Božena Jurošková

* 1929

  • “The traffic was just annoying. My house was on the outskirts of the village. And as the tanks would go uphill, leave the forest road and enter our land, there was such a roar we couldn´t sleep at all. Once, as I went to work, there was this whole tank convoy passing by. And you couldn´ t stay on the road, you had to hide quickly in some alleyway. As on some occasions, soldiers would break our neighbour´s fence or uproot some trees or even drive through a barn. So we saw many things happen. And it was quite difficult, even though they would pay for the repairs. If you saw tanks or armoured vehicles coming, you would rather step aside and wait.”

  • “Sometimes partisans would spend the whole night in our house. We would dry their clothes when they were all soaked. They would get some sleep and head back for the mountains early in the morning. And they had these two bunkers they would dig under our house, those zemlyankas, as they would call it. They used to live there when there was no action or they would be marching somewhere. Usually, they came at night. As during the day, it would be risky. During the day, there was a risk of being seen by German patrols. Germans were afraid to wander the forest at night. So at night, we could be sure they wouldn´t come. As I can´t even remember them doing any raid at night. Partisans would sleep in our house on many occasions. And every time, they were given some food. Bread, milk or coffee, maybe a soup. And as they would get some flour, they would bring it and we would bake them more bread.”

  • “Partisans would show up in our house in June 1944. Three of them would come. They were Russian. And we couldn´t understand them at all. It was just impossible. You couldn´t understand a word they were saying. As we were taught German at school. So they left. They retreated to Slovakia, I would say. It began later, as there was this mass march from Slovakia to our republic in August. And this Czech fellow came with them, whom we knew. After that, they would come without him. But every time some larger group or someone new would show up, they were brought by someone we knew. So we could be sure they weren´t some group of saboteurs.”

  • Celé nahrávky
  • 1

    v Čermné ve Slezsku, 21.01.2020

    (audio)
    délka: 01:28:36
    nahrávka pořízena v rámci projektu Stories of 20th Century
  • 2

    v Čermné ve Slezsku, 22.01.2020

    (audio)
    délka: 01:01:16
    nahrávka pořízena v rámci projektu Stories of 20th Century
Celé nahrávky jsou k dispozici pouze pro přihlášené uživatele.

I liked helping partisans. I wanted the war to end and I saw it as a way to harm the Germans

Božena Juroušková; around 1945
Božena Juroušková; around 1945
zdroj: Archiv Boženy Juroškové

Božena Juroušková, née Baletková, was born on February 25th 1929 to a forest clearing farmer (pasekář) family residing in Hošťálková in the Hostýn Hills. Since autumn 1944, the family had been supporting partisans. They sheltered even the commanders of the Jan Žižka brigade, the biggest partisan unit operating in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia. As a fifteen-year-old, Božena served as a messenger for the partisans. After the war, she moved with her parents to a farm in Čermné in Silesia, from which German owners had been evicted. She had been working at Optimit and Hedva enterprises in Odry and Vítkov. After she got married, she came back to Čermná with her husband and had been farming there for two years. While in Čermná, she witnessed the collectivisation of agriculture initiated by the Communist government after February 1948. Up to her retirement, she had been working at the field or tending the farm animals at the United Agricultural Coop (JZD) in Čermná and later at the State Farm. She witnessed Czechoslovak and Soviet troops activities in the military district of Libavá. She has been given the status of a war veteran, has been involved in the Union of the Freedom Fighters (Svaz bojovníků za svobodu) and the Czechoslovak Legionaries Association (Česká obec legionářská).