The camp wanted everyone to find work outside the camp and not need the food coupons. I was lucky, since one of the guys about my age from the isolated section of the 3rd floor was married and both he and his wife had the same occupational training as I had, as a radio mechanic — which today would be called an electronic technician. His wife, before we were released to the free camp, had somehow found a Czech speaking owner of a small factory in Vienna that assembled radios. The owner offered them jobs and also hired me.

The factory was basically an apartment in an apartment building where we were populating circuit boards with transistors and components, tuning and debugging them. The pay was about 400 shillings a week and after paying for train transportation from Traiskirchen to Vienna and back, and lunch, there was not much left over to be able to afford a place to live outside of the camp.

There were 2 other guys in the camp who had a better situation. Emil Krap, who was my age or a year or 2 younger, and Jiri Zizala — Jirka — who was about 5 years older. Both of them had a job at a Mobil gas station in Vienna. Jirka was an auto mechanic and was working in a bay doing oil changes and minor repairs, and Emil was washing cars by hand in a separate bay. I stopped there after my radio factory job on Christmas Eve. They were very busy and I started helping Emil wash cars. We stayed until after 9PM, since everyone was offering large tips to have their cars washed before the holiday. The owner of the gas station offered me a job, which I started after New Year’s. It was 8AM to 8PM, 6 days a week. But between the regular pay and the tips I was making twice as much as at the radio factory. The first month washing cars I was physically hurting so much that I spent every Sunday sleeping, before my muscles got used to it.