Anežka Holbová

* 1938  †︎ 2024

  • "We had already left the shop, it was down there by Hořák´s place, opposite the church. Now that car overtook us, a Tatra with wings. Ten steps, they stopped. The gentleman in the leather jacket got out. They were... And saying: 'Girls, where is the parish office?' We pointed to the church. They turned and left. We continued going home up the village, but it was strange to us that a guy came out there, a guy flew out from a house there. They got a phone call. First, they were interrogated in Brumov. It was said about him, he was a catechist, a priest Vajcárek. They interrogated him first. And probably the cook from Broumov informed the parish or the store, I don't know anymore. Sister Verunka, who cooked at the parish office, was in the Švach´s shop. Quickly, that they would come. It was already an emergency. When they arrived, people were gathering and two of the them were already investigating him in the parish office, but the people did not wait and pushed into the corridor, and Father Půček could already see that it was bad and told the citizens: 'Be calm.' There were maybe two hundred people there. They heard that they talked to him indiscriminately. So, they found them. One of them also forgot the briefcase with the files. They flew down the stairs to the car. People also threw stones at them. They left. It was after three o'clock. In the evening, police officers, State Security officers, militiamen gathered from all districts, from Vsetín, from Uherské Hradiště. Through Návojná street like a convoy. They occupied the entire village - and whoever they found on the way, they took them to the pub to the Švachs. And there they interrogated who one was and what one was. Then the old Švach said: 'I'm finishing.' It was 11 o'clock. And Půček stood by the wall and said: 'Please take me, but leave my sheep here.' But they moved them all to the national school. And there they were beaten in the classrooms, even with irons, and there was blood there - and that's how they were investigated."

  • "So, they were smashed there again. The churchman was... even on his feet. They had to lie down with chains on their feet. Back in that school, they used a hook to burn the coal that rolled through, and thus on their feet. They had to take off their shoes and were burned. Then they brought them to the... And there was such a scream as they were beaten, those guys. There was a People's Deputy. Was he in Klobouky? Pechanec. Member of parliament. He went and just as he was ordering to take action so that they could be taken to the hospital for treatment. But no way. They were brought to the prison in Hradiště, where they were being beaten even more."

  • "Well, then they came for dad. They occupied everything here. To the yard, where you could go everywhere. Mom was mixing bread in the bowl. I went to see her. The German with the gun stood in the door to the living room so that mom and dad wouldn't meet again. They went everywhere, looked at everything: the barn, the apiary, the drying room. And they didn't find what they had and what they wanted. So: 'Mr. Fojtík, you will come with us.' So, dad shaved, I can still see him shaving with a razor in the living room. They got dressed. They put on their shoes. That they only go to the bathroom. We had a wooden toilet under the cottage among the trees. As soon as they got there, they took the wind and crossed the garden to the mountains. They also stopped for the one who was hiding with us, and went with him to Slovakia."

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    Valašské Klobouky, 21.06.2022

    (audio)
    duration: 01:51:42
    media recorded in project Stories of the region - Central Moravia
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They forbade us to pray at school, that’s how it all started

Anežka Holbová in the 1950S
Anežka Holbová in the 1950S
photo: archive of the witness

Anežka Holbová was born on October 22, 1938 as the eighth of nine children on a farm in Lazy u Nedašova, near the border with Slovakia. Her father, Josef Fojtík, enlisted in the First World War, where he eventually joined the Czechoslovak legions in Russia. He returned home in the spring of 1920. During the Second World War, he became a member of the resistance group Defense of the Nation and transferred people across the border to Slovakia. In January 1949, Anežka Holbová was a witness to the arrest of the very popular and respected local priest František Půček, with whom two dozen local men who stood up for the priest were also arrested. In 1960, she married František Holba, together they raised seven children. When Anežka’s father died in 1973, her brother Josef took over the land, until it was nationalized in the 1970s, during which the family lost its fields, orchards, forests and livestock. The family received partial justice after the fall of the communist regime, when some of the land was returned. Anežka Holbová passed away on April, the 7th, 2024.