František Kočí

* 1925

  • "Grandpa was waiting for him in the hallway, and the two gentlemen were undercover in hats. They took him away and that was that. The whole class stayed very, very quiet and we all stood up as a tribute."

  • "I was very sorry to hear that. I drove to work downhill from Chotěnice. In the morning, at five o'clock or quarter to six, I see that a soldier is leading a soldier and that he has no shoelaces. I stopped and said, "Where are you taking him? That he is said to be an evil son. I said, 'Don't do anything to him!' I drove on to work. It ended badly."

  • "One lady, a Jewish woman, said, 'Run away! Run!' I ran outside, on my bike. I could already see a strange car coming down. I immediately got on my bike and ran away, pedaling as fast as I could. Then I didn't know what to do anymore, so I threw the bike into Zakl's garden and ran to the manor house. I opened the door and there he was lying dead on the bench, wearing only socks. I hid under him. Just as I got in, the sand was already crunching, I could hear him walking around. He opened the door, checked everything. I was underneath the dead man, covered with tarps."

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    Hradec Králové, 18.08.2023

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    délka: 01:18:16
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He wanted to help Jewish women. He was chased by a car, hid under a dead body.

František Kočí in the 1950s
František Kočí in the 1950s
zdroj: Archive of a witness

František Kočí was born on 7 November 1925 in Chotěnice near Heřmanov Městec. His father Josef Kočí trained as a blacksmith and later he and his mother Anna Kočí bought a farm. He had two older siblings, a brother Josef and a sister Miloslava. He went to school in Morašice, trained as a shoemaker and then as a bricklayer in Pardubice. During the Second World War he brought wood to Jewish girls and was almost caught. At the end of the war, he saw a Soviet soldier leading one of the Vlasovites to execution. From 1943 he worked first in the forge and then in the welding shop at the Wiesner factory in Chrudim, which became Transport after nationalisation. He also invented improvements for the municipal enterprise. After 1945 he got married and had a son and a daughter. He and his wife lived in Markovice. After the currency reform in 1953, he saw the hundred crowns pinned on the poles. He was not interested in politics, he lived by his work, gardening and from his youth he was a beekeeper. In 2023 he lived in Markovice.