Zdeňka Pohlová

* 1940

  • “My dad worked at the post office, and became the postmaster. And I remember that in February 1948, there were suddenly two armed militiamen in our kitchen and they took him away. He was getting dressed, I came home, it was just after lunch, and there were two fully armed men standing there. They were armed with guns, they had a belt, and a machine gun. They took him away and he was imprisoned for about a week, and they also arrested a few other people. He worked at the post office. And the communist prepared it at all post offices so that there was no connection and people could not communicate. It was a prepared putsch, they imprisoned people who were dangerous to them. He was imprisoned in the court building where several cells were. He said that it was horrible that someone suddenly shot a person in the cell next to them. That someone came there to get their own back probably with a police officer. And he shot him and they saw it because it was a cellar divided by wires. They were horrified and thought that he would go on and shoot everyone but he left and he shot only that person, the first one. It was really horrible.”

  • “During the last days of the war, I remember clearly how the Germans were retreating A German military unit, all the buttons on the uniform buttoned up, marching in ranks down the street from the airport, (our house) was the first one which they passed, all neatly tucked in, all tip-top, not a button missing. They marched down the street, I do not know how long it could take, and in a quarter or half an hour, the Russians appeared. It was quite interesting, all the Russians looked like children, they were such young boys, were sometimes wearing casually buttoned or unbuttoned coats, the machine guns, everyone was laughing, people came running into the street and hugged them. It was very spontaneous. But also when the Germans were retreating, they stormed into our house just before they left. We were living in the basement because of air raids on Pardubice, we spent in there nights and maybe also days. So two German soldiers with pistols stormed into our house, put a gun to my mom's head, and probably told her they were going to shoot her and her children. We did not understand, but she spoke German very well, she used to work at the courthouse, so she gave them bikes. They wanted the bikes so that they could escape, so she gave them to them. If we had not had the bikes, we would not have survived it.”

  • “I can still remember that he told us that they might have suspected him and that someone wondered why the Gestapo had not got the letter, so they came to see him. He got out of the post office thanks to a trick, he told them he was a repairman. There were overalls of a repairman who had been there before. So he changed into them and he carried some tools. He was hiding a gun in the pocket under them but when they asked him what was in his pocket, he took out a screwdriver and some tools. They let him out, he left and could not return home and joined the partisans. There was an airport, so they were operating there, were trying to harm Germans, to put it simply, they were active.”

  • “I spent the war period in Vysoké Mýto, there were no fights there but I remember it. My father worked at the post office. I used to go over and bring him dinner at night when I was a child. He used to stay longer at the post office. When he locked the door behind me, he was in the office on the first floor and he sorted the letters there and he threw many letters into the stove. When I asked him why he did it, he told me those were letters of denunciation. That it was clear according to the address which read 'esteemed Gestapo office in Pardubice.’ He saved many people, however, I was not allowed to talk about it.”

  • “When the beginning of World War II was approaching, or rather the occupation of Sudetenland was, when the mobilization was announced, my father as the first lieutenant was in charge of defence in Kořenov. He was the commander of light fortification objects, the bunkers. When it was decided that the Germans would get the territory, all the Czechs had to retreat, my mum told me as well as my dad that they did not want to obey until they saw the German army coming to Harrachov. They saw motorbikes, they (the Germans) were riding motorcycles, so they got in the last cars. They arrived in Tanvald, my mum was waiting at the station with some luggage, they managed to get on the last train, they left and Tanvald became German in a quarter of an hour. And they took the last train to relatives in Vysoké Mýto. They enabled them to rent a house where I was born.”

  • Celé nahrávky
  • 1

    Tanvald, 13.05.2021

    (audio)
    délka: 01:31
  • 2

    Tanvald, 13.05.2021

    (audio)
    délka: 01:32:09
Celé nahrávky jsou k dispozici pouze pro přihlášené uživatele.

As a little girl, she already knew what to keep secrets about. Her dad burned letters of denunciation

Zdeňka Pohlová with her older brother after the war
Zdeňka Pohlová with her older brother after the war
zdroj: Zdeňka Pohlová´s archive

Zdeňka Pohlová was born on 24 October 1940 in East Bohemian town of Vysoké Mýto as Zdeňka Pavlasová. Her father Josef Pavlas came from a farmer´s family that lived in the area of Pardubice which caused the family problems during communism. Her mum came from a poor family in South Bohemia. As a married couple, they lived in the borderline town of Tanvald where Sudeten Germans predominated. After mobilization in 1938, her father enlisted to protect the Czechoslovak Republic and was in charge of a little border fort in Kořenov in the Jizera Mountains. The family left Tanvald and fled to Vysoké Mýto after the Munich Agreement. Her father worked as a postmaster and burned letters of denunciation to Gestapo. He escaped arrest at the last minute and left to join partisans. At the end of the war, Zdeňka spent a lot of time in the basement where she was hiding from air raids. She experienced the liberation of Vysoké Mýto by the Red Army. After the war, she and her parents returned to Tanvald where she was friends with German children and visited them in a camp where they were waiting for their expulsion. She saw a shot young soldier in the town. The communists had her father arrested during the communist putsch in February 1948 because he worked as a postmaster and they wanted to have the post office under control. They let him go after some time but he finished in Tanvald and he served at post offices in Liberec Region. An article about Zdeňka Pohlová was published in Rudé právo (The Red Right) in the second half of the 1950s saying that she was a daughter of a kulak studying at the working-class´s expense. She got married to a German after secondary school, the parents did not meet at all after the wedding. Zdeňka Pohlová´s older daughter had problems being admitted to a grammar school because of her grandfather´s farmer origin. It was only the acquaintance of her father - a popular musician - that helped her. During the Velvet Revolution in 1989, Zdeňka Pohlová´s younger daughter arrived in Tanvald to spread the demands of the striking students, she was not allowed into the factory. She managed to pass the forbidden materials to employees thanks to her mother´s help. Zdeňka Pohlová lived in Tanvald in 2021.