Marie Bartoňová

* 1928

  • “So I came (to the refinery – editor´s note), but there was somehow from the other side and there was a barbed wire. Behind the wire there was a guard booth and there was an SS man who kept smoking and smoking. And I've been so sad that I thought oh my God, how I would get back home. Yet I could not spend the night somewhere in Opava to miss the train back to the Štramberk. So I crept and crouched down and walked along the barbed fence. And now imagine, I came to the booth. And out of the booth ran another SS man, plucked the revolver and said, halt! He pulled the gun on me. And the other SS man, imagine, they were good people too, he slapped his hand and says, Was das das ist eine Mädchen. I do not know whether I say it correctly. And he certainly saved my life.”

  • “They (guerrilla –editor´s note) used to come to us, to our house. And they would always bash, bang-bang, on the wall. They had a certain sign (agreed sequence – editor´s note), that a boy from the mountains from guerrilla crawled there to fetch a bag full of food. As we lived in a side alley, away from the main road, mountain boys would come to ours. Even with a fever they crawled and then bang their sequence for my father on a wall or a ledge. He used to come out silently and I, despite being asleep most the time, I heard him handing something over to some of those boys.”

  • “Everything went silent, but then suddenly the gestapo rushed to our house in Štramberk. Now imagine a gestapo man came to our kitchen to my daddy and came over to the room. And as the logs were regularly washed and got bent and as he stepped on them they moved and he screamed to the others to rip the floor apart. They suspected guns being hidden in there. As I was a small girl, I began crying. And mummy grasped me and put her hand over my mouth so that they wouldn’t shoot us neither.”

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    Praha 4, byt pamětnice, 08.11.2016

    (audio)
    duration: 01:06:27
    media recorded in project Stories of 20th Century
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I helped whenever necessary

Marie Bartoňová - historical photo
Marie Bartoňová - historical photo
photo: archiv pamětníka

Marie Bartoňová, née Babincová, was born on 11th September, 1928 in a Moravian town of Štramberk. During WW2 her father supported the local guerrilla in Štramberk. She experienced tough times witnessing house arrests led by the gestapo, when her parents were arrested and imprisoned. At that time she had to work on their family farm on her own. She risked her life, as she was illegally bringing food and family letters to her father and other prisoners in Opava. With her husband, Jaroslav Bartoň, who was also a resistance member in Štramberk, she actively participated in regular reunions of anti-fascist fighters after war. All her life she has been remembering the terrors of the WW2 to others, so that they were never forgotten. In 2016 lived retired in Prague 4 - Podolí.