“Upstairs, where they slept, they also kept their guns there. They had bullets there, ammunition. Suddenly, the village was full of Germans. What were we supposed to do? My mom raced up to the partisans and told them they had to get out at once. Luckily, our building was right next to the river so they could just jump out the window and swim away. But still we were scared that they might find a bullet lying there or something. Even that would be enough. So we searched it and turned the hay around. Fortunately, nothing was found. I had such a coat with a round belt. Whenever he needed, he would hide a message in my belt and send me out on a mission. I delivered the message and brought back home the response.”
“My mom would take a sack full of corn and we walked to Šargón. I used to go with her. When we came there the miller was scared. He tried to chase us away. He would shout at us: ‘I won’t let myself get arrested and shot’! We would always beg him – my mom implored him not to let the people die. She told him that they would starve to death if they won’t get any food. So eventually, he would grind some grain for us. Then we walked along the Morava River with that sack. Well, we actually cooked so often for them we wouldn’t have any eggs or milk for ourselves in the end. My grandfather slaughtered all the pigs we had. The partisans ate it all. They knew that we would give them to eat. They came here all the time to eat.”
“They came to us and the spoke Russian. We didn’t understand them. They wanted at least a couple of potatoes to bake them in the forest. They were terribly hungry. So they simply showed us that they wanted what the livestock ate. We would bring all sorts of things but still didn’t know what they wanted. But eventually we got used to that communication and we brought the right thing and gave it to them. They came again the next day and then there were more and more of them because word about our farm had spread among them. They knew that we would give them something to eat and would let them stay overnight. We would also give them clothes. It was some old rags we found somewhere in the building. They were fugitives. A lot of them had been killed in Unčovice, where they kept them in a farm. They put a trough in front of them, filled it with some kind of beet soup that was frozen. And they were supposed to eat it. We went there to look at what was going on there. There were processions of prisoners and sometimes someone would throw a piece of bread or an apple in their direction. One of the prisoners jumped for that apple and the guard would smash his head with the rifle butt. That’s how these prisoner marches worked.”
“They were communicating among themselves, giving each other signs. They visited us all the time. We would cook warm meals for them, huge pots full of food. It was freezing cold so we let them sleep in the barn in the hay. We gave them some blankets and they slept in the hay. They stayed overnight, ate a quick breakfast in the morning and then they rushed into the forests where they were hiding in their dugouts throughout the day. Whenever they wanted to come to the village and there was some danger – for example some Germans in the village – me and my brother went out to the border of the forest and we gave them light signs not to come out of the forest. We had a specially adapted light torch that was emitting red light. We would also bring them food and some clothes that had been collected in the village for them. When there was a message to be passed, I went to a point that had been prearranged. And with my mom, I went to Šargón, to the mill. We would mill some flour for the partisans and then we baked bread in the oven.”
Marie Sczeponiaková, née Valouchová, was born in 1929 in Dubčany na Hané. However, she spent her childhood in Březová near Litovel. Towards the end of the war, there were a considerable number of runaway Soviet prisoners in the surroundings of Březová. The family of Marie was supporting them in various ways. They gave the fugitives food and clothing and they also kept them at their farm over the night. At the age of 15, Marie was helping the local guerilla groups by passing messages between the individual groups. After the war, she moved to Libina where she currently lives. Her husband Rudolf Sczeponiak was half-Jewish and originated in Šumvald. Some of his relatives were murdered in concentration camps during the war and his family was the object of frequent repressions and humiliations by the Nazi administration.
