“The Germans caught one of the resistance fighters and then went to the concentration camp. They didn’t get father and maybe three others until the second wave, when Fiala from Pavlov gave them up. They sent them to the Army Court to Olomouc with Fiala in tow. Father said that Fiala ratted on them because he thought that we would be pardoned. They executed him too. Then, from there, Dad made it to Breslau – Wrocław and then to Terezín and Dresden. During the bombing of Dresden on 12 February 1945 (13 February 1945) the three of them managed to escape. Two of them were from Loštice – Mr. Spička and Mr. Krobot. Father said that when it started they were chased out of the camp. They lined up in rows of six and said that they made a gesture with their hand behind them like: ‘Go to Matylda.’ And that Matylda got a direct hit. That’s how they were saved.”
„Táta jim to dvakrát rozbil. Oni dvakrát zakládali družstvo. Říkali, že když půjde Martinec, tak vstoupíme, ale jestli ne, tak my také ne. Takže ho marně přesvědčovali, až to dopadlo tak, že do družstva nevstoupil on, ale máma. Maminka byla jako členka JZD. Doma se poklízely prasata a měli jsme tam jednu dojnou krávu. Tak nějak to fungovalo.“
“So when the Russians occupied us: There’s a big garden and a pond there, there were some trucks around, and in the courtyard there were Studebakers. A major lived at home with us, the head of that group, and he was a doctor. I remember getting a pencil from him. He basically lived with us. Once he went away and the Russians came up and stole some laundry and father’s leather suit. When he came back, Mom complained to him about it. He wanted to shoot them right off; he kicked them down the stairs. He pulled out a pistol but Mom told him not to. So they were saved, but they stole whatever they felt like there. Grenades were tossed into the pond. That’s how I remember it.”
Jaromír Martinec was born on 18 August 1939 in Doubravice (today part of Moravičany) u Mohelnice as the second of four children to his parents Jaromír and Anna. The family owned a mill and a farm in their town. His father got involved in the resistance during the Second World War. He smuggled and stored weapons, assisted the families of imprisoned resistance fighters as well as men trying to get across the border to join international armies, in addition to printing and distributing anti-Nazi literature. In May 1944 his father was arrested by the Gestapo. Then he spent a year in the Small Fortress of Terezín, in Breslau (today’s Wrocław) and in Dresden. In Terezín a guard broke his nose and pelvis and in Dresden he barely survived an Allied bomb raid. Upon returning home, he weighed a mere forty kilos and would deal with the health consequences for the remainder of his life. During the communist regime, his family was forced to join the United Agricultural Cooperative and in 1953 the family mill in Doubravice was nationalized. Jaromír Martinec Jr. studied at a miller’s trade school in Pardubice, but as the son of a former entrepreneur he was not accepted into university. Thereafter his entire working life revolved around the milling trade. In 1969 he married Blanka Šímová, with whom he had three children – Jana, Jaromír, and Petr. In 2020 he was living in Moravičany. He died on November 9, 2024.
František Kruš – a teacher from Moravičany, the first organizer of the resistance at Loštice, who was shot by the Gestapo during his arrest on 14 January 1944
František Kruš – a teacher from Moravičany, the first organizer of the resistance at Loštice, who was shot by the Gestapo during his arrest on 14 January 1944
