I dreamed every night for a year about my dad with a bullet in his head
Jarmila Hermanová was born on 3 June 1930 in Želivec, now part of the municipality of Sulice in the Prague-East district. Her father František Šimek worked at the train post office, her mother Marie Šimková took care of a small farm and two daughters. She remembered her father’s disappointment after the abolished mobilisation in September 1938. In March 1939 she saw German soldiers arriving to occupy Czechoslovakia. Her dad was involved in the underground movement, but the family did not know about it. He disarmed the German soldiers on 5 May 1945 in Želivec. The Germans detained and brutally interrogated him. He did not reveal the names of the other participants in the disarmament and the Germans shot him on 6 May. The witness searched for her father at the SS headquarters and discovered his body lying at the memorial to the victims of the First World War on 7 May. She took over her dad´s work on the farm, as private farmers they had to fill supplies and grow required crops after collectivisation. Mum joined a cooperative farm in 1952. The witness had two daughters and in 2023 was living with her husband in Želivec.