Marie Kovářová

* 1933

  • "I don't know how it is possible that when we arrived at our block of flats, that those people were in the windows. Someone was crying, we arrived a week later. They thought something had happened, that we would all stay there, they didn't expect that. And so, they explained to us how it happened, that the Russians came through that Olomouc street, that they seemed completely insane to them. That they shot aimlessly and without thinking. Maybe someone should have said afterwards that they were recruited by such evil people or irresponsible people that they couldn't explain it any other way, because there were needless dead people."

  • "In the afternoon, even in the evening, they found about sixteen people in civilian clothes and interrogated them. And in the meantime, I think it was half past ten, Czechoslovak soldiers came. I don't know how many, but there were quite a few of them, and then this followed. They interrogated them at a neighbor’s house, it was noisy, it was ugly, we were all shaking. Then they took them in the direction of Podskalina, as it is called there. They also dug a common grave, they had to take off their clothes, they were all shot there. They had to stand on the edge and when they shot them, they fell straight into the grave, but we didn't see that. As long as the youth were there, we were in the back, and when this started here, we left because we were shaking like that."

  • "I was riding along the sidewalk and at the turn I needed to, where the old Valchovská street, the new Valchovská, Hrádkovská street, that is, from this side I needed to get to the left one. It was not possible because there were so many soldiers, they had teams of horses, horses, no one was on foot, not even on horseback, everything was in a wagon. Some of them looked like, drugs were not talked about back then, so they were probably drunk and I was very worried if I would even get home. When I spoke to them, they did not answer me and I spoke in German. Then I was afraid to even speak German, as they could catch me and take me away. Then one of the carts showed mercy on me and stopped and I was able to cross. So, I hurried across, but as soon as I barely took a few steps, the bullet flew past me, you can completely feel the air shaking. And then, before I came out of that forest, it happened once more, so it was a very unpleasant day."

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It was noisy, it was ugly, we were all shaking

Marie Kovářová in 1944
Marie Kovářová in 1944
zdroj: archive of the witness

Marie Kovářová was born on July 12, 1933 in Hrádkov u Boskovic to a single mother Filoména Kučerová. At her grandfather František Kučera‘s wish, she had to go to a German school and live in a boarding school in nearby Boskovice. At the end of the war, she experienced unpleasant moments when fleeing German soldiers were shooting at her, heard the interrogation of prisoners and saw their execution from afar. After completing compulsory schooling, she graduated from the so-called JUK (One-Year Learning Course) and joined Jednota Boskovice. She married Jaroslav Kovář in 1954 and they had a son Jaroslav (1959). Her husband‘s eldest brother František emigrated to Canada in 1948, which caused problems for the whole family. In 1964, the Kovářs moved to Prostějov, where she joined the transport company ČSAD Prostějov as a price clerk and gradually worked her way up to head of foreign truck transport. She experienced the events of 1968 in Yugoslavia, where she spent an extra week with the other tour participants. While employed, she completed her studies, passed the matriculation exam, and after 1970 joined the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia because of her position in the company. The ABS (the Security Services Archive) has not preserved the file under registration no. 19754 Prostějov, category „D“ (confidant), cover name „Marie“. Apparently, due to her high position and contacts abroad, she was kept as a confidant without her knowing it. In 1983, she participated in a two-month internship in the Dutch port Rotterdam. After retiring in 1989, she moved back to her native Hrádkov, where she took care of her sick mother and later her husband. In 2022, she lived in her birth house with her son‘s family.