"The window had to be closed that time. And we just heard,´Guys! Let's go – there is the fire in the neighbours' place!´ So my brother and father took some buckets and went out. There was a pump in the yard so they took the water there and poured it on the burning house. My father returned after a long time. We had a cooker and a kind of bench there. They sat down there. I remember my mother telling my little brother,´Drahošku, you are out of breath.´And my father said, ´Yes, he is. He has been putting out the fire carrying the buckets.´ They managed to extinguish it a bit but it was still burning because they had thrown there some phosphor pieces. But my father didn't notice they were taking those who arrived to put out the fire. If he had noticed it, he could have hid in the the cellar and might have survived. He surely didn't notice that. There was a bed here and some of the Vlasov's soldiers were sitting there and one of them said, ´The two of you – you must go with me.´"
They were leading them past our house in the morning. My mother was standing there with Mrs. Planíčková who was staying with us. Her husband had also been taken. So they were together not to be alone. She had a three-year-old. They were standing at the door. And one of the Vlasov's soldiers said, ´Well, can you recognise your man? ´And she said, ´Of course, he has just put his hand up.´ My father had put his hand up. They took them to Velký Újezd and they kept them in the school for two days – without food they beat them. Then they put them on a truck – some of them were unable to walk – and they took them to the forest to Kyjanica and put them into the hut which was used by forest workers. There was a lot of wood around it so they poured there some petrol and set it on fire.
"Tršice, Přestavlky – it was horrendous again. It was several days after Zákřov. They set a cottage on fire, too. People arrived and tried to put out the fire. And they just shot them dead. At that place. So everybody could take their relatives and bury them into their graves. It was several days after Zákřov. Here, it happened on 18 April and I think it was about three days after that." (Note: In fact it happened on 30 April.)
"Then they put them on a truck – some of them were unable to walk – and they took them to the forest to Kyjanica and put them into the hut which was used by forest workers. There was a lot of wood around it so they poured there some petrol and set it on fire. All the 19 men were burnt alive. How cruel it must have been for my father who knew there was his son! He was burning and there was no help. After the end of war they found it out that there were the people from Zákřová. They dug them up and brought them home. They put them all into one coffin – there were just pieces of flesh. They are buried in Trřice. My father was 43 and my brother 17. My mother always said, ´If only at least the boy had not died.´"
"Even after the horrendous events, the Vlasov´s soldiers always arrived in the evening riding horses all around the village. They were watching if anything was going to happen. So nobody got out. Everybody was scared and we slept in the cellar. We have a large cellar under the barn. We used to have a large farm. There were potatoes and turnips so we put same straw on it and then blankets. All the women with their children. We slept there every night. We were expecting the end of war – the shooting had started. During the day all the women got together and went to the cellar. Then somebody knocked on the window. There is a small window to the cellar in the garden. It was Jaryn Šišků shouting, ´Ladies, don't be afraid. You can get out – the Red army has freed us!´"
Svatava Kubíková, née Marková, was born in Zákřov near Olomouc in 1931. When she was 23, she witnessed the so-called Zákřov tragedy. The soldiers of 574 Cossack battalion arrested 23 men on 18 April 1945 because they had allegedly supported guerilla fighters. Two days later, 19 of them were shod and burnt to death in a shed near Kyjanice. Also Svatava Kubíková‘s father, Josef Marek, and her only brother, Drahomír Marek, were killed. After that she stayed in Zákřov with her mother, Marie, who suffered very much because of the loss of her husband and son. Today she still lives in her home village.
