„We came to Machnówka and artillery started to fire. That was horrible indeed. For the first time I was in shock. It was like if the world was crumbling, as if the Earth was falling apart. Everything was shaking terribly, all the noise and explosions. Everything was trembling.“
“Then they took away the dead and the wounded. They were carrying them on a horse-cart, so I came closer once and I saw that one of them was lying there moaning. I thought I might be able to help him so I came closer and his body was torn and his intestines were hanging out, lying next to him, yet he was still alive. And he asked us to give him something to drink or a bullet, as he couldn't take it any longer. He suffered, he suffered a lot indeed.”
“The first victim I saw was a horse as we were taking stuff into a house where this C.P – commander's post – should have been established. A bomb fell close by as a window broke and as I was hiding bellow, broken glass was falling on me. After it went quiet I looked outside and there was this beautiful horse, a bay horse. And its whole hind part was exposed, hanging, and it was bleeding, and when I saw the horse I thought he was crying, it's eyes were so sad. It was looking back at its body and I felt like it was blaming the people for what they had done, why have they done this? Why did people do something like that to him?”
“When Germans were present, this girl showed up. She was looking for a job, stating that her parents left, that she had to eat and so she came looking for a job. So my mother employed her so she would do some work in the garden, as there was always plenty of work. I remember her being so famished that every time she saw some red tomato or something like that she would pick it right away and eat it, that was how she was hungry. And on the day when the Germans came to Straklov she disappeared all of a sudden. She had been working for us for several weeks and she could eat and sleep properly. As German unit appeared, the girl was gone, and my mother said: 'I don't know why she run away?! We gave her everything she needed.' And she ran away as they learned that Germans would come and that they would liquidate them. So she ran away to Dubno and at that time I went to Dubo to see a dentist. And as I went I saw this woman lying on a sidewalk, spreading her arms, facing the ground. I was so shocked that I wanted to go back home. I no longer wanted to go to see the dentist. So I walked around her and looked. And it was the woman who had been in our house. She ran away from the Germans and they caught her there probably. They just shot her.”
“First of all there were kolkhoz officials – the director and the secretary. Germans invited them and immediately sentenced them to liquidation, without even knowing what they did. So my father, poor fellow, was forced too, as they were shooting them across the street in someone's garden, they shot them right there and they forced my father to come to help, to bury them.”
Věra Suchopárová, née Skřivánková, was born on February 10th 1923 in Český Straklov in Volhynia in Poland of that period (today‘s Ukraine). Her family had a farm with ten hectares of land. Her studies at a business school in Dubno were interrupted by war and German occupation. After the territory had been taken over by Soviet troops, several Soviet officers with their families moved to the Skřivánek family house. Their farm had been collectivized and they had to hand over all their cattle to local kolkhoz. After the German invasion of the USSR she witnessed atrocities against both Polish and Jewish citizens. In early July 1944 she joined the 1st Czechoslovak Army Corps and underwent training near the Romanian border in the south. After the Slovak national uprising had begun, she was transferred to the front lines with the others and she took part in the Battle of the Dukla Pass. She participated in the liberation of Czechoslovakia and was stationed in Říčany u Prahy at the end of the war. After that, she had been living at a confiscated farm in Prackovice nad Labem and in 1949 she moved with her parent to Roudnice nad Labem. Věra Suchopárová died on January 25, 2022.
Sokol organisation members in Český Straklov - a proof that Czechs in Volhynia maintained their associational life despite being seprated from their homeland; Věra Suchopárová second from the left, 1937
Sokol organisation members in Český Straklov - a proof that Czechs in Volhynia maintained their associational life despite being seprated from their homeland; Věra Suchopárová second from the left, 1937
Srba family from Český Straklov from the first generation of immigrants (1900). Family of Věra Suchopárová's mother (probably the eldest daughter in the middle)
Srba family from Český Straklov from the first generation of immigrants (1900). Family of Věra Suchopárová's mother (probably the eldest daughter in the middle)
