"Once, when I was a boy, my mother and I walked to Jičina. It was a part, or a village, or a settlement somewhere in the direction of Nový Jičín (actually near Starý Jičín). And there my mother had an uncle who was a miller. So we went there to get some flour. I remember that we carried it in a bag on our backs. But we were scared, because you weren't allowed to do that. Fortunately, we didn't meet anybody on the way there."
"The Red Army was already approaching us from Rožnov. And the Germans were already slowly withdrawing to Helfštýn, to Domorac, and they were already trying to leave towards Hranice and Lipník and then further west, to hide somehow and not even fight anymore. But there was still shooting in Krhova. I even saw one German soldier, as we were walking through the streets at that time with the funeral from my uncle, a poor boy, I say poor boy, because he was just a German boy, a soldier, lying dead in a ditch."
"We used to do these hikes, that's what we called it, these campaigns. We were armed with rifles, I even carried a hand grenade here on my belt, and we went in the number of, let's say, one company, that is, about 80 to 100 soldiers in one direction, which was, as they say, set, where we suspected that the Banderites might cross at night. They only passed through at night, not during the day. We kept our guards either somewhere on the borders, sometimes it was in a barn, somewhere where there was a little bit of a view, and there we watched to see if anything was happening. Fortunately, I was still lucky enough not to meet them there."
Rudolf Jurečka was born on 27 October 1924 in Krhová, Wallachia. His father Alois worked as a court clerk, his mother Marie took care of the household. In 1938, Rudolf Jurečka saw the Czechoslovak army in his native village, ready to defend his homeland against Germany. During the Heydrichiad, the Jurecka‘s home was searched. At the end of the war, he met Red Army soldiers. He did his basic military service in Slovakia, where his unit was deployed against the Banderovites in 1947. He joined the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia in 1948, underwent vetting in the party after 1968 and remained in the party until the Velvet Revolution in 1989. Throughout his life he worked as a teacher, from 1956 to 1986 he was the headmaster of the Valašská Bystřice Primary School. He spent his retirement in Zašová, where he also lived in the spring of 2021, when Memory of the Nation filmed a documentary interview with him. Rudolf Jurečka died on 29 December 2021.
Remembered by his parents Alois and Marie, wife Ludmila, sister Jarmila and her son. Below, from left, the children: Alena, Jaroslav and Jana, turn of the 50s and 60s
Remembered by his parents Alois and Marie, wife Ludmila, sister Jarmila and her son. Below, from left, the children: Alena, Jaroslav and Jana, turn of the 50s and 60s
Hrdinové 20. století odcházejí. Nesmíme zapomenout. Dokumentujeme a vyprávíme jejich příběhy. Záleží vám na odkazu minulých generací, na občanských postojích, demokracii a vzdělávání? Pomozte nám!
