Bedřich Polák

“The last day before execution we were shaving our faces at Gestapo headquarters. I and Čermák together, his face looked horrible: one of his eyes was knocked out, four wounds on his head, really horrible look at him… We were not allowed to speak. One SS-guard was standing by our side in order to prevent us to commit suicide which would mean eluding more suffering. Thus I met Čermák one day before his execution. Those with death sentences were transported to the polish part of the town Tesin where mass graves had been prepared already. They were executed by a shot in nape, their hands bind by a phone cable. After the exhumation it was impossible to identify the victims according their faces because all faces were completely blast to pieces." "Why was Čermák so brutally treated by Gestapo? What was the Gestapo interested in? Do you have any idea?" "Our organization was uncovered not only by Gestapo, but by the secret service of Canaris and by the military counterintelligence too. The Gestapo had been postponing the overall raid against us because they wanted to arrest as much members of the group as possible. They knew a lot of people were involved. Finally they reported to Berlin that the biggest resistance group in the area of Ostrava was uncovered with 1600 members approximately. This was the reason why the order came from Berlin to execute all arrested members of the group.”

“In 1942 a German worker named Hilmann was assigned to our section in Olomouc. He was a controller from the Ministry of Agriculture and he spoke perfect Czech with a slight Prague accent. I asked him where he had learned his Czech: ‘between my ages of 6 and 14 I visited my grandmother in Kladsko for the whole summer vacations regularly. Some families living there were Czech, thus I have learned the language.’ He was drinking heavily. When he got drunk he presented his right face. He was a double of Konstantin von Neurath. If there was a possibility of an assassination at some public rally Hilmann was ordered to go there instead of Neurath. He had to learn Neurath’s gestures, especially to heil. Hilmann really looked like Neurath. When Heydrich arrived to Prague on 30th September in 1941 Hilmann was put aside and fired. They sent him to Olomouc. But he became an alcoholic there and was replaced to Ostrava. I had to work with him for six months, which was horrible. I had to warn other people under some pretext Hilmann was a SS-man: ‘Be careful! Troubles could emerge with this guy.’”

“Americans bombed the town Ostrava on 29th August in 1944. Not far away from Ostrava a facility in Zábřeh had been set aflame. The pilots didn’t recognize the location of their target exactly, so they bombed the place where the heavy smoke rose up to the sky. Ostrava, Slezská Ostrava, Zábřeh and Muglin were hit hard. Around 800 people had been killed, around 5000 injured. We were sent to determine the damage instead of work the next day. I went with Dr. Komárek, e.g. when we found a flour sack slightly covered with debris or broken glass we wrote it off as destroyed one. Similar method we applied in one slaughterhouse. We found there a pig wounded by a fragment of glass, so we wrote off the whole stuff. In this way we have sabotaged a little. We were surprised nobody denounced us.”

“Finally a decision was made – probably it was a destiny, but bad luck – when the last month of the war had begun, Čermák ordered to redeploy the whole group to Beskydy Mountains. The redeployment was scheduled on 5th of March. Unfortunately, in the morning of the 3rd of March a roundup had started. Especially Mrs Štěpánková had saved a lot of people. She immediately went to warn as much friends as possible in person. To use a phone was forbidden. She instructed them to hide or leave for Beskydy if they could. Čermák had given us instruction – to me and Dr. Komárek – to stay in Ostrava, because I had been in contact with a police academy in Hulvanky trough a dealer Chvostka. We had organized the resistance movement with the academy. Our task was unclear yet, but we considered seizing the power station Třebovice, the post office and the radio. Around 400 attendees were in the academy including two collaborators. We counted on that both would be liquidated as soon as the revolt would start and the rest would occupy the three places. But Čermák with others were arrested in the morning on the 3rd of April. We were arrested two days later in Ostrava. I had suspected something had gone wrong, and I had wanted to escape, but Dr. Komárek had leg prosthesis and could not walk without a stick. We were good friends so I had decided to stay with him.”