“We went until we reached Plötzensee. There was a big gate with a sign that said, ‘To the Victims of the Nazi Terror 1933–1945’. When you walked out, there was a road and the Spree River runs right next. Since my husband knew a little German, we went on. I wanted to know if we could grab some soil, symbolically, as my dad’s name is written on the tomb in Plzeň. But the guide said that nobody was ever buried there. The executions took place from seven AM to seven PM, about every 15 minutes. There is a small, coarsely built house behind the memorial. It has four doors leading straight outdoors. The guide asked if we wanted to see the inside. I said I did. It was horrible though… They took them in through one door, took their clothes off and gave them paper clothes. The next room was all tiled. There was a channel and a guillotine used to stand right next to it. That’s where they beheaded them. Then they took the body out through the third door and washed the blood away with water… Then they took them straight to a furnace which was close by. The guide said there were so many people executed that their ashes were dumped straight into the Spree River. The executioners used the fourth room. It was horrendous. We were there in May, so the flowers that our representatives had brought in earlier in remembrance of Julius Fučík were still there. We brought beautiful flowers too, so we laid them there. Then the guide showed us metal hooks above the windows. He told us that the bodies of Count Stauffenberg and his cohorts who had attempted [unsuccessfully] to assassinate Hitler had been put on those hooks.”
“When the sirens signalled an air raid, we always had to run for the cellar [in school]. There were farms all around, and family houses on towards Vejprnice. When they knew that an air raid would be signalled soon, they let those who lived near go home. We ran home and straight to the shelter. But, one bomb hit a house down the street and my schoolmate, Bohunka Cibulková, died there… They couldn’t save her. Hits like that just happened. But I believe that if the Americans, back then, had the equipment they have now, no house would have to be hit. That wasn’t the case, so Skvrňany was hit quite hard. A bomb was actually found there quite recently, evicting us all for a couple of hours. And I believe there are more bombs hidden in the meadows and swamps; some have been found since.”
“There was no combat action directly in our area, but sweep fighters did appear once, probably targeting the Zdemyslice–Blovice railway line. They flew in circles, on and on, but did nothing because Nazis, or ‘national guests’ as they were referred to, had been staying with uncle before. The Nazis stopped a rather long German convoy moving towards Plzeň. Then the sweep fighters came in, circled it all, and flew away. Only when the convoy set in motion towards Vlčtejn, the fighters came in suddenly and ‘sprinkled’ it with bullets. I don’t know what came next; we didn’t go there obviously because it was still war. Then, on 6 May in the morning, someone suddenly ran into the village and shouted: ‘The Americans are coming!’ Then we saw tanks rolling on from Nepomuk. They [US Army] came to our village, and people brought them beer and what not. In turn, they gave us chocolate and chewing gum. We waved at them. Then they slowly moved on towards Plzeň.”
“I remember two gestapo men coming on 4 December 1940 at seven AM and arresting dad. He said goodbye to us, and I don’t remember anything else about him because we never saw him again. We only learned later that dad was the leader of a group within the Defence of the Nation [resistance movement]. They were in contact with the Škoda factory that manufactured a lot of ammunition. When they got the message that a train was to leave, they would relay it on. Dad was initially in prison in Prague-Pankrác, then in Terezín, Goleniow near Szczecin, and finally in Plötzensee in Berlin where he was sentenced to death and executed. They arrested him on 4 December 1940 but didn’t execute him until 20 May 1943 at seven PM…”
Bohumila Šmolíková was born in Plzeň on 19 October 1934. Her father Bohumil Pytlík, staff captain of the military armament service, was the head of a group in the Defence of the Nation resistance movement in Plzeň linked to the Škoda factory. When Bohumila Šmolíková was six years old, the Nazis arrested her father for obstructing the transport of weapons. He was held in prison in Prague-Pankrác, Terezín, Goleniow near Szczecin, and finally in Plötzensee in Berlin where he was sentenced to death and executed on 20 May 1943. The witness along with her elder sister and mother would hide in shelters in Plzeň during the war. As the air raids grew intense, they moved to her uncle in the village of Seč near Blovice and helped out on a farm. This is also where they all witnessed liberation by the US Army on 6 May 1945. Twenty American soldiers were accommodated directly in their uncle’s house. Bohumila Šmolíková went on to complete a high school of health and social care in Plzeň but was not assigned to a job in Plzeň. She did not want to move because she needed to tend to her sick mother. She worked as an office secretary, then with the Red Cross, and then as an after-school teacher at the primary school in Skvrňany for 30 years. She married Milan Šmolík in 1954 and they raised two daughters. In 1968, the witness and her husband travelled to Berlin to witness the place of her father’s execution. When she wanted to take some soil home, the Plötzensee prison guide explained that the Nazis would throw the ashes of those executed into the Spree River. Bohumila Šmolíková retired in 1989 but became a widow soon after. She went back to work and worked at the Regional Organisation of the Plzeň Region – Seniors of the Czech Republic for 30 years, including 11 years as the Chair. She was living in Plzeň at the time of the recording.
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!
