Květoslava Zelená

* 1921

  • "When I got to the courthouse, there were nine other people there besides my husband. There was the main defendant, Honza Vycpálek, a friend of my husband's, and other men. They got the death penalty. I walked away with the smallest sentence of two years in the penitentiary. We were in Berlin for about three more weeks or so. I was very seriously ill. I told you I had otitis media and I don't know what happened, I just got acute tuberculosis of the glands later on. I was completely swollen and I was sick all the time."

  • "I was supposed to come to the Gestapo prison and bring my husband some underwear and clothes. My father was not at home that day, he was on duty. I have already told you that he got himself relocated to us. He had been with us for about a fortnight and this happened. I put my son on the couch and I said to him, 'Sleep, Zdeněk, mum is going to see dad and will come back.ʾ I came back two and a quarter years later."

  • "After a long hesitation, the policeman says, 'The Gestapo is looking for him.ʾ My father told me, 'You should meet him to warn him.'ʾ So around noon I got up and ran to the station and saw my husband coming out of the station hall. I was about to run towards him, but then two guys 'danced' their way towards him, shorter guys, in leather coats and hats on their heads. You know, if it hadn't been such a tragedy, it would have looked funny because my man this big guy in uniform, with a revolver at his side, and these two were taking him away."

  • Celé nahrávky
  • 1

    České Budějovice, 02.07.2009

    (audio)
    délka: 53:40
    nahrávka pořízena v rámci projektu Stories of 20th Century
Celé nahrávky jsou k dispozici pouze pro přihlášené uživatele.

It seems to me that patriotism is on the wane

Květoslava Zelená at approximately twenty years old
Květoslava Zelená at approximately twenty years old
zdroj: Witness's archive

Květoslava Zelená was born in Ledkov near Kopidlno in Czechoslovakia on 20 December 1921. Between the World Wars, she lived with her family in Česká Lípa and studied at a secondary vocational school for women in Děčín. Following the mobilization in 1938, she moved to Balkova Lhota near Tábor and she married gendarme Václav Nácal in 1939. They moved to České Budějovice and son Zdeněk was born the same year. Her husband joined the anti-Nazi resistance, charting the movements of German troops for his friend Jan Vycpálek who passed the intel to the Soviets. Jan Vycpálek was part of a group of five airmen who illegally crossed the border from the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia to Poland in 1939, and the Soviets offered them cooperation. The group of five was tasked with creating a network of contacts in the Protectorate and bringing the Soviets information about the movements of the German army. In 1941, however, the entire group was broken up, her husband was arrested, along with Květoslava Zelená and 198 other collaborators of the spy group. Květoslava Zelená was unaware of her husband‘s activities, yet she was arrested and imprisoned in České Budějovice, Pankrác and then in Dresden. On 29 April 1943, the trial took place in Berlin. Her husband was sentenced to fifteen years‘ imprisonment, Květoslava Zelená to two years‘ imprisonment, and five others to death. The witness was then taken to the Aichach prison, from there to Prague in November 1943 and released in February 1944. Her husband served his sentence in Kaisheim and did not return to České Budějovice until July 1945. After the war, Květoslava Zelená worked as a secretary at the Department of Agriculture of the Regional National Committee and at the company‘s Directorate of Agricultural Supply and Purchasing. At the time of filming in 2009 she lived in České Budějovice.