„V květnu roku 1944 byla normálně škola a najednou na dědině zastavilo auto a pak druhý a vylezli z něj gestapáci a šli k nám do školy. Za chvíli přišel tatínek ze třídy a dětem řekl, aby šli domů. Gestapáci pak prošmejdili celý náš byt. V posteli ještě ležela babička a maminka honem ještě nějaké věci, které by se jim mohly líbit, nastrkala babičce pod peřinu. Já jsem začala tatínkovi chystat chleba s máslem a balit. Nevěděla jsem, co bude. Když prošmějdili celý byt, dvůr a všechno, tak nám sebrali rádio a tatínkovo kolo.“
„Druhý den přijeli Němci na motorkách s těma lodičkama. V dědině byla hromada německých vojáků a my jsme se na to jako děti dívali úplně vyjeveně. Okamžitě byla měnová reforma a to tak, že jedna marka byla deset korun. A za tu korunu se u nás v obchodě dostalo pět rohlíků. Čili za deset feniků dostali Němci pět rohlíků a byli z toho úplně u vytržení. Za chvíli bylo všechno vykoupený. Zůstali u nás do rána a protože to byla dědina bez hotelu, tak nám do školy, do našeho bytu, nastěhovali velitele. Škola pak pokračovala normálně dál, jenže místo Beneše tam visel obraz Hitlera a začali jsme s Němčinou. Tak to si taky vzpomínám na to eins, zwei, drei.“
„V květnu byla veliká bouře a krupobití. Krásně kvetly třešně a ovocné stromy a všechno bylo popadaný a už z toho pak nic nebylo. Druhý takový negativní bod byl o prázdninách, když v Bohuslavicích, což byla zemědělská obec, tak dobytek dostal slintavku a kulhavku. A ke konci prázdnin strašně pršelo. Pršelo tak, že se tady na Drozdovské Pile zvedla řeka a bylo to pomalu jako někde u moře. Bohuslavice bylys v nížině a kolem tekla Morava a celá obec měla kousek dál od řeky hráze a byly tam samé luky. Jedna hráz, která chránila Bohuslavice byla pod Hrabovou a ta se pod náporem velké vody roztrhla a dál hráz pokračovala až k Háji u Třeštiny a ta se taky protrhla. Bohuslavice byly celé zaplavené vodou. Tak to byla třetí pohroma. A čtvrtá byla nejhorší a dlouhá. Na konci září nás zabrali Němci a udělali z nás Sudety.“
“A young girl came to us and asked if she could stay in our cottage (Drozdovská Pila). It was Amálka, a sister of Mrs Švábová. They began to come and meet up with the guerillas from Drozdovská Pila. In November 1944 at the hill above ours they shot a guerilla Háječek and pulled him by his legs down. He was lying at Novotných in the hotel under a covered wagon. We went to have a look there. Later they buried him in Jedlí and then they dug him up again and buried properly. What was worst, they then caught and imprisoned a guerilla (Karel) Holouš, who knew about it all. Later Holouš with a gestapo guy were passing along Bohuslavice and mum thought they are coming for her. My sister and I didn’t know what was going on. Then Holouš said, he didn’t say any more than he had to.”
“Just before they moved, the eldest and then the youngest sons were transported to Olomouc by the Germans. Their parents didn’t know, they shot them straight away, so they went there. Then I remember, there was a horse carriage in the square for their transportation to the rail station. I recall the women, as they were standing there with packages and they were carrying them away. Everyone could take a few kilos with them. One or two Jews returned to Loštice, but none of the Knöpflmachers.”
“Mother stopped by at our uncle´s in Neratovice and he went with her. They got to a room in Theresienstadt, where they brought daddy. He could not even look at her, nor could he take anything. She just told him something. Daddy was paid a salary in a savings cooperative in Zábřeh and had to sign, so he did sign some papers for mummy, so that she could withdraw money for us as we didn’t get a single penny the whole year. She brought back the food and left it with her acquaintance in Prague. Dad then went to Dresden. He survived the bombing. Their group was in a brick factory behind Dresden, so that they could observe it, but didn’t get affected. Then they were digging our tubes and other stuff and air-raids were continuing. He was looking around and then someone pulled him back and actually there was a bomb nearby, so he survived all right.”
Soňa Jelínková, née Straková, was born on December 25, 1928 in Loštice. In her life she often witnessed, how the totalitarian regimes destroy human lives. Such as her father´s, Oldřich Straka, for connection to resistance by the Nazis, her uncle´s, a war resistance, Jaroslav Knápek, by the communists. Her uncle managed to escape from prison and was hiding for several years in his own house cellar in the settlement Drozdovská Pila, before he reported himself to authorities. During the WW2 the witness with her own eyes watched transports of the Jews from Loštice, crackdown on guerrillas in Drozdovská Pila and as a domestic helper witnessed sheltering of escaped Soviet prisoners of war in the village of Háj u Třeštiny. After war she studied the newly opened Commerce Academy in Šumperk. In 1949 she began working at the forestry in Hoštejn and then as a wage accountant and a cashier in the State Forestry in Zábřeh. Then she worked in the Investment Bank in Šumperk and then in the State Bank of Czechoslovakia, where she was in charge of investments and operations of individual agricultural cooperatives and later also operations of regional giants - n. p. Rudné doly Jeseník and Severomoravské dřevařské závody n. p. Šumperk. In 2016 she lived in Zábřeh.
