Marie Adámková

* 1930

  • “Without any questions there were suddenly nineteen guerrillas in our house. They lived with us for about two months in winter. When they stayed, there was a large hill called Cimbál opposite to our house and the Germans were monitoring the village from it with binoculars. It was early in spring, in March and we were in the field with my mum. We saw the Germans and told the guerrillas back home and asked what we would do. The Russians said: ,We´d shoot, mother.‘ ,And what happens with us?‘ They told us to hide under the bed. Just their style. Also up in the roof they took roof tiles out and kept watch spying on Germans and the German back at them.”

  • „They chose me and either they braided messages in my hair or put in my shoes and took me to the other village and there I handed it over to the major or another village representative. Two guerrillas went with me over the forest but could not go any further as there were Germans, so I had to walk on my own.”

  • “Several times I had to go to the local policeman in Mikulůvka and he handed the message to the major. I came over to the policeman and asked him, where the uncle was, that I got something for him. He told me he´s at the municipality, so I have to go there and be careful as there were many Germans. I had a kind of communication equipment in my pockets; those may have been tennis balls or various colourful ribbons and also small blowing balloons. As I was passing along the village, there were German wagons everywhere. I was going amongst them and didn’t know what to do, so I was throwing a tennis ball at the Germans and they would throw it back to me and the guerrillas were looking at it from the forests. Or I let go of the balloons. I don’t remember exactly, but think it was yellow as a sign of everything ok, and when I let a green one go, that meant the message was handed over and all is fine, and the red one was an alarm for the guerrillas to call for a backup.”

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    Olomouc, 24.05.2016

    (audio)
    duration: 01:10:53
    media recorded in project Stories of 20th Century
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She kept guerrilla message braided in a ponytail

Marie Adámková (Hurtíková) in 1946
Marie Adámková (Hurtíková) in 1946
photo: archiv pamětnice

Marie Adámková, née Hurtíková, was born on April 15, 1930 in a village of Oznice. Together with her parents, an older brother Alois and a younger Josef they lived in a settlement U Plšků, one of many settlements spread out in the neighbourhood. Her parents owned a small farm there. At the end of 1944 or the beginning of 1945 suddenly there was a group of nineteen guerrillas. The house became their shelter for two months and fourteen years old Marie became their connection. She was walking past German soldiers with messages braided in her hair or in her shoes and handed them over to the major of the neighbouring Mikulůvka or his deputies. In her story-telling she also remembers the death of a young guerrilla Ivan, who she fell in love with or eliminating an informer nearby their house. After war she studied the high family school in Valašské Meziříčí and worked in the House of business and services Svazarm the longest time. In 2016 she lived permanently with her son in the village of Jablůnka.