“It was at the time when those who had shot Heydrich (the paratroopers – transl.’s note) shot themselves in that church. Heydrich was wounded by their gunfire and he died. This was shown on television many times. The Germans went to the municipal office to get a list of names and they ordered that every tenth person would be executed. It didn’t matter if that person was a child, a man or a granny. Eventually they decided to begin with those who had already been involved in the resistance movement. Since my father was a resistance leader, they came for him on November 3, and they executed him on November 7. That was their revenge for Heydrich. While our brother was already in the concentration camp and dad had been executed, they executed the rest of the family by guillotine. They arrested them on June 23, on my name day, and they executed them on July 2.”
“I was at home with my mom and all of the sudden we see little Zlatka walk by the window. She was two years old. Mom came out and asked her: ´Slávka, what’s happened?´ The girl sobbed: ´A man took mommy.´ She was just a two-year-old girl. A car with four Gestapo men arrived. There were helpless women and the Gestapo came to arrest them. They arrested my sister and my mom; and they had just taken my sister Anička. That’s what Slávka came to tell us. When they entered, I held Slávka in my arms, and she told me: ´A man took my mommy.´ He came to me, tore her away from me and shoved her to the ground. – ´Put some clothes on. You will go with us.´ I asked mom: ´Mom, at least give me the food stamps.´ Mom replied: ´Don’t worry, Zdeňka, I will be back.´ She has never come back. As they were leading mom away, little Slávka ran after her, and she grabbed the Gestapo man’s trousers. ´Sir, don’t take my mommy.´ He kicked her and she fell down on her face.”
“They arrested them on June 23, took them to Vsetín and from there to Veveří in Brno and then on July 2 they drove them to the statue of St. Wenceslas, which bears the inscription ´Do not let us die,´ and there they executed them by guillotine. The Gestapo man who had arrested them had to be present at the execution. Later he was arrested and he testified about what he had witnessed. He said that my mom was standing by the guillotine and my younger sister had to lie under it. My mom saw her head fall down, and then a Jewish man carried it away. Then it was my other sister’s turn, but mom could not endure it anymore and she fainted. They revived her and executed her. We learnt all this from that Gestapo man.”
Zdeňka Ruprechtová, née Glogarová, was born in 1923 in Jakartovice, a village located between Opava and Bruntál. She spent her childhood years in Opava, where her father, a railway employee, was transferred. After the Munich agreement, Opava and the border regions became occupied by the Nazi Germany and the entire family had to move to Valašské Meziříčí. Her father worked there as a head official for the Czechoslovak Railways and he and all his family joined the local resistance movement. Even Zdeňka, who was sixteen years old, was disseminating pamphlets and delivering messages. However, the resistance organization was discovered and in early November 1941 her father Ondřej Glogar and brother Jan Glogar were arrested. The father was executed on November 7, 1941 in the Kounicovy dorms in Brno and her brother was executed a year later in the Mauthausen concentration camp. Her mother Božena Glogarová and married sisters Božena Kociánová and Anna Macháčková were then arrested after the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich. Allegedly, it was a lover of Anna Macháčková‘s husband who had informed upon her. The mother and both sisters were executed on July 2, 1942 in the Kounicovy dorms. Zdeňka was the family‘s only survivor. Afterwards she continued working for the resistance movement in spite of regular visits by the Gestapo and the birth of her son. Her husband served in the government army and after leaving for Italy he joined the partisans. Zdeňka Ruprechtová thus remained alone with her baby son and without any financial support until his return in October 1945. After the war she returned to Opava where she has been living since that time.
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