“In 1936 Henlein visited Úsov. There was a monument to dead German soldiers in the square, and there used to be parades there. They announced that Henlein would come, and some Germans took to wearing white socks and those costumes of theirs. The lady from the manor dressed herself with special care. Henlein arrived in an open car. The Henleinites had a party organisation in Úsov, and the manor lady, who was the museum guide, brought a covered tray with cakes. From then on things were split, and there was trouble between Germans and Czechs. Not all Germans were wild like that, a few of them didn’t welcome Hitler too happily.”
“They brought me to a Gestapo officer, who was sitting behind a desk. He gave me a piercing look and roared: ‘What’s the deal with those partisans?!’ I told him I didn’t know anything about any partisans. He wanted to approach me, probably to hit me, but at that moment the phone rang. He put the phone down and said his commander had called him to some meeting. There was an interpreter in the room, and when he left, I asked her what was actually going on. She told me that I had supported the partisans both with funds and with services, that they have a dossier on me. I reckon that secretary lady was in the resistance because she told me that I have to claim I had been giving charity to poor orphans. I kept claiming that. I was in a room of about two by two metres, where there was just a table and a chair, and I waited to see what would happen next. Some three hours later some German guards came and told me I’d go home. I asked them how. They said that was my problem. I said, seeing that they’d brought me there, they should take me back again. He said: ‘Listen, you don’t understand. I they take you, it’ll be to the furnace.’”
Alois Molík was born on 21 October 1922 in Úsov. In 1938 he experienced both the Wehrmacht entering the city and the “crystal night”, when the Germans plundered the local synagogue. He witnessed the deportation of several Úsov Jews to concentration camps. During the war he helped Soviet captives who worked with him in the nearby Kretschmer Mine (later renamed Barbora Mine), and he was also active in the resistance. In late 1944 he was interrogated by the Gestapo in Šumperk on suspicion of supporting the partisans. In 1945 he was a member of the revolutionary national committee for the Social Democrats; he was subsequently chosen as secretary of the local national committee (town council) in Úsov. When the Communists came to power, he was in conflict with the state authorities on several occasions. For example, he refused to sign a condolence no the death of Stalin, and he also disagreed with the methods used to establish the united agricultural cooperative in Úsov. He was investigated by State Security for these issues, and in 1954 he was forced to quit his job of secretary. He signed up to an employment drive by Bytostav to build blocks of flats near Ostrava. He was accepted despite his negative political profile. At first, he worked as a digger, then as a bricklayer’s assistant, and after completing a course, as a crane operator. He was later chosen for a distance course, after which he worked in an office, then as a foreman, and finally as a construction manager. In 2016 he lived with his wife in Bohumín. Alois Molík died on 16 August 2019.
