“When they were taking my brother, his wife was pregnant and we were on our way to the shop of my friend. We also listened to radio London. My brother, Dad and I. It was after six o'clock and my Mum wanted to buy something at Matěj's. So we jumped there, my brother with Dad finished listening to London. We came upstairs and sat at the table. And all of a sudden the girl who was apprenticed to Matěj came. She said that the Gestapo was at Denemareks'. We looked there from the school and there were really three cars. The Gestapo men were just coming out with a dog and I said: It's bad. My wife and I ran through the stream and we got to two big lime trees at Vašíčeks'. My wife laid down, I climbed up the tree and I saw police all around the village. Those were old lime trees, may be one hundred and fifty years old, the branches were reaching the ground, the height... And I saw our house, they led him in chains, I almost fell down. And when they were gone we went at my parents' in the end. They were devastated and I said: 'Dad, hide quickly everything that was left here after him and we have to wait.' I thought that they were on their way at our place. And they were taking my brother to jail in Budějovice. They locked him up there.”
“There was a farmer there and one more girl, which means there were two people there. I was supposed to examine rye. I was so exhausted that I collapsed into the rye. There was a high tension there. I was looking around and I fell asleep then. Then a Gestapo man came and there was such a crazy servant girl. They chased me all along the way but couldn't find me. I woke up, it was getting dark and I said to myself: Jesus! I came home and she told me that there was a Gestapo man chasing me there. Those were moments... And he never came back again.”
“He was helping us make hay and she came there. Dočkal was the boss in the brickworks and his wife was very talkative. She said hello and went on: 'You have got a holiday worker (Pospíšil).' She didn't say more but we were afraid already. My brother was rather careful and went to Dočkal and they became very good friends and they cooperated. Those were moments, man. Otherwise he put on weight at our place (Pospíšil). It's only a shame I couldn't talk about it during Communist times. When I was given my personal file for the Army they said in it that I gave the name of Heyrich's assassin away, that I'm guilty with my parents and that I cooperated with Gajda on top of that. So all the time I... nobody ever asked me... As a winemaker I wasn't allowed to work in the border region then.”
“It was Padělek. And I believed till that time that it was Jarek. There was policeman Diviš in Hrotovice and they interrogated them in the castle. They didn't mention the name Denemarek all the time. And all of a sudden they took Padělek and even if Standa David, he was a butcher, so he was actually the third one and they interrogated Standa again. And when Standa came back he told me personally that he saw smudges. They probably beat him there and he revealed the truth. And Standa used the moment, there was an open window there. He jumped out. He ran to the cemetery tied up in chains. They set the alarm off but they never found him. He cut the chains in the cemetery and he ran through the woods. He wanted to go to tell that personally to my brother in Vilémovice. When he came half way through the road he spotted three cars coming. He said to himself: Oh no, they are on their way to Vilémovice. But they went to Budějovice. They alarmed about forty or fifty policemen there, a bus, and they didn't go till the evening. The police surrounded the whole village and Jarek was on his way home from his girlfriend from Lipník. It was he who made a plan of our house on a piece of paper for them. Therefore I thought it was him who betrayed me but it was not true.”
“We were supposed to get him there (to Prague), it was actually our task. Our meeting point was, there was a little park there and something wooden there, some gazebo or little church and our meeting point was just there. However, we couldn't recognize him. It was the martial law and he had a nice beard, a good looker. He was not pale, had they already been in the crypt? They had been there... From the little park he was crossing the road that leads from the Museum to this place. He was crossing the road and at the corner there was a... Well, a German. A hat, a leather coat and then Honza (Jan Kubiš), he stopped him and then Honza was putting his hand in his pocket. Can you imagine how we felt? Our asses got squeezed like this because we thought that he was drawing his revolver out. But he wanted to light his cigarette. And I said: 'Jarda (Jaroslav Kubiš), heck, Honza doesn't smoke and he has got matches after all.' And he only replied: 'Boys, the time is bad, leave him there (Pospíšil).' And nothing more.”
Alois Denemarek was born in Dolní Vilémovice in the Bohemian-Moravian Highlands on June 21st, 1917. He grew up together with four siblings in a farming family. He joined the Army in 1937. He got to the dragoons in Pardubice after being in Jihlava and Hradec Králové. His commander was the parachutist-to-be Alfréd Bartoš. His compatriot and friend Jan Kubiš, whom he kept in touch with during and afte the war, persuaded him to emigrate after the occupation. Later on he kept in touch with Kubiš around the assassination. The Denemarek family hid parachutist Pospíšil in their house. Both the parents and the brother of Alois Denemarek were arrested after the betrayal and they died in concentration camps. Alois Denemarek escaped his fate - shortly before that he got married and moved with his wife to another village. They confiscated his farm after the war and the arrival of Communism. He was arrested and worked in the glassworks. He worked in the PTP (Auxiliary Technical Troops) for 18 months. Then he worked in the vineyard in Znojmo.
Hrdinové 20. století odcházejí. Nesmíme zapomenout. Dokumentujeme a vyprávíme jejich příběhy. Záleží vám na odkazu minulých generací, na občanských postojích, demokracii a vzdělávání? Pomozte nám!
