Czechoslovak Political Prisoners - über das Projekt Political ...

How did you get out of all of it?
Dad ran away because he wanted to save some machines, but everything was burnt down
anyways. He was really terrified because of that. Mom let all the cattle go and I was taking
some clothes from the closets to have something left. I didn’t have a clue what would happen
because I was just fifteen years old. It was terribly cold and the snow was up to the knees. They
dragged all the cattle to Loučka where there was a Gestapo base and they slaughtered them.
We were taken to Bystřice pod Hostýnem prison where we were interrogated.
What did the interrogation look like?
There was one Austrian guy who could speak Czech, once they were beating me with small
chains because I didn’t want to say out the names. It lasted for about a month. They arrested
my mom, dad, and I and also my sister who was living at a rectory, but they released her after
a week. My sister didn’t live with us. She was supposed to go to Germany for work, but a priest
in Rajnochovice took her as a cook. We were taken to Brno to the prison called Cejl. I was there
as a youth and I was getting double portions, but I wasn’t hungry so I was sharing it with the
others. I was dead tired and I didn’t have a taste for food. At Cejl there were twenty-four of
us and many bedbugs. Each evening we had to put a scarf around our neck so they would not
eat us. There were terrible conditions. Every time there was an air raid we had to put a straw
mattress into the window through which the guard gave us food. Right before the war the
Germans let mom and I go, but to where were we to go? We had just a little shed by the house
where we finally went, but we didn’t have spoons, cups, nothing. The clothes that I was saving
were also burned so I didn’t have anything to wear. People helped us out a lot and we tried to
get reparations because we wanted to build a new cottage. The Communists offered us to go
to the border area 8 , but dad didn’t want that. Dad made many trips to the reparation office to
Brno. After the eight time he asked for reparation, he took his coat off and said, “I’m not going
there any more, they want me to join the party and after that I will get reparations. I will still
get it, but I can’t build it on our own land. It was already forbidden to build new houses in the
mountains. Only little chalets could be built. Mom and I were even willing to go to the border
area, but dad said, “I’m not going to a foreign place. It would tear my heart apart. I had my
own place, that’s what I wanted, and I will not go to a foreign place.” Of course we didn’t go
anywhere finally.
Do you remember what happened to the commanders of the partisans after the war?
I don’t know whether it is true or not, but after the war Murzin and Štěpanov met face to
face on Černava Hill and Murzin won. We were at Štěpanov’s funeral 9 .
What did life in the village look like after the war?
In the meadows there were seven cottages left. We stayed there, the Pánkov family went to
the border area, the Kubičkov family didn’t have kids and they died. In 1946 there were elections.
I still wasn’t old enough to vote though. The damage was appraised at 700,000 crowns,
but we got only 40,000. We had to buy everything for that, cattle included. We were still living
in the little shed and it was really small and uncomfortable and we were trying to enlarge it.
The year 1948 was really cruel. We already had a radio and electricity, but in winter we had
problems with it, sometimes the electricity didn’t work. At that time we found out from the
8 The Czechoslovakian border area was depopulated because the Germans were displaced after WW2.
9 Štěpanov died April 10th on Černava Hill. Partisans themselves did not talk about this much. Some of them presented
the whole thing as a matter of bad luck, some had another opinion.
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