Interviewer. “And what happened with your brother?” Ž. V. “He went for some action to Štíty – Šilperk. He suffered a gunshot wound there. They brought him home wounded. We had a shelter at home and he stayed there. They called for one of the guerillas, a man which understood medicine. He advised them what to do so that he would survive. He suffered a lot; he had to remain in that shelter while he was wounded.”
“They pushed my mom and the Gestapo man beat my father. He came to him and beat him with his fists. Dad then didn’t even eat for two weeks. I only got slapped, they didn’t beat me with fists. But there is one thing I have to mention: not all the Germans were bad. One day the Germans were searching our house, dad was outside and I called at him: ´Dad! Run away!´- ´Where should I run? ´- ´Away. To the forest, to the fields, so that they don’t see you.´ We had a small garden. One of the policemen was standing there, by the fence. Father was running along that fence. The policeman, a German, had a submachine gun and he turned towards the forest in order not to see my dad running. Father was simply able to escape to the field and the German saw him. But when he spotted him, he turned around in order not to see him. So not all the Germans were bad.”
“We had a goat. I called it a miraculous goat. For we had this shelter for gueriilas at home, and there was an entrance to the shelter. When I released the goat, it would immediately walk right to the planks which covered the entrance to the shelter and step on it. She would stand there and do ´Baaah, baaah…´ The policemen came and they would look at it. The goat was standing on the cover and going ´Baaah.´ And they couldn’t find out if there was anything there or not.”
“One day a Gestapo member came and he beat me right in the hallway. He came to our house and began asking in German: ´Shelter! Where is the shelter?!´ I replied: ´What do you want? I can’t understand you?´ And so I had to go the stable with them. He simply beat me in that stable. He asked again in German: ´Shelter?! Shelter?!´ So I said in Czech: ´All right, have a look around here. Find it yourself!´ Obviously, I had covered the shelter before. We’d always cover the entrance to the shelter and then open the door. You can’t imagine it, you’d have to experience it yourself. If somebody was pounding on the door, you couldn’t go and open right away. At first you had to run to the shed, cover the door to the shelter, release the goat which was taught to step in that place, and cover it with manure so that there would be no fresh straw over it.”
Žofie Vernerová, born Maierová, was born in 1923 in Cotkytle, in the Janoušov hamlet. An illegal resistance organization was established in this village in 1941, and her brother Antonín Maier also became one of its members. He was arrested by the police in 1942 when he was carrying a gun which he had obtained in Lanškroun. He managed to escape and he was hiding until the end of the war, often in the secret shelter which was made in the Maier family house. The family thus experienced several house searches by the Gestapo, and Žofie´s father was brutally beaten during one such event. At the end of the war he brother was severely wounded, suffering a penetration wound in his lungs. He had to spent several months in the shelter without adequate medical care. After the war Žofie and her husband Jan moved to Vidnava in the Jeseník region, where she was working at a post office till her retirement. At present she still lives in this border town.
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