Jiří Zapletal

“That was in the spring of 1945. My dad was with our neighbor in the forest building a shelter. A partisan came to our home and wanted some vodka. My mom sent me for my dad so I ran across the fields to the forest and took my dad home. My dad dealt with him. I don’t know whether he gave him the drink or not; I have no idea.”

“Throughout the day, I saw some Germans here. They came from Bouzov to check the barricades. At the night, the partisans were in the village so they were basically taking turns in our village. I have one story from these times. In the war, people used to make these balls of cellophane. The girls made it and a friend of mine, Lidka Dostálová, was making it too. Once she ran out of material and she wanted me to come with her home to get new material. It was in the winter, late in the evening, and it was dark. I went with her and when we came to their yard I grabbed the handle but instead of the handle, I grabbed a strange guy. I screamed and ran away and he kept shouting, ‘Don’t be afraid.' At home I told my dad that there’s a stranger at the Dostál’s house. My dad got dressed immediately and went there to check. It was some fugitives. There were two of them. So he took them to Matátko’s place where they would gather then. They could listen to the radio there and they also got some food. There they listened to the news on the radio.”

“I couldn’t understand what was happening. When we walked through the village, we met a German soldier. He had a helmet on his head and and a machine gun in his hands. He was carrying something else and I later found out that it was a heavy machine gun. He walked in the middle of the road and we had to get out of his way. He had a grin on his face and his eyes were red and swollen. Somebody told us that they had a drinking party the night before in the castle. I always picture this soldier when I think back to that day. I also remember the moment we went through the village and there were explosions and smoke in the air from the burning houses. Cattle were running around the village. It was complete chaos. It was terrible.”

“They assembled the men into little groups and then shot them. When we came back to the village after the massacre, we found five dead men at our barn. We found another six at the Špramický bridge. In front of the school building, there were four or five dead bodies. At the house of the Klepár’s was another group. You can find little monuments here and there. Vlček was shot over there in the forest. Konečný here behind the house and Jenda Šlusar has a little monument next to the road to Bouzov.”