“We saw that Šlusar was dead. And that Javoříčko was ablaze. Our house was surrounded by a bunch of German soldiers. We walked together and Bohuška started to cry. She pleaded me to return. She kept saying that this would be the second Lidice. I told her where I was supposed to return. I made two, three steps, turned around and walked with her. I walked with Bohuška and I was supposed to walk all the way to the building across this little bridge that’s still here today. But there was already a lot of Germans in the yard and they shouted: ‘Zurück! Zurück!’ I told her: ‘Bohuška, we have to go back. He’s showing us to come back’. So I shook her hand and I told her to tell my parents what happened to me. I got badly beaten up. Doctor Adamec had to treat me. I was recovering at his place. Today, I’m completely deaf. And nobody wanted to hear about it since they believed that it was our fault that Javoříčko was burned down. That we had something with the guerrillas and that we were with the Germans.”
“On that day he came but my mom was just not at home. I was home alone. My mom had three guys in Germany and we were trying to get some food. We were walking great distances to beg for food and try to get some food vouchers for the guerilla fighters or for the people in Germany. We would send them food packages and anything else they needed. I said ‘Uncle, but there’s nobody home. I’m home by myself’. He asked me if we were hiding something at our place. He warned me that there would be an inspection. It was in the morning. The only thing that came to my mind was to go to the neighbors and ask for advice. So I ran to the Victoras as I thought that I would ask Mrs. Victora or their maid Boženka (Božena Vyroubalová). So I ran to their house. The reason I was so afraid was that we were keeping some hens and a pig that were not registered. Additionally, we were hiding flour and some other foodstuff. So I ran inside their house and I will remember this till the end of my days. Mr. Victora was sitting at the table and having breakfast and Mrs Victora was in the kitchen. I came and knocked and now I saw Mr. Victora sitting there and I was taken aback because I wasn’t sure if I could talk about it in his presence. But Mrs. Victora encouraged me so I told her about the upcoming inspection and about our illegal food supplies. Mr. Victora laughed. He must have already understood quite a bit by then. He asked me: ‘Maria, and are those hens white or black?’ and he smiled at me. ‘Well, they’re white and black’, I replied. He said: ‘so why don’t you take it on a wheelbarrow to our farm?’. I did what he said and that was it for the inspection. In the end, the inspectors didn’t come anyway.”
“In 1945, during Easter time, the guerrillas wanted to demonstrate their presence in the region. I think that Mrs. Victora played a role in this, too. She helped them somehow. So our boys, who were all around twenty, from all the villages, they came to Střemeníčko to the local pub. The Eliáš boys stayed outside the pub on guard. Others were overlooking the road from a hilltop to make sure that there were no cars coming down the road from Březina. They were patrolling and we were dancing in the pub. That Andrej Fursenko climbed on a table and had a political speech in Russian, he said that they were fighting the Nazis. But before he jumped down from that table he told all the Czechs: ‘if somebody speaks, his head will be chopped off with an axe.”
“I didn’t tell them anything. All they heard from me was: ‘I don’t know, I don’t remember’. So they beat me up, kicked me. Grabbed my throat and kicked me again. My hands were smeared with blood. But I didn’t fall down and somehow managed to run away. I ran across the village. The willpower kept me going. The worst moment for me was when they dropped me off the bridge. I wasn’t afraid that they would kill me. I was wondering what they will do to me if they don’t kill me. It was the hardest moment for me in all of my life.”
Marie Čechová, born Marie Vlčková, was born in 1926 in a little village called Javoříčko located in the woods of the Bouzovské highlands, where she spent all of her childhood. Throughout the war, she worked for the company Hanisch in Prostějov. She came back home in the beginning of 1945. During the time of her return, her brothers Václav Vlček Jr. and Ladislav Kryl escaped from a forced-labor camp and joined a guerilla troop by the name Jermak - Fursenko. This troop would frequently visit the Javoříčko village and the family of Mrs. Čechová tried to support its members in all possible ways. On May 5, 1945, the village was surrounded by a special contra-guerilla SS commando under the command of Lieutenant Egon Lüdemann. His men started to systematically burn down the houses and execute the male population of the village. They murdered the men of the village in groups and in this way they shot 38 men aged 15 to 75. The father of Mrs. Čechová, Václav Vlček senior, was able to save his life by hiding in a dung pile. Among the murdered were four of his brothers. After the war, the family was given by decree a house in Nemilany, where Mrs. Čechová married Josef Čech. Today, she lives in Olomouc.
From left: brother of Marie Václav Vlček Jr., a member of the guerrilla troop Jermak Fursenko, his wife Božena Vyroubalová who served in the war in the Victora family in Javoříčko, half-brother Ladislav Kryl, also a partisan, son of Václav Vlček
From left: brother of Marie Václav Vlček Jr., a member of the guerrilla troop Jermak Fursenko, his wife Božena Vyroubalová who served in the war in the Victora family in Javoříčko, half-brother Ladislav Kryl, also a partisan, son of Václav Vlček
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