“We were summoned to appear at the Gestapo office. The whole family, dad, mom, me. As the gossips circulated, [people] advised that dad not go there because he was a bit… and he could say what he actually thought and it wouldn’t be a bood idea. They said that he not go there, that only mom and I go. Dad managed to get out of it, he excused himself that he was in service. He had to go somewhere. So we went there and [the Gestapo] told her that she claim the German nationality. Mom told them that she can’t, that her husband is Czech and it’s usual that the whole family is what the head of the family is, so she’s been counted as a Czech and it will stay that way. They told her that it’s a nonsense. The Germans got a so-called Ahnenpass at that time. It was something like an ID but it listed all the ancestors back to 1860. Her whole family tree. They said that she’s a pure blooded German and why wouldn’t she claim the German nationality. Mom refused. So it fizzled out. Then they asked me. Mom had told me to keep my mouth shut and not to utter a word. So I kept silent.”
“On that 15th of March, we were at school. Right after the classes began, they were cancelled and we were sent home. So I went home from school, and we lived in Školní [School] street and there was a confectionery shop, it’s name was Charbut. During the First Republic, pastries would cost thirty to sixty hellers and those expensive ones were for one crown. In front of the confectionery shop, there stood a motorbike with a side car. Two German soldiers in helmets sat in the side car. Third soldier was leaving the confectioner’s with his hands full of those pastries he was bringing to his buddies. The German mark was declared to be worth ten crowns. And ten crowns, that was some money back then!”
"In the army, he was a boilerman. He served on the Soviet front. So, at the end of 1943 and the beginning of 1944, he was in the Soviet union. He said he saw Odessa, Ukraine, Sebastopol. He probably suffered from some sort of anxiety because he kept shaking all the time. The last time I talked to him was in 1944. We used to go mushrooming together. He said: ‘There was constant bombing, the track exploded in front of me, behind me. It was horrible.’ He had those jitters so they sent him back home from the front. So he became a boilerman here in Lipová until August 1944 when they sent him back to the front. He enlisted somewhere in the East of Germany on the Eastern front. He was missed in action but he stayed alive. They did not know about him and before grandma died on the 12th of May, about the 10th may of 1946, the first letter came. It said that he was alive, he was a prisoner-of-war somewhere in Poland. Sometime later, he returned to his family, to his wife and kids. To some village which is in Bavaria, near Munich.”
Rostislav Zapletal se narodil 2. března 1931 v Dolní Lipové (německy Nieder Lindewiese, od roku 1960 Lipová-lázně) na Jesenicku. Pochází z národnostně smíšeného manželství. Otec byl Čech, matka Němka. Přesto se během sčítání lidu v roce 1930 matka přihlásila k československé národnosti. Za druhé světové války ji kvůli tomu opakovaně předvolali k podání vysvětlení na gestapo. Ještě před válkou v roce 1935 se rodina kvůli otcově zaměstnání odstěhovala do Přerova, kde zůstali až do roku 1945. Hned po ukončení válečného konfliktu se vrátili do Dolní Lipové, kde také pamětník zažil odsun tamního německého obyvatelstva. V týdnu, kdy mu před jeho očima zemřela babička, musel jeho strýc předat své rozsáhlé hospodářství národnímu správci a většina příbuzných nastoupit do sběrného tábora v Muně Mikulovice, kde čekali na transport do Německa. V letech 1949 až 1961 sloužil Rostislav Zapletal v armádě. Poté až do odchodu do penze pracoval u Československých státních drah. V roce 2015 bydlel se svou manželkou ve své rodné obci.
