Janka Hamplová

* 1928

  • "As this was the vanguard of the frontline, I had experience with that myself. But fortunately I defended myself. As the men were backing up, the soldiers who were already at the front, who knew what they [Russians] were doing, they said, 'Girls, don't worry, they can't shoot you, so defend yourself.' They told us what to do, like kick between their legs and run. So I wasn't afraid. But the major came. He was so tall he couldn't fit through the door. I was not quite 16. And he said, 'Run.' I said no. He said, 'Lie down.' I said, 'No.' He took the gun and put it on my forehead and said, 'Lie.' So I started biting his hand. When he saw that he couldn't do anything with me, I guess he didn't want to force me because he could lose his job if he was a major, then he quit. Only he couldn't leave because his assistant on the other side locked the door and threw the key under the bed. I was at the teacher's, she was an invalid, so she had to get the key, poor old lady, an invalid, to unlock it for me. And the first thing was, 'Did you resist?' I said, 'Yeah. But the soldier robbed her. He took her watch, her wallet, anything he saw that was nice, he took."

  • "They really didn't care. The neighbor had a husband, he had to take a candle and hold it for them. He watched his wife being raped. That was really horrible. Well, we were just with another aunt, she was older and more sensible, and we were flying from house to house and hiding. We'd grease our faces to look older. We used to put a scarf on our heads like old ladies. We did everything so the soldiers wouldn't find us."

  • "Because it was a village, there were cows, horses. When there were battles, we needed to go to the village to get something, for example when my aunt was giving birth. In her seventh month, two soldiers raped her. The baby was born within a week, I don't know exactly. Then it died. So we looked for a midwife, it was a kilometer, maybe more, from one region to the other. So I went with my uncle to look for the grandmother, we had to do that between the shooting, and as we were walking, here laid a horse, here a cow, here a man. It was like that all over the village. When it was quiet for a few weeks, the Russians brought their dead to us. There was a statue of the Virgin Mary in the middle of the village, and they buried them there. They dug a hole, ten, twelve of them were thrown into one hole. There were a lot of them."

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    Ostrava, 02.06.2021

    (audio)
    duration: 58:39
    media recorded in project Stories of 20th Century
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The major put a gun to my head and asked me to lie down

Janka Hamplová, portrait, around 1955
Janka Hamplová, portrait, around 1955
photo: pamětnice

Janka Hamplová, née Horváthová, was born on 23 October 1928 in the village of Bíňa in the district of Nové Zámky, Slovakia. Her mother died when she was seven years old. Her father, who worked as a miller, remarried. She spent her childhood and youth in the village of Kamenín. At the end of the Second World War, heavy fighting between the German and Red armies took place there. When the Red Army was victorious, they began to commit looting, theft and rape in the village. She witnessed several attacks on women. She defended herself when a Red Army major tried to rape her. After the war, she worked as a housekeeper. She moved from Slovakia to Czech Republic. She changed jobs and finally settled in Ostrava, where she got married.