We hid in the cellar at the castle, while the Russians were shooting at it
Zdeněk Menšík was born on the 12th of September 1929 in Stará Ves nad Ondřejnicí near Ostrava. His father was a villager who worked in industry. He worked in a mine in Ostrava and with his wife also farmed in Stará Ves. His family lived in one of the rented out apartments in the local castle. In the years 1939 to 1945 the municipality belonged to the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia. During the German occupation Zdeněk started to apprentice as a shop assistant. He lived through the bombardment of the village in August of 1944, during which five people died. He waited out the battles between the German and Soviet troops in the castle cellar. He is a witness of the circumstances of the death of the village miller and mazor Hermann Ohnheiser in June 1945 - members of the revolutionary guard locked him in a cellar after the liberation, where died under uncertain circumstances. Zdeněk Menšík worked in the shops Budoucnost [Future] and Jednota [Unity]. From the end of the fifties he worked as a crane operator in the Vítkovice ironworks in Ostrava. In the year 2019 he lived in Stará Ves nad Ondřejnicí.