Žofie Pekařová

* 1934

  • “Those of us who remained weren’t allowed to stay in the village, and so we were outside in the dugouts. Then we came back again and endured the rest of it here in the cellar. The front was here three weeks, and we survived it by staying in the cellar. I remember the shooting was always from about six in the morning to about two in the afternoon. We could come out in the evening, it was calm then. The front moved to and fro on Roman Legions Hill. One day the Germans had it, the other the Russians, and so it was to and fro. Nová Ves and Vlasatice here were being shot at, it didn’t go any further. Troskotovice weren’t damaged so much, by then the Germans were retreating and the Russians were following. But the village here was broken up so much because of the shooting. There were air strikes here too, the village was broken up a lot by the bombs as well.”

  • “Our grandfather, he came from Rožínky, he spoke Czech, but he also spoke German with us. Grandma was from Pohořelice, so she was already Czecho-German, it was already mixed there, her parents were already mixed. Pohořelice were kind of both ways back then. Say our dad used to say: ‘We went to a German school and spoke Czech.’ It was normal in those days, it wasn’t until in thirty-eight that it somehow crystallised and the troubles between nationalities began. But before that it was normal here. There weren’t even any borders here back under the monarchy, so the nationalities mixed and no one found it strange at all.”

  • “There were thirty-two of us in that cellar. We had a big cellar, plus it was divided up in two halves. We fit a lot of people in there, and the front cellar also gave cover to the neighbours who didn’t have any shelter or cellar. They then came to us, and they were with us throughout the occupation and throughout the front. We even contracted dysentery there because there was practically no hygiene there seeing that we were closed up all the time. But we survived. But in the end we stayed down there when the Russians came. They really treated us like Germans, it was rough. They raped. I know that even our mum had to flee a number of times. And she was with a six-months-old baby! But she had to hide sometimes because it was dangerous for them. They shot Grandpa, my mum’s father, because they wanted the girls there too. Afterwards one Russian officer told them: ‘Smear up the sign on your house, because they have it labelled that there are girls here.’ They always found some wine in some cellar, there was a whole group of them, and then they roamed around and raped. It was dreadful.”

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    Vlasatice, 05.06.2014

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    duration: 02:37:19
    media recorded in project Stories of 20th Century
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A petty person will always remain a petty person

Žofie Pekařová
Žofie Pekařová
photo: Současná fotografie pořízena při rozhovoru s pamětnicí.

Žofie Pekařová was born in February 1934 in the German-majority village of Vlasatice in South Moravia. Her father was a Czech blacksmith, her mother was a German housewife. Žofie spent her whole childhood in a German environment, even at home they only spoke German. When the war began the situation in Vlasatice changed, as many young men were drafted into the army. Those included two uncles of Žofie Pekařová. At the end of the war Vlasatice experienced one of the last battles, during which almost half of the village was destroyed. A part of the villagers had evacuated, another part hid in their cellars. Žofie Pekařová’s family hid in their cellar together with some thirty other people. When the fighting was over, the village was taken by the Russians, who looted the local wine cellars and ravaged the village while drunk. They pillaged the houses, beat the locals, and raped the women. During one of these Russian rampages, the witness’s grandfather Thomas Czak was killed. The village was gradually repopulated by Czech inhabitants, who occupied the houses one by one. The German inhabitants were told to prepare for expulsion. Thanks to the intervention of the cousins of Žofie Pekařová’s father, she and her whole family, including her grandmother from her mother’s side, were allowed to stay in the village due to their mixed marriage. All her mother’s siblings and relatives were sent away after the war and settled down in Austria and Germany.