Slavomír Klaban

“Our whole family participated in the resistance activity. At first my father who was the leading official of the Defence of the Nation, and because this organization worked mainly in espionage, I was taking care of the fact that the surroundings of Hradec Králové would be mapped for the allied air forces. As you know, the city of Pardubice was also bombed and some bombs fell on the civil population, some even on the factory utilizing petroleum. It provoked us, the resistance fighters, to the activity to communicate with our centre in London through the Defence of the Nation, only to get to know that the Allies were bombing even inhabited quarters. We didn´t like it at all, we took it as a mistake. So we tried to draw the attention of our resistance leadership in London to the fact that during bombings they were committing inaccuracies, which didn´t have any impact on Germans, but on Czech civil population.”

“The most valuable assistance was the connection to reliable people who wouldn´t denounce them to the Gestapo.”

“My Mum knew that we were participating in the resistance. The leading military official of the Defence of the Nation slept in our place, when he was staying in Hradec. He was moving around the whole region so that it was impossible to capture him. By authority of his position in the military resistance organization he turned to my father as a political functionary, so that my father gave them for example a list of 160 reliable patriots who became all participants of the Defence of the Nation. The organization had at first a military character, but it included also civil units.”

“It was at that time the routine of the Gestapo and Nazi justice that the person, who was in a direct contact with the parachutists, was beforehand sentenced to liquidation.”

“First of all I had to elaborate the reports. I am no technician though, but I managed to make a plan of Hradec Králové. I was redrawing the objects of military importance and then it was sent by the messenger post abroad. A member and leading official of the Defence of the Nation participated in the transport outwards, he had this transport in charge. However, through where and to where, through whom I had no idea. It was against the rules of the resistance activity. So I tried to fulfil the request, but it was without stating the resources and co-workers.”

“My best friend blew the whistle about me. I mentioned it in my report. He couldn´t stand it at the Gestapo and following his testimony I was arrested. It was on 20th October 1944. They came to arrest me to the school in Slatina in the suburbs of Hradec Králové. The first punch I got in the building of the regional court in Hradec Králové where the Gestapo prison was located. Straight on the first day I fell into unconsciousness after the questioning, so you can probably imagine how it looked.”