Dana Milatová

“They drove the car to the morgue at the back, they were supposed to take Jašek, Kozmik, and Čepela. So they drove off to the back and we were in the living room, which had a window looking out towards the rabbit hutch by the forest, and I saw Kozmik there. I said: ‘Mum, Kozmik’s there. He’s feeding the rabbits.’ She rushed to him and told him to hide. By the path leading to the Březnice road there was an enormous linhay for hay and feeding equipment. So he hid there, and so they didn’t arrest him with all the rest. I went there to him afterwards, and he lamented awfully and said that he didn’t know what to do. That he’d trying going to Slovakia, that he had a nephew somewhere near Vsetín. We gave some things for the journey. He hid there one more day. We didn’t know if we were being watched or not. Because ever since August, when they had interrogated Dad for the first time, we constantly felt as if there was someone walking around in the forest.”

“Opposite the town hall in Zlín there was a company called Ludmila, which sold weapons. Seeing as my father was a regular customer, he made some deal and took something extra there. Then there was quite a stack from General Zahálek. Father worked with him. They were three or four people who knew about each other but pretended not to. When they arrested General Zahálek, he didn’t blurt anything. Someone from the Defence of the Nation betrayed him in Brno, but he didn’t speak, and so all the weapons stayed there. They executed him already in 1942, and they locked my father up in 1943. So my father was sure that no one knew about the weapons. Just my brother and I, we knew because we were curious.”

“One time I was in the train with Anežka [Zmeškalová - ed.] on the way from Zlín. She had an accordion and we were headed to Vizovice. She also had a straw bag at the bottom of which she had three or four grenades wrapped in a rag with apples piled on top. We left Zlín and a troop of soldiers got on. They came to us, started chatting, and one of them asked if he could take an apple, and he did. Then another one asked, and a third, and I could see [Anežka] go completely pale and stiff. What now? I thought to myself. I knew she had something there. But we were lucky. We came to Příluky and they got out. So they only took a few apples from the top. But what nerves we had...”

“We would go there in the evening. Dad wrote us that it was possible between nine and ten, when the guards make their rounds. In the park, my brother climbed on my uncle’s shoulders, hooked up a fishing line, and smuggled the packages across on the line, taking message reels on the way back. Goodness knows what would have happened if anyone had fallen down. There was a German casino in the neighbouring palace, and the Germans would walk along the path. There were pine trees at the top of the hill, and I would stand there with someone and keep watch. The worst thing was when I had to stand there alone. You can imagine how frightened I was. A fifteen-year-old girl, no option but to stand there. They told me to whistle. But I’m sure I wouldn’t have whistled, because I was taut as a bowstring. I really don’t know how I would have reacted if something had happened. From below the hill, from the direction of Hotel Morava, we also had people coming up. So someone had to keep watch there as well. Or there would be a couple sitting on the bench. How to get rid of them? So two of us went from above and two from below, we met and stopped right in front of them and started chatting. We would keep on chatting until they left the bench.”

“One of Dad’s fellow inmates was Vyoral’s father, who had been hiding weapons with the policeman [František] Lečík. People called the Vyorals the Kučeras, because Mrs Vyoralová’s maiden name had been Kučerová. They had three children. Maňka went to school with my brother, Jožka went with me, and then they had one younger one. They all ended up in prison, even their grandfather. That grandfather was in the same cell as my dad, and they tried to come up with a plan to help. Old Mr Kučera wanted to save at least his daughter, and so Dad and Mr Kučera wrote a message and smuggled it to Mrs Vyoralová. And when they confronted her with her husband, then she started ranting about how he was a slob who didn’t care for the children at all, that she had to do everything, that she didn’t even know what he did. That he was with granddad most of the time. They fell for it and let her go free. Can you imagine how grateful she was for being saved like that? It made me downright embarrassed at times, when I would see her after the war, when I would visit her in Březnice on the occasion. She didn’t know what to bring me. Plum brandy, lard. I didn’t want it. What for? We had our own farm. But she didn’t know what to give me for being saved.”

“I received a message that I was to deliver some box some place. They were two boxes in fact. One contained a pistol and the other bullets. I later heard that [Petr Budka’s] pistol had malfunctioned and that he didn’t have any proper weapon. Josef [Gajdošík] said he’d get him another one, that he’d see to it. He was in the vicinity of Vizovice and he sent me a message instructing me to deliver it. So I took my satchel and set off. I took the evening worker’s bus to Lukov and continued on foot through the forest and past the Passion shrines to Veliková. And my uncle was supposed to be waiting for me by one of those shrines. I was worried about getting back home in the night. I came there, uncle Josef stepped out. I took off my satchel and handed it to him. He took it and unwrapped immediately, and suddenly a tall man came out from behind the Passion shrine. I was startled, but my uncle passed [the pistol] to him, and he looked it over and said: ‘Kharasho, dyevochka.’ So he got it, and he was very happy.”