“I was in Jemnice in the border region between Bohemia, Austria and Moravia. I served there as a sentry and we were housed in the local chateau. Two weeks later an order to vacate the château arrived and all had to leave. We were to choose from three types of work: either agriculture, forestry, or mines. I knew agriculture and forestry from home, and so I was curious what work in the mines would be like. And so I applied for work in coal mines, and thus I later got into PTP (Auxiliary Technical Battalions). It was in May (1950) and they assigned me to the Auxiliary Technical Battalions in Ostrava-Radvanice. We worked on the mine Hedvika, it was the shaft Julius Fučík. In 1950 they shaved our heads completely, even the older men, and we were sent to the PTP.”
“Old Mr. and Mrs. Janek celebrated their golden wedding anniversary. Their place was called Bernárdek’s home. They celebrated it in the chapel and there was a house covered with tar paper below the chapel, and Mr. Turek and his helper painted swastikas and anti-German signs on that house. The whole roof was whitewashed and the wife of director Göttlicher saw it and she called the Gestapo. They arrested all boys who were over sixteen years old. There were more than thirty of them, and they arrested my brothers, too, and they imprisoned them in Arbeithaus in Šumperk. Turek, the man who had done it, confessed to it, or perhaps they got the information from his helper who was arrested as well. They released the boys and they sentenced Turek and I think that he spent four months in prison for that.”
“The partisans went down to the village in the afternoon on May 6th. There were three or four of them. A car with German soldiers arrived from Hostice and they wanted to find accommodation in Štědrákova Lhota. Another motorcycle was riding behind them. When the partisans saw that the men were Germans, they opened fire on them. It happened close to our house, basically near Vršné. I was present there with the partisans. As soon as they started shooting, the car began to back up and the partisans ran to Stará pec up on the hill from which the road was visible, and they kept shooting at them. The car remained immobile below the first farm and the Germans ran into the forest and they ran back to Hostice, and the motorcycle returned there as well. The Germans then sent an armoured unit from Hostice to Lhota. Before the armoured unit arrived, I had gone to the car with the partisans, and the partisans collected all weapons that were there. I saw a photo camera there, and so I took it.”
Jan Skokan was born on May 26, 1928 in Štědrákova Lhota, which at that time was the northernmost Czech village in northwestern Moravia. During World War Two the village Štědrákova Lhota became part of the German region Sudetenland. Several people from the village joined the resistance movement and they ended in Nazi prisons. Jan‘s brothers were imprisoned for a brief time as well. Some people managed to escape arrest and hide in the surrounding forests where they kept hiding until the end of the war. The villagers as well as members of Jan‘s family were then bringing food to the forests for them. Jan Skokan also became a direct witness of a fight between partisans and a small German unit. The village was in danger of being burnt to the ground for this just two days before the end of the war. In October 1949 Jan was drafted to do his basic military service. In June 1950 his unit was disbanded and the soldiers were to be assigned to do some auxiliary service. They were given a choice between work in agriculture, forestry, and coal mines. Jan selected the mines and he was transferred to the accommodation facilities in Ostrava-Radvanice. Based on the order of minister of national defence Alexej Čepička from October 1, 1950, the so-called heavy (mining) auxiliary technical battalions were established. The unit in Ostrava-Radvanice was transformed to the 55th Auxiliary Technical Battalion (PTP) and Jan received the black epaulettes on his uniform. After his return from the PTP Jan started working in a construction company where he was in charge of accounting and later of logistics, and he remained working there until his retirement. In 1952 he married Jarmila Divišová, and they had two sons, Jaromír and Jan. In 2017 he was living in Šumperk.
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