Vladimír Žemla

* 1935

  • "My father had three big stains, three reports incompatible with the regime. He grew up working for Baťa, he was a private farmer - because cooperatives were already starting to form - and that we went to church. These were the three main reviews that were fatal to me. So the family stayed at home, they worked on agriculture, but for another company, not for themselves. And I - I was 12 years old - moved to a school in Lešná, where I had to attend compulsory education until 14 years of age. The school recommended me to study, but I had the three testimonials, so I was not allowed to go anywhere and I had to stay with my parents. So I stayed with my parents and I had no chance of anything until military training. Education - no way. I was tempted to learn something, a craft. No, I didn't have a chance. "

  • "I rode a motorcycle to work, it was Wednesday, August 21st. I come to the highway, I cross the tracks, I enter the highway and I see, Mrs. Holišová the old woman was standing at the railing and just clasped her hands. I'm driving on that highway and it was so demolished from those tanks! I didn't know from what. I come to the glassworks, there were two tanks, a cannon aimed at the factory. I arrive at the train station, there were two tanks standing. I'm coming to the factory, I've already learned what happened, people already knew between themselves. That was my twenty-first August. "

  • "[It was] a village full of Germans, and they were already joining the convoy and leaving. They left, and the next day, almost in the morning, the bridge, which is the only access to the village, exploded. The Germans put a bomb there in the evening, and the last Germans left in the morning and blew up the bridge. But in an hour or two the Cossacks arrived on horseback, it was a vanguard of the Red Army. They waded through the Bečva with horses into the village and mobilized the mayor and the men, there is a forest nearby, so they had to cut down trees and quickly fix the beams of the destroyed part of the bridge and turn it into a bridge structure. That was all during the morning, I remember. And in the morning, the Red Army was advancing and already crossing the bridge. In Choryň, two streams met, one from Lhotka nad Bečvou, which had to go over the bridge, and the other from Choryňská Lhota. In Choryň, the currents of the Red Army descended and marched on Kelč and Bystřice pod Hostýnem. That was Monday, when the Red Army passed through Choryň. There were many of us, everyone was in the streets and we welcomed the Russians [laughs]. "

  • Full recordings
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    Zašová, 16.04.2021

    (audio)
    duration: 02:03:30
    media recorded in project Stories of 20th Century
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There was not even a calf left

Vladimír Žemla in 1954
Vladimír Žemla in 1954
photo: Archiv pamětníka

Vladimír Žemla was born on May 14, 1935 in the village of Choryně in the Valašské Meziříčí region, where his father Vojtěch (born 1903) successfully saved an originally indebted farm. Thanks to this, the family managed to end the war years without much hardship. From his childhood, Vladimír Žemla remembers the Nazi occupation of Czechoslovakia and the liberation of Choryně by the Red Army. After the war, he attended a grammar school in Valašské Meziříčí. However, he had to leave after 1948 due to an unsuitable personnel profile. After the currency reform, the family lost all its savings. As a result of forced collectivization, Žeml also lost farm equipment and livestock. In 1955, Vladimír took part in the First National Spartakiad, where he met his future wife, Jarmila Špůrková. From 1955 to 1957 he served in military training in Čáslav, then moved to Zašová with his wife. From 1960 until his retirement (1993), he worked for the District Industrial and Repair Company (OPOP). Although he was never in the Communist Party, from the mid-1960s he served as a member of the National Committee in Zašová, where he served as chairman of the school and cultural commission. Vladimír Žemla lived in Zašová at the time of filming the interview (2021).