Jiří Fiala

* 1939

  • "That was already in 1945, when the Zarevo partisan group broadcast from Malinská skála towards Kiev. Because the Germans were eavesdropped, a commando came here in March looking for these partisans. It was a coincidence that the partisans were warned at half past two in the morning, and that commando came here at six or seven in the morning. That is one of the details that one remembers. Here we had grandfather and grandmother, there was me, brother, father and mother. They searched our cottage. First the officer came, here we had beds, and they asked: 'Who sleeps here, who sleeps over there?', depending on which bed was still warm. There were enough coincidences and luckily no one revealed anything then. The commando came here on a sledge, there were about 40 of them. Otherwise we could have been just another case like Lidice or Ležáky; they would have set us on fire here."

  • Full recordings
  • 1

    Samotín, 12.12.2021

    (audio)
    duration: 49:39
    media recorded in project The Stories of Our Neigbours
Full recordings are available only for logged users.

No one revealed anything

Jiří Fiala (en)
Jiří Fiala (en)
photo: Post Bellum

Curriculum vitae Jiří Fiala was born on March 28, 1939 in Polička in Vysočín. Before the war, the parents bought a cottage in the village of Samotín and ran a small farm there. During the war, the partisan group Zarevo (Záře) operated in the village, whose activities were supported by some residents of Samotín. After the war, Jiří Fiala graduated from the Industrial School of Machinery in Žďár nad Sázavou. He lived most of his life in Samotín, where he still lived in 2021.