“The police came to our place and told us that my father had died. I spent the whole evening on the phone because I tried desperately to arrange for a transfer of my dad home. Of course that this was not a possibility, even though I called the police and other places that I thought were important. I also called several times to Leopoldov but I learned that were not allowed to know the date of my dad’s burial. But there was some guy in Leopoldov who told me the date anyway. So we organized two cars and the whole family departed for Leopoldov. When we arrived at Leopoldov, the guards asked us what we wanted there. I told them what we wanted but that we had no right to do it. I said that we were only allowed to learn when he died but not where he was going to be buried. Back then, I was rather glib-tongued and thus I managed to persuade them to tell me where the graveyard was and at what time my dad was supposed to be buried there. So we waited at the graveyard. After a while, a truck came to the graveyard. As I could see no prisoners in the truck, only dogs, I was scared but then I saw that two prisoners jumped out and carried the body of my dad to the grave. My dad had a beard and didn’t look good at all. We put him in the grave and then we prayed for him and gave him a goodbye. Then we went back home. After a few years, when they finally granted me a transfer of the remains of my dad, we departed to Leopoldov again. However, we found the graveyard demolished and abandoned. They had wiped out the graves and thus there was no way of finding out the grave of my dad. We had gone to that graveyard for the Holy Mass every year. We would place a flower and a candle on his grave. But now, the grave was gone and as we didn’t know where it had been, we weren’t able to take him home with us.”
“I know that my dad didn’t want to join the farms collective but eventually he had to join it. The collective was led by a certain Mr. Hradil from Čechyně and according to what my dad told me, he didn’t understand a lot about farming. The collective was up and running for some time but its operation was interrupted when the farmers withdrew from it. This was caused by a disagreement between the leadership of the collective and the farmers. They didn’t agree with the construction of a new huge cow barn that the collective planned. The farmers argued that there was plenty of space for the cows in the individual small sheds at the farms. There was no need for a huge cow barn in a little village. Therefore the farmers left the collective and as a repercussion, they were arrested and tried. It was considered sabotage because their withdrawal was organized and the Communists interpreted it as an effort to hamper the collectivization in Kozlovice.”
“There were several people imprisoned, my dad, my brother and my brother-in-law. Other farmers were sentenced too, for instance Mr. Vypler, Kolda, Jemelka and Štěpánek. There were even more. It was a huge, trumped-up judicial process intended as a cautionary warning for the other farmers in the village. It was a demonstration of what is going to happen to you if you dared to leave the farms collective. I remember it. I put the children to my aunt who would look after them and I went to the court to see the trial. They escorted them like murderers into the Town house, the most magnificent building in Přerov, where the trial took place publicly. I wish you could hear what the Communists said there.”
“They confiscated all their property and dumped it in a junk shop. The owner of that shop was a certain Mrs. Vaculíková and I really owe her because she saved all these things for us and gave them back to us so that my dad would have some clothes to wear when he came back from prison. I would also buy back my brother’s clothes from Mrs. Vaculíková.” Interviewer: “What actually happened with your mom and siblings?” “My sister and older brother remained at the farm. They left my brother alone because somebody had to run the farm. Then there followed the eviction. A man called Řvava I think, he was furious when he was moving us out of the house. He demanded us to be gone within a short time. We got a place to stay in a tiny house in Kozlovice and so my mom, brother and sister moved in there.”
Božena Šimanská, née Nevtípilová, was born in 1926 in the little village of Kozlovice near Přerov. The village is located on fertile soil in the region of Haná and the father of Božena was the greatest landowner in the village. After the Communist takeover of power and the introduction of efforts to collectivize the peasants, the regime exerted great pressure on the family to join collective farming. They had to deliver excessive amounts of crop and agricultural products and their former fields were swapped for fields that were farther away and yielded less crop. Both brothers of Božena were conscripted to the auxiliary military battalions (so-called “PTP”) and the older brother, Josef, eventually spent four years in the battalions, which was not in accord with the law of that time. Božena’s father was finally left with no other choice but to join the farming collective. However, three years later, in 1955, he left the farms collective again together with his son Josef, his son-in-law Alois Jemelka and four other farmers. In August 1955, all of them were sentenced to high prison terms in a public process that took place in Přerov. The verdict was meant to serve as a cautionary warning for the other farmers in the village. Both the father and the brother of Božena were sentenced to twelve years in prison and to the forfeiture of their property. At that point, her father was already 67 years old. After he was imprisoned, the family was moved out of their family farmstead. Božena’s father died after four years in the Leopoldov prison. The family tried hard to arrange for a transfer of his remains to Kozlovice, but their effort was in vain. It took a tremendous endeavor of Božena to at least secretly participate in the prison burial. In 1973, the authorities finally granted the transfer of her father’s remains. However, the family discovered that the prison grave yard had been shut down and there was nothing left of the father’s grave except for his identification plate bearing the number 4174 that they found at a nearby rubbish dump. In 1975, the mother of Božena, Anežka Nevtípilová, died and the family put the plate into her grave. Even though Božena Šimanská was allowed to graduate from medicine by the Communist regime, her professional beginnings were very complicated due to her class origin. In the 1990s, together with her brother, they filed a criminal charge against the Communist functionaries and the judicial authorities responsible for the eviction of her family and the sentencing of her father and brother. However, like the majority of similar cases, it was shelved for the expiry of the limitation period. Today, doctor Božena Šimanská still lives in Přerov.
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!
