December 9
Kraguyevats! It took three 3 days to get there, and they were filled with trouble. The first thing our brothers the Serbs did was take off our coats and put them on themselves. The same with our shoes. All that had any value—underwear, blankets, watches, money—everything comes in handy for them. All we ate in three days was 3 halves of a bread loaf. We slept on the snow the first two nights and saw the first swamps.
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/1e/Diary_of_a_Prisoner_in_World_War_I_by_Josef_%C5%A0r%C3%A1mek_%28page_18_crop%29_Skoplye.jpg/100px-Diary_of_a_Prisoner_in_World_War_I_by_Josef_%C5%A0r%C3%A1mek_%28page_18_crop%29_Skoplye.jpg)
December 12
We arrived at Skoplye today. We'd been crammed in boxcars for 3 days and 3 nights, not even able to sit down. First they took us there and back, all over the town, and then they gave each of us one loaf and a piece of bacon, and that was it! The journey was terrible. It was there that I caught lice for the first time—that Serb specialty no one can escape. I could not get rid of them all the time I was in Serbia.
December 15
We have our lodging now. It is a former stable that's too bad for cattle but good enough for the "Schwabs[1]." There are several thousand of us crammed in here. Food is the same all
- ↑ Peiorative name for Austrians—sounds like insects in Czech
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