Božena Šálová

* 1939

  • "My parents had [a rule] that when the partisans come to us, 'we don't give them anything' - it was already [given] by the TVCO group: 'Don't give them anything, if you have butter or anything, put it on the table somewhere, and if they want it, [act like this]: 'Here we have our dinner for us, we don't give you anything, but if you take it, you take it yourself.' Because if we gave it to them, someone would turn us in. We didn't know who was among the partisans. That was my mother's rescue. Mum never told anyone that she supported the partisans. She just always said, 'If you take it, you take it.'"

  • "My mother concentrated on partisan activity and passed on various messages - as I was about to tell you that we were going to Vlčková to the Kamenak - so she passed [them] on to the partisans. I remember as a child that my mother didn't want to go to the forest, so she wouldn't be recognized, so she would come with me. She would go on to look at the cows and I had the task of going to the bridge. Under the bridge there was a kind of stone I knew where I put some kind of papers without knowing what they were. There were countless of them. I didn't find out what was there until the Ukrainian partisans came to visit us in 1971. In 1973, my mother was in Kiev to see them, but in 1971 they came to us."

  • "When [Dad] looked, he said, 'Gee, those are partisans...' and he looked out the window and counted, 'One, two, three, four, five, six...' or however many he counted. We waited to see if they would knock on the door, but there was no knocking on the door. The men and one woman rushed into our apartment. Before they came to our house, before we knew it was unlocked, dad told us to turn off the lights so we wouldn't be seen. So my sister blew out the lamp, and in the darkness we couldn't see the partisans, or whoever they were - we didn't know who they were then - until we were inside. We didn't lock the door, me and my sister. They burst in on us - and this one partisan, or whoever it was, started shouting at us: 'You, that you are Czechs!? You turned out the lights in front of us!' They terrified us. They shouted that we were cowards... And [Dad] said, 'Well, the girls were in the toilet...' and they said, 'You saw us, you turned out the lights!' and they: "You saw us and you turned the lights off." Well, then somehow they got along, but they were disillusioned and angry and we were scared of what was going to happen."

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    Kašava, 15.04.2024

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During the war we risked our lives, under the communists we were provoked by State Security

Božena Šálová, 1943
Božena Šálová, 1943
zdroj: witness

Božena Šálová, née Rusková, was born on 11 April 1939 in Zlín into the family of the gamekeeper Jindřich Rusk and his wife Božena. She had a sister Maria, ten years older. She grew up in a homestead in the village of Vlčková, where her family cooperated with the partisans during the Second World War, especially with the Secret Military and Civilian Organisation (TVCO), which gradually developed into the intelligence service of the partisan detachment of the 1st Czechoslovak Brigade of Jan Žižka, and also cooperated with the Clay paratroopers. She spent her childhood in fear of the Gestapo and constant raids. After the war, the family faced persecution by the communist regime for their resistance activities during the war. Božena Šálová attended school in Vlčková and later in Kašava. Despite her good school results, she did not get to the matriculation course. She graduated from a two-year economic school and started working as a secretary in a bank. She graduated in 1961 thanks to three years of evening studies while working. In the same year she married a colleague, Jaroslav Šala, with whom she raised three children. The family moved to Zlín (then Gottwaldov), where Božena Šálová continued to work in the bank, eventually reaching the position of chief controller. In 1994 she retired and after her mother‘s death in 2000 she moved back to Kašava, where she still lives today. In 1962 the Ruskas joined the JZD (Unified agriculture cooperative), and to this day they have not resolved land ownership with the municipality.