"They came at about half past twelve, knocked and wanted a 'báryšni'. So my dad got up, opened the window that had bars attached to it and asked them what they wanted. They shouted 'Baryšni'. So he knocked on her door – she was already dressed because she heard the noise. She opened the door, ran out of the house, yelled and shot them on the spot. There was no trial of any sort." Interviewer: "What did they do with them?" Mr. Schramme: "In May, it wasn't that dark at midnight so we could look out of the window. Four soldiers came, each one took the dead by their feet and dragged them away to the horse that had died there before. They had dug a hole there in the morning so they threw the horse in the hole and the dead soldiers as well. They took off their boots, trousers and jackets and dumped them, naked, in that hole. They covered the hole and that was it"
"You had to hide the girls or eggs, or other foodstuff. But the guerillas were much worse, they'd kill just for fun. Close to Čihák, when you walk up the hill to the Orlická chalet – they call it 'Kinderheim' now – there were twenty-year old girls working as telephone operators during the war. They were wearing uniforms. A partisan who was housing in Dolní Lipka once went there and killed seven of them. He shot them just for fun. The last one he killed had black eyes. Once he got drunk and he kept talking of a black-eyed girl. I didn't understand what he was talking about. But then I met Mr. Doubínek from Dolní Lipka and he asked me what I thought about Emil and the black-eyed girl. I said that I didn't understand what he meant. He told me: 'He shot seven girls and the last one he shot had black eyes. And when he's drunk, she appears in front of his eyes'. She was kind of chasing him in his dreams like a ghost."
"In 1945, they came to announce the Germans in Dolní Lipka, which lies close to the border, that they were about to be deported. At that time it was still part of Germany but later it was taken by the Poles. About half of the German population was banished. The rest were expelled a few years later, I think it was in 1946 or 1947. They called them up and told them they had an hour to pack – they were allowed to take 30 kilos of their belongings. At the border, they took anything of value that belonged to them. They were badly pressed; they had to be at the customs house in an hour. They would take a barrow or a baby carriage, load up a few things and leave, never to come back again."
"It was a guy called Pabel Ernst. He had been wounded and stayed at home. His neighbor put an old rifle in his yard. They found that rifle in his yard, so they beat him up in Králíky, right at the spot where the school is located today. They beat him up so badly that one of his eyes popped out and was hanging by a thread. His father pleaded them to shoot him, to end his suffering, so they finished him off. He was a victim from Dolní Lipka."
Helmut Schramme was born in 1932 to German parents in Dolní Lipka (German Niederlipka). This village is located between the Orlické hory Mountains and the Králický Sněžník. His father, František Schramme, was drafted to the Wehrmacht. In 1945, at the age of thirteen, he witnessed several violent deaths here. Before the advent of the Red Army, he witnessed the shooting of two German deserters by a military police officer. A little later, a Soviet female officer shot two Soviet soldiers, who were looking for women, right before the entrance to their house. They were buried together with a horse in their garden and their remains are probably still there. There were also several killings of Germans in the outskirts of the village who were shot after a sentence by the so-called „national court“ or without any trial at all. Helmut Schramme took part in the placement of a monument devoted to seven victims of the so-called „wild banishment“. The monument is found at the St. Ann Church in Horní Lipka. The Schramme family were exempt from deportation by the Germans because Helmut‘s father was vital for the village farms collective that was being created - he was responsible for the livestock trade. In 1948, the whole family was sent to work in Záchlumí, where they worked for several months for the local farmers. In 1960, Helmut married a German, Sieglinde Kristová, and in 1969, he requested to be allowed to leave for Germany, but his request was turned down. Today, he lives with his wife in Králíky. Helmut Schramme died on 2 May 2016.
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!
