“Say, I worked in an accounting department with one friend, and she told me how terrible it was in Rozdrojovice. She described the horrors caused by the Russian army. She said that they had to flee from their house, they walked down in the ditches to Brno; there were dead horses, people there, and when they returned home, everything was demolished. When the Russian arrived, they chose some of the women and raped them. Supposedly, one of the husbands stood up to a Russian soldier, but the latter pulled out his gun at him, so he had to let his wife go.”
“They had the dress, they had ordered everything, Mum told me it was a Sunday, but they already knew the end was coming. They were all gathered round my bed, candles all around, I lay naked on the bed, they didn’t even dress me, and they prayed. And Mum went to church that very day to get the priest, our whole family was very pious, and so she sat out to get him and ask him to offer a Holy Mass for me. He offered it to Our Lady of Lourdes, and he celebrated the Mass, and everyone who was there in the church prayed for me, and just imagine, I recovered!”
“We sat in the kitchen, and my brother really didn’t like the Communists, and my brother and I jibed her for being with the Communists, and we remembered how she had to join the Party because she worked as a farm economist. I was a bit ashamed of her, and my husband also had to join the Communists, otherwise he would have had a hard time at work. But it’s all about people. Not all Communists were bad, some of them helped others and did no harm, like I say, it’s all about people and not about wearing a badge on my jacket.”
Marie Kolářová, née Varmouzková, was born on 25 November 1927 in Kuřim. Her family was rich and tended to a large farm. When World War II started, the family was forced to leave their house and move into the cellar. The house was seized by the German army. Marie and her sister Eva continued to work on the farm and served the German officers. During the war an enormous construction project for factories and workers’ accommodation was launched in Kuřim. The village became a prime target for Allied bombing raids. Marie Kolářová and her whole family witnessed several air raids on Kuřim. The biggest one took place in 1944, when the Kuřim arms factory was targeted with three attack waves comprising several hundred bombs. Towards the end of the war the Germans began to flee from Kuřim, and the German officers left the Varmouzeks’ house. The town was also abandoned by the local German landowners, whom the witness’s family had good relations. Instead, the family farm was occupied by the Red Army. After the war, the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia (CPC) came to the fore. Oldřich, Marie’s husband, joined the CPC after the war. He had been assigned to forced labour in Berlin during WW2, and so he fell for the Communists promises and joined their ranks. The witness tried to talk him out of it, but her husband kept to his decision, he endeavoured to achieve a better position at work, and so he had no choice but to become a Party member. Marie Kolářová spent all her professional life as an accountant. She lived in Kuřim, she had a daughter and two grandchildren. She died in 2022.
