Slávek Přibil

* 1926

  • “I held the guard after midnight and from Našice it was roaring and roaring... I thought to myself, well that´s not going to be good. And those were the Hungarian tanks coming. Luckily there was no army, no infantry following them. Then we, the brigade staff, were dragging, and the fog was thick. And we needed to cross the road from Orahovice to Našice. And there came two tanks from the woods. Well and a commandant of the brigade, back then we already had anti-tank gun, began to shoot at them. And we went over the field up into the woods. We only just crossed and a German motorcycle (a motorbike) with a cabin went past as a bullet before we realised what was going on, it was gone.”

  • “My grandfather had two brothers. He moved here with his children in 1890. There he sold a small property and bought a larger one here; a house and farming buildings and some cattle too and fifteen hectars of land, meadows and fields. And he came with five children. My dad was the eldest, then his brother Josef, then Václav even younger and two sisters. The younger one married Šnajdra in Tréhlava. But they had no kids and she died. And the older one married Herout. And they were left a bit higher, about the eighth or nineth house upwards, and then they sold it here and left to Kapelice near Garešnice. My dad was fifteen years old, when they came here. He dag a hole down here and made his own bricks, dried them up and had his house built. With three rooms – living room, kitchen and a storage. And here my grandad had three sons and a daughter. My father Rudolf was the eldest.”

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    Dežanovac, 18.06.2016

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I took part in forming the Czechoslovak brigade

Slávek Přibil in 1950s
Slávek Přibil in 1950s
photo: archiv pamětníka

Slávek Přibil was born on 6 September, 1926 in a village of Dežanovec (Dežanovac) in today´s Croatia. This part of Slavonia was colonised by Czech inhabitants in 1920s, and the ancestors of Slávek Přibil came here in 1890 from Slibovice near Nymburk. Little Slávek went to a Czech school in Dežanovec, back then there was a four-year school attendance. On 1 September, 1943 he joined the Czechoslovak partisan battalion following his father´s advice. In November the same year the 1st Czechoslovak brigade was formed near Bučje of the National liberation army of Jan Zizka from Trocnov. During its establishment the brigade had about 500 members and later about 1000; the soldiers spoke Czech and so did the commanders. The witness got into many smaller, but still dangerous fight situations. At the end of war he was offered immigration to Czechoslovakia, but he refused. All his life he worked on his farm. At the break of 1940s and 1950s farmers were forced to enter the cooperatives (zadrug). As the father of Slávek Přibil refused to join, there was a process against him, and he spent two months in prison in Lepoglav and a part of the farm was confiscated from the Přibils. In 1953 coops began to get cancelled and most of his property was returned back to the family. The witness married Vlasta, who came from the Czech family in nearby Horní Daruvar, and had three daughters together.