Věra Šádová

* 1933

  • “During the war, several death marches passed through the city. We saw that as children. It was terrible. We didn't understand what it meant, those ragged people who didn't have shoes, only laces tied on their feet, and they walked through here. Sometimes they were allowed in the park around the post office. There is a small park from where you go to the grammar school, where they were allowed to spread out and have a break. They went from Vysoké Mýto to Hradec and had a break here. And the local people brought them food when they found out the transport was here. I remember lady Koubková went to work on the afternoon shift. It was one o'clock. We were going to school for assignments in the gym. That's why we were at this place at that time. We had to pass by this company. And the lady went to work and had a snack in her bag. And when she saw those people, she opened the bag and threw them the snack. It has stayed with me to this day. I can still see that slice of bread flying through the air among the people and how they fought over it. It was terrible. I can't imagine such hunger. And I can't imagine that we could ever experience that again.''

  • "I remember that when we went there, my father accompanied us for a while. We followed the main road whenever it was possible. It's still an asphalt road in the direction directly from Holice to Chvojenec, and there is a turnoff to Hluboký. And we walked down that street and went out to the edge of town, and a car drove behind us. And dad said: 'Well, this is bad luck.' The car was, I don't know what it's called, a sort of an open transporter. And a soldier was standing there with a gun, with a machine gun. And naturally, they aimed at my dad, and dad said: 'Don't look there. Come with me in peace.' We went to the side of the road because that was the assumption, they had already shot people in Holice, and they looked at dad to see if he had a gun. And my father had nothing on him and showed no interest in wanting to shoot and went with a child. So they drove past us in the direction of Hradec, and dad took a breather and accompanied us to the crossroads to Hluboký. He went back to the city and watched what was happening there. We went to Hluboký, as I mentioned, to the game reserve, and they accommodated us there."

  • "I remember it was in front of the Jiří Hotel, today's Albert store. There was an open space. A few, I can't say, maybe 20 partisans gathered there and lined up with machine guns for some kind of honoring or awarding. And we were sitting on a raised plinth and noticed an armored personnel carrier approaching from Pardubice with soldiers sitting on it. They slowly started to get up as the car approached the square with that group of soldiers, and they got out with machine guns. And then, as the soldiers were lined up, a shot rang out. I don't know one or how many. One of them fell to the ground. It was Konstantin Alexeyevich Korovin. We stood there watching. Although we heard a bang, we could not imagine that something like this could happen. And the car immediately drove off in the direction of Hradec. No one stopped it, it drove away, and nobody said anything about it. The Red Cross came with Dr. Tomis and put the soldier on a stretcher, but I think he died instantly. It was a direct hit. As children, we didn't know why it happened."

  • "This one time, the gypsy came to the lady in the kitchen and told her - because the children were divided, the little girl, the older one, I can't remember now, was in the kitchen with her mother, she was always in sight, but the younger one was still obliged to go to school, she was away. So she only saw her in the afternoon after work and for the night. And during the day, that gypsy came to her and said: 'Do you know, Mrs. Freiová, that the children are going to the bathroom to shower? They're going to the showers! Do you know what that means?' She was startled and said, 'Yes, I know.' She threw away the food and stopped cooking, as he later described. She took the older one, and she had already seen that when the children lined up. So she also lined up with the older daughter. And that was the end of all three. The two children and the mother, the whole family, passed away."

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    Hradec Králové, 08.11.2022

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    délka: 02:42:54
    nahrávka pořízena v rámci projektu Příběhy regionu - HRK REG ED
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    Hradec Králové, 29.11.2022

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We didn‘t understand why someone would beat a poor fellow who couldn‘t walk anymore

Věra Šádová, 1950
Věra Šádová, 1950
zdroj: witness archive

Věra Šádová was born on 3 May 1933 in Holice. Her two friends of Jewish and Roma origin did not survive imprisonment in a concentration camp. One of the survivors told about their passing. Dad had to go to Germany for forced labor. He later fled and hid at home until the end of the war. The witness saw prisoners on the death march passing through Holice and watched the brutality of their guards. In May 1945, there was an uprising in Holice. Her father hid her and her mother in the forest from the consequences of the uprising. They returned back to the broken city a few days later. She witnessed the death of the partisan commander Konstantin Korovin at a ceremonial parade on the square in Holice. Soviet NKVD agents probably shot him. Her uncle František Branda lost his property in the 1950s and got sentenced to 15 years in a bogus trial. He was released on amnesty in 1960 but returned to prison shortly after for making anti-state speeches. The witness‘s husband served with the Border Guard in Šumava. He joined the Communist Party for pragmatic reasons. Věra Šádová lived in her apartment in Holice in 2022.