today, you have to imagine them. Imagine those narrow, dark corridors, dust that settled in the lungs, and the constant darkness that was the only companion to those who were deployed there. This architecture was not made up of folded stones, but of the very interior of the earth, which was plundered and plundered by prisoners in a constant struggle with hard rock.

Now think about the human dimension of this place. Although the names of many individual people are lost in history and in the dust of time, their suffering is still felt in every piece of stone. Imagine the people who were standing here in the same places as you, but with a completely different fate. They were prisoners who were deployed here to do a job that was superhuman in many ways. They worked in completely inhuman conditions that did not allow a moment of rest, peace or basic human dignity. Hunger, constant cold, and constant fear of death were their everyday reality. Many of them gave their lives here just to make the underground factory work. Every person who died here was a loss this world had no right to ignore. Their lives were sacrificed on the altar of war and the manufacture of machines that were meant to bring destruction. Feel the weight that falls on this valley when you realize how many human tears and pain have been left behind.

If you look at the chronology of events, you'll see how the fate of this place changed in the last months of the war. In April of the year a thousand nine hundred forty-five, the period of the greatest hard work in these sandstone stalls began to close slowly. By approaching the end, the war changed the map and the fate of the people. After the worst stage of work, a new, very vague era occurred. In October of the year one thousand nine hundred forty-five this prison area was handed over to military administration. It was a time of great uncertainty when the old world fell apart and the new world had not yet been formed. The soldiers, the administration, and the people looking for a way out, were here in a chaos ending conflict. The whole area was eventually shut down gradually. At the earliest in April of the year a thousand nine hundred forty-six decided to abolish his district administration in Decin and final, the final end came only in September of the year a thousand nine hundred forty-six, when the entire area was completely removed from this landscape.

There is one interesting thing that can make you think deeply again. Although this area is almost invisible today and most of the tracks have been removed, its shadow still hangs over this valley. It is the secret the country keeps - how nature can return to life so quickly and start to grow again in a place where there was so much pain and where human existence was so suppressed. This invisible presence of history is precisely what makes the visit of this place so strong and so sad. It is the contrast between the infinite life of nature and the fragility of human life.

Now, please, continue to search this valley. Walk through the roads that lead past these rocks and the Kamenice River. Let these images, these sensations and these sad stories go deep. Feel the silence that exists here, and remember those who were not alone here, but were alone in the greatest sense of the word. Every step along this path is a reminder of how important it is to remember even the darkest moments of our history to avoid them in the future. Thank you for joining me on this journey through the dark chapters of history. I wish you a peaceful and deep walk.