Jaroslav Šebík

“First [the father] was kept in prison and interrogated in Zlín. They beat them there and threatened him that if he does not confess, they will arrest the whole family. My mother was already pregnant with my sister Jana. He told me that the beating was not so bad but this was too much. So, he signed all he could but luckily one of the later mafdo [an approximation of the Czech ‘mukl’, an acronym meaning ‘man designated for disposal’ - trans.] told him: ‘Sign what they want you to sing but you must not sign that you are an agent.’ They told him repeatedly: ‘You are an American agent!’ And he repeated: ‘No, I am not’, and this way he did not get a rope because they would hang him for that. They were prepared to pin it all on him. I remember I walked with my mum to… I was – I remember twice – in the Soudní street. Across the street, there is a law court and there was a jail and my dad was on its upper floor. On the other side, there is a low wall with a metal fence and my mum always put me on the wall. I remember I waved at my dad who was behind the barred window. My dad was later [transferred] to Uherské Hradiště. He said: ‘We called it a partisan gathering. There were so many people I knew… The communists were afraid of us. We were seasoned guys and they did not have what it takes.’”

“My dad was still in the woods. They slept by the people from glade settlements. He said: ‘They were poor, they had little food and yet they gave us something to eat.’ They always ordered them to go to Gestapo the next day and report that partisans were sleeping at their place. Then they were avoiding the farm or the cottage for a long time, but to cover the people, the ordered them to do it. Nevertheless, it did not end well for some people. My dad was in the Prlov group. The mill house… there is a photo of a burned mill house in a book Ploština v plamenech. The Germans killed them all there. Two partisans hid themself under the wheel. These survived because the dogs did not smell them there thanks to the falling water. My dad always told me when looking at this photo: ‘Well, on the bench next to the stove in the burned house, on this bench I slept the night before.’”

„Gestapo came in the night. They had already been searching for him [the father]. He managed to warn his friends – mainly one of them – and this one told him: ‘Man, come on, nothing is going on!’ Then they were arrested. Gestapo came in the night, they were searching for my father. He had already been gone so they were sitting there the whole night. Across the street by the church, there was a machine gun, my grandma and grandpa were lying in bed with a submachine gun pointing at them… that must have been terrific. My grandfather had to be interrogated at Gestapo later, but in fact one really good man, a German, he stayed there because of some construction, perhaps nearby Baťa’s roadway, and always did the hard work at our house – dug the garden, chopped up the wood – mister Kitl – he was a translator there. He translated so well – he helped many people – that my grandpa flew out of there with just a kick in his bottom, and it was over.”