Radomír Faltýnek

* 1926

Participant in antifascist resistance, Prisoner of a Nazi concentration camp, Participant in Czechoslovak resistance during WW2, Political prisoner in WW2
15. 3. 1939 - The Nazi occupation of ČSR, 1941 - 1945 - Transports to the concentration camps, 1945 - The liberation of the concentration camps
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    The permission

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    “An exchange of opinions. And then I say: ‘If he goes around trying to talk people to join the co-op, who should be in jail, then don’t be surprised that we’re against the idea.’ - ‘And who do you mean by that?’ he asked. I said I meant Church officer Pavlíček and policeman Potyka. He jumped up and went livid. ‘How dare you speak of those people like that?!’ I said: ‘Because I know how it is. Pavlíček was in charge of the warehouse the Germans left in Litovel, and when it was being dissolved, the amount of bakshish was such that no one could count it. And in April 1945, the other one in the neighbouring village, that was in Úžinek, he confiscated a pig slaughtered on the black market and actually threatened with the Gestapo. He took the pig away and brought the empty tubs in May, and that was that. I say that over here, a person like that stays bad.’ My cousin sat to the side of me, and I saw him clasp his hands together. And the man said we’d come to an agreement with the national district committee, and we parted ways. When we came out of the office, my cousin said they’ certainly lock me up. Why? Because those are his friends. I mean those people are actually the Krčmanites who attempted to assassinate Masaryk, Zenkl. The ones who sent the parcels.”

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    The financier

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    “One man from a neighbouring village was a member of the Financial Guard during the (First) Republic. And because he had had some dealings with the officials, he came bashing on our door in the night, saying he needed to be gone straight away, that the Gestapo is after him. And he knew that Father was organising something, that he could get him out (of the country). So Father harnessed the horses in the night, he didn’t dare go by train, those were already being checked. And he drove him in the cart to Olomouc so they wouldn’t catch him. In the meantime, Uncle came by and said not to send any more such clientele, or we’d all end up in Dachau in the blink of an eye. He had gotten himself so drunk in that uniform in Ostrava that he couldn’t even keep himself standing. So the train was leaving and there were Germans standing on one side and they had to throw him in to get him on the train."

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    The arrests

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    “In the morning, people woke up and found the whole village closed down, surrounded by soldiers. People who took the first train to Prostějov to work were sent back. They had to get out and go back. Children weren’t allowed to go to school, they had to turn back. And around eight o’clock, three empty buses and trucks with tarpaulins with SS men on board drove into the village. They surrounded the house where Masný and his companion were hiding. They called on them to give themselves up. One of them tried to loosen a tile from the roof, but it was covered in snow, so they shot once at it. They broke in, well, and Masný had done himself in, and the other one was found by a dog. He was hiding under an overturned tub. So they found him there.”

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    Dachau

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    “Then we met up there with quite different transports. We stood there naked. We from Brno, standing under the Chestnuts, we felt like ‘porkies’. Because for instance, I weighed some seventy kilos when I arrived there. And all around us they were just skeletons, and we even had lunch packs with us. So we gave that all out on the spot. Just one of our prisoners, he was from Konice, he kept his pack and didn’t give anything to anyone.”

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    Bohuslavice, 20.06.2010

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    duration: 04:38:45
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In the morning, people woke up and found the whole village surrounded.

Radoslav Faltýnek
Radoslav Faltýnek
photo: Pamět národa - Archiv
photo: Pamět národa - Archiv
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Radoslav Faltýnek was born on the 24th of April 1926 in Ochozy, near Konice. His father was a farmer who had been in the Italian legions during World War I. Radoslav Faltýnek had one sister. After the Protectorate was declared in 1939, his father and uncle took part in the resistance efforts of the Defence of the Nation (Obrana národa) organisation. Faltýnek himself also joined the resistance soon after. They helped outlawed people, at the beginning of the war they led emigrants into Poland, they hid weapons. However, the Gestapo was successful in gradually eliminating these resistance groups. His uncle was the first to be arrested and subsequently executed. Faltýnek’s father met the same fate soon after: he was put in prison in Zlín, Bratislava and Brno. After the Gestapo discovered new information about the resistance movement, they executed him. Radoslav Faltýnek, a student at the time, was also arrested. He was held in Olomouc and Brno, and he and fellow inmates were later moved from the relatively peaceful prison camp in Brno to the concentration camp in Dachau. They were transferred again six weeks later. This time their end station was the auxiliary camp KT Flossenbürg at Rabštejn in northern Bohemia. Despite the hard work unloading tons of sand from cargo trains, he did survive until the end of the war. He returned to his home region and started farming on his own estate. Despite many problems with the new regime, he kept on farming until 1960. After that he worked in the local “united agricultural co-op” and at the machine works in Uničov.

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