František Motyčka

“People distinguished between Little Palešnik and Big Palešnik. Big Palešnik was a long village and we lived in Little Palešnik, separated from Hercegovac by a small creek. There were a lot more Czechs in Hercegovac, in our village there were fewer and in Big Palešnik there were none. I had neighbours with the names Kučera, Techlovský, Švec, and Žáček, who lived on the other side. Two sisters and a brother lived there. There were also families named Dušek and Beneš, and a man named František Šrůtek. He was a problem. He was tall and thin. During the military draft people came from the Czechoslovakian embassy with a doctor and they picked local Czechs. My dad always said that they couldn’t send the guy there, that it would be a shame, that he was all arms and legs, like a sea spider. That’s what he would always say, I remember that still, we would always make fun of him. But otherwise he was a fantastic fisherman.”

“Zdeněk Petr was a young person and he died with the partisans as well. Or Mirek (Petr) actually. We got to Bjelovar and found a mass grave filled in with lime. And this Mirek was one of those who had died there. When they forced them to retreat they shot them dead and covered them up. No more wars. Anything but that. This Mirek was such a good man that he would provide the partisans with flour to make bread.”