“We lived at Paseky and had a small homestead there. During World War II two partisans used to stay at our place in an attic room. One day, one of them arrived to a meeting badly beaten. The partisans asked what had happened to him. He lied that he had an accident and kept lying. Eventually, they searched him and found on him a sheet of paper with the names of everyone from the organization. One day, they waited for him and shot him while he was walking to our place. They buried him above Březnice in a forest.”
“The Gestapo had its people and began with the arrests. This took place in December of 1942. They assumed that everyone would be home for Christmas. So just after noon they picked up one family in Zlín and then set out to Březnice. They came to our place and our neighbors’ from across the hill. We were just about to go to the church for a morning mass. The old lady went ahead with my brother and sister who were ten and seven years old. My dad followed them and I went last, saying I would catch up. My mom stayed home with a three-month-old Libuška. It was a beautiful night, the sky was clear and one could see far. As soon as the old lady walked up the hill she saw a lot of people. She returned, warned my dad and he managed to escape to the forest. I met them when I was closing the gate. I wondered what was happening, why were there so many people? They pushed me over and went to bang on the door for my mom to open. In the meanwhile the old lady returned with the kids and we all had to go into the cottage. It was a mess inside, everything turned over; my mom was getting beaten for them to get some information. When they found nothing they took both of the women – my mom and my grandma – with them to interrogation at the Gestapo in Zlín. We stayed at home – us kids and a three-month-old Libuška. The neighbors took care of us. The neighbor herself had a small child so she came to breast-feed her.”
“Then things happened rapidly. Lorries with soldiers from Holešov arrived. They stopped in the village and moved towards a forest. When they got there they saw the bunker was occupied. Skis were standing in front of the entrance and smoke was coming out of the chimney. They encircled it and ordered the partisans to get out. It ended up with a gunfight; some defended themselves so they shot them. There were three killed there and one wounded. My dad survived without a scratch. The soldiers blew the bunker up. Then they set out to Bohuslavice on foot. They took the dead ones and got out of the forest. Some farmer from Bohuslavice was distributing manure on a sledge. They ordered him to turn around and go with them to Březnice. They loaded the dead ones and my dad followed them in handcuffs.”
"It was surely fear. Of course, when first soldier came out of the woods, our uncle welcomed him openly. My aunt was crying: ,Do not go there, those are Germans.´ They did not go intm the woods, as they were afraid of it. And apparently he said: ,Come on, you think I would not recognise them?´ So he went out to have a drink with him. They hugged and had one together."
"We had all our property nationalised twice; once under the Germans and the second time in 1948. So I just want to remind you of a story that, when we had to put the cows in the cowshed, one of them just returned home to us."
"I believe it is the same, war is simply war. And it is a shame as many beautiful houses get burned down. All was crushed and destroyed. What a shame! It took much efforts and then gets destroyed to bits."
Marie Buchtová, née Durajová, was born in Březnice in the Zlín district on the 22nd of January 1931. Ever since the beginning of World War II, her family collaborated with the resistance and partisans. On Christmas 1942, the Gestapo arrested her mother Marie and grandma Regina while her father Ladislav had managed to escape. After another wave of arrests on 29 January 1943, German soldiers encircled a partisans‘ bunker. Only Ladislav Duraj and one partisan were captured alive. Marie‘s parents and her grandma stood trial in 1944. Her father was executed on June 22, 1944 in Breslau (today the Polish town Wroclaw); both women were sentenced to several months of prison time. Since 1947, Marie worked at Baťa‘s shoe factory. She got married in 1949 and gave birth to a son a year later. She trained to be a shopkeeper and until retirement worked with her husband in a store in Březnice. She died on March 11, 2024.
