Františka Řmotová

* 1929

  • "At night they came, the Gestapo came to us, they banged on the doors, on the windows. It was half the night, we were in our shirts, looking out. The shoes, you know, the studs, it was horrible. The rifles or whatever they had, I don't know what you call it... And so dad went to open it, as it was banging, and: 'Herr Krátký?' - Daddy says: 'Yeah.' - 'Well, we're going,' in German, as that he was to steal the belt... 'I'm doing the machinist there, what would I do, what would I steal the belt for? Then search it!'"

  • "She served on a small farm there. They had a bunker in the cellar, the partisans, made. Somebody gave it out that they were there, and they went in there to find out. And my sister had a boyfriend there, we didn't even know him, it just kind of started with him. And he was probably a little bit with them too, with the partisans... And they shot two of them right there, and the other one was taken to a concentration camp. And now my sister says, 'Come on', and they jumped out the window... and it was like, she had a little room on the ground floor, and they ran, they were going to Klopina. Through fields, at night, through fields. And she said... We lived, we had a little cottage, just, but behind us there was a farmer like that, he had an orchard, a huge orchard, until - you don't remember. A big orchard, barns. And my sister said, 'I'll put him in the barn, in the straw, that's where we'll hide him.'"

  • "So we were running with these girls and went to the Hitler Youth. They had drums and drummed. The one in the front had a banner, a swastika, and the Hitler Youth had swastikas on their sleeves. And we, as curious people, that... Already the parade went from Úsov to Klopina, they went to Rohle, that was German. And we, the curious ones, are watching. And from Klopina to Úsov, it's quite a road, a straight road. And we were looking and they, the Hitlerites, were slowly approaching Klopina. And we, as children, some of them had already run away in a hurry, and we, and I was among them, and so - into the sewer, there was a ditch - into that sewer we went to hide. We hid. When they leave, we'd come out. Yeah... They stopped: 'Out!' And they lined us up. 'Heil Hitler, Sieg Heil!' We had to Heil."

  • Full recordings
  • 1

    Šumperk, 25.03.2022

    (audio)
    duration: 01:56:32
    media recorded in project The Stories of Our Neigbours
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There’s good and bad in every age

Františka Řmotová, née Krátká, as a schoolgirl
Františka Řmotová, née Krátká, as a schoolgirl
photo: archive of a witness

Františka Řmotová, née Krátká, was born in Klopina on 15 October 1929, and was ten years old when the Second World War began. At that age, she was already well aware of the rapidly changing relationships in her surroundings. Several times she experienced bullying by children from the Hitler Youth, a Nazi organization that met in nearby Rohle. Her father was accused of stealing a thresher machine belt from a German for whom he worked. Furthermore, her family hid one of the local partisans, a friend and later her sister’s husband, in the attic of their home for three quarters of a year. At the end of the war, she experienced dramatic moments during the liberation by the Red Army. After the war, the witness got married and worked first as a helper in the funeral home and then in a unified agricultural cooperative (JZD). In 2022, she was still living in Klopina and, according to her words, was already the oldest resident of this village.