“Actually, there were two of them [uncles - ed.], Gustav and Láďa. And suddenly they were summoned to go work in Germany. Gustav went, but Láďa didn’t, and he just disappeared. To begin with he stayed wherever they’d have him, in various houses, and then it got very dangerous [so he joined the partisans - ed.]. I don’t know how many boys there were there at the time, I don’t know, he was about twenty-one, twenty-two years old. Perhaps less than that. He was three, four years older than me. Than I was. So of course they were afraid to stay at home.”
“The Jermak group was practically at least half Russian. Those were Ruskies, young boys who’d escaped from captivity and found their way here to Czechoslovakia. I don’t know what it was called at the time because Slovakia wasn’t part of us any more. [Q: The Protectorate.] The Slovaks were independent during the war, then they rejoined, and now they’re independent again. Wait, what was I saying... [Q: How you helped them. How did you help them?] [Sister: You brought them food, that was your main activity.] Yeah. So they were mostly Ruskies.”
“She was working in German, working like everybody else. She met a Czech boy there. I don’t know him, I didn’t know. He was a friend of Jarka, Uncle Jarka. We called him Jarka, but otherwise he was Jarda. He worked in Brno as a baker, and his friend did as well. Then he was summoned to Germany, where he got a crush on this Russian girl, and she became with child. When she was to give birth, he brought the girl to Brno and hid her in various families. Wherever he could. When he couldn’t any more, because she’d been everywhere, they’d tried all the places, he took her to Daňkovice. To us. She didn’t sleep in our house though, she slept at my aunt’s. That was our whole family again.”
Vlastislava Vrbová, née Švecová, was born on 4 August 1926 in the village of Daňkovice near Nové Město nad Moravě in former Czechoslovakia. From 1 July to 5 May 1945 she and her whole family cooperated with the partisan group Jermak. She cooked them food and took it into the forests, she washed the partisans’ clothes and provided other forms of aid. After the war she attended a one-year course in Prague and then worked as a payroll accountant. She lived in Přezletice near Prague. Vlastislava Vrbová died in the summer of 2018.
