“I remember there were about ten of them. They were Germans and Protectorate gendarmes. They surrounded our whole house and waited to see which side I’d show up on, so they could catch me. They took me to Jablůnka and then to Vsetín. There they locked me up in the Gestapo station and interrogated me. I spent about two months in prison.”
“Rudolf Bravenec told me to watch his back for him, that they’re going there for some meeting. There were several partisans there, and I think that Grekovskiy was shot there. Ruda Bravenec spoke perfect German, so he acted as a messenger. There was a shoot-out there. They’d drunk a bit, and I remember the commander saying that Grekovskiy said: ‘I am captain Grekovskiy.’ And I think they shot him there. I was a messenger for Ruda Bravenec, and he told me: ‘Láďa, if things get bad, leg it to Pálenisko, to Růžďka and let our friends know what happened here at the saw mill.’ It was a pretty big gunfight.”
“Two Russian planes flew up and knocked down the transmitter, and it fell on top of the Braveneces’ lime tree. Ruda Bravenec’s brother climbed up and took it down. I only know that it was a metal box of some kind, and he pulled it down. The Germans came along right after that, they grabbed the transmitter and took it to Ratiboř, and that’s where the partisan died [Ctibor Čermak - ed.], they shot him there.”
“I knew him because [Emil Muroň] used to stay with us very often. Then he betrayed a lot of people there. But I’ll tell you one thing that I still can’t make sense of. When they were rounding up the people who gave lodging to partisans, Muroň went some seven hundred metres away from us and left us out. Only us and perhaps some other family. He went past with a group of SS. He went to... What was his name? Babica I think [Josef Bartoň - ed.]. He wasn’t at home. He was away somewhere. I think they had a pig slaughter back home. So then he had to load it up on a sledge and take it to the SS to the Paláts, Frýdls, who lived on the other side, and he never came back. They took the Frýdls as well, but that family did come back.”
Ladislav Vítek was born on 25 July 1924 in Bystřička in Vsetín District. In 1935 the family moved to the swiddener (clearing) settlement U Čulíků located under Pálenisko [Burnt] hilltop in Růžďka. During World War II the family provided help to fugitives and partisans. Having been born in 1924, Ladislav Vítek was drafted into forced labour in the Vítkovice Ironworks in 1944. He repeatedly escaped home. The gendarmes always caught him there and sent him back to Vítkovice. After about the fourth escape he was arrested and sent to prison in Vsetín for two months. After his next escape from the Vítkovice Ironworks he remained in hiding until the end of the war. He got in touch with a partisan group led by Vladimír Krejčík, known as Jerry. Being well-acquainted with the area, he acted as a guide to the partisans. Among other things, he witnessed the shoot-out at Mynařík’s Saw Mill in Ratiboř. His parents continued to support partisans in their settlement U Čulíků. Their barn also provided lodging for the confidant Emil Muroň, who pretended to be a partisan. On his information the Gestapo arrested many swiddeners in Růžďka, most of whom never came home. The family was very fortunate to avoid arrest. After the war Ladislav Vítek taught at an agricultural school, and he later became headmaster of the Secondary School of Agriculture in Valašské Meziříčí. Died in december 2015.
