The Whole Village Had to Watch as their Neighbors Were Being Hanged
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Vlastimil Valenta was born on the 5th of December 1934 in Václavov and grew up in the village Jedlí na Zábřežsku. After the Munich Diktat, the village found itself in the taken Sudetenland terriotory, despite being inhabited primarily by Czech speaking people. During the Second World War, on the 10th of July 1944, he became witness to the public execution of three inhabitants of Jedlí: Jan Filip, Martin Pavlík and Vladimír Juránek. During the liberation he also witnessed a firefight between German and Soviet soldiers. After the war tens of thousands of its German inhabitants left Zábřežsko. Vlastimil Valenta apprenticed in Frýdlant nad Ostravicí as a metallurgist. In the year 1954 he was conscripted into an infantry regiment in Hodonín. As part of the mandatory military service he took part in the first Spartakiad in the year 1955. He experienced the arrival of Warsaw Pact troops at a military exercise in Červená Voda. In the year 1982 he got permission to visit his sister that had gotten married in the Federal Republic of Germany. He had to go to three interrogations to be able to obtain this permission. He had three children with his wife. He lived for ten years in Zábřeh na Moravě. Later in the 70s they bought a house in Červená Voda. In the year 2021 he lived in a retirement home in Červená Voda.
