Zdeňka Sitařová

* 1935

  • There was also a gendarme here, Fridrich, he was a native Berliner, and he helped people here a lot during the war. They had one daughter, her name was Marlena, she was also born in the forty-second year, forty-one or forty-two, I don't know exactly. He helped, if there was a denunciation, for example, he tried to destroy it. So that the Germans wouldn't get it. They lived here for how many years and they imprisoned him after the war. So my mother, I don't know who wrote it for her at that time, made some petition and she went around the village for people to sign it, how he helped people here, during the war. Then they moved somewhere near Cologne. Then this Mrs. Fridrich went to see my mother about twice, but then we lost contact and we don't know anything about them."

  • "They brought them food, you know, they were poor souls hungry, and that was the idea... There used to be wooden hampers and they brought the hampers full of potato salad. Or like there was this tipping kettle, they'd put soup in it. But they weren't allowed to give them anything, the Germans forbade it all and it had to be poured down the drain, they weren't allowed to give them anything. Only later, I don't know why, they were allowed to be given something, but... And a few of them escaped to the pheasantry here, and then - it's called Na Vrútku here, and there was an old scale, and beets were boiled there, and they were hidden there. And there was one, I don't know who she was, and she always wore this black skirt, black bodice and a scarf, and when the prisoners came, she already had beets ready and she threw them over the wall. And they were fighting over it and she was laughing so hard... And they had - I don't suppose you know what a fasunek cart? I don't know what I would call it, it's a cart or carriage, something like that, it's just got these low sides, so they were already carrying the dead prisoners on it, for example, and they had two of them tied by the legs and dragged them along the road. And then they died. One here in Dusniki and one here at the peasants' barn. More of them died here, they're in the cemetery. And when the horse urinated, they drank it and they beat them."

  • Celé nahrávky
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    Obříství, 12.04.2022

    (audio)
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Only three of them have a grave with their names on it.

With her son
With her son
zdroj: archív pamětnice

Zdeňka Sitařová, born Štěpánková, was born on 14 March 1935 in the village of Obříství. The village is situated on the banks of the Elbe River on the main road connecting Prague and Mělník, a strategically important link at the end of the Second World War. The events of that time, which were largely related to the location of the place, also affected the life of the inhabitants of the until then peaceful Central Bohemian village. Zdeňka recalls the devastating air raid on Kralupy nad Vltavou and neighbouring Neratovice in March 1945, in which more than four hundred people died. Zdenka‘s family was also directly affected by the air raid, her father‘s hearing was permanently damaged by the shrapnel and her brother managed to hide from the bombs at the last moment. Ten-year-old Zdeňka also witnessed the cruel treatment of Soviet prisoners of war, whom the Germans briefly ‚housed‘ in the barns of the Obříství estate. This was one of many transports of prisoners of war in the Mělník region. The fate of the impoverished and starving prisoners raised a great wave of solidarity among the inhabitants of Obříství and the people of the surrounding villages. Several of the prisoners managed to escape and were secretly helped by Zdenka‘s parents. Zdeňka vaguely remembers the arrival of the Red Army soldiers, but in May 1945 there were about one thousand of them in the small village. In 1953, she moved to Prague for a time, where she worked as a telephone operator. After six years she returned home and stayed permanently. She worked on a local farm until her retirement and together with her husband raised a son and a daughter. Zdenka‘s husband Josef Sitař came from Volhynia and moved to Obříství with his family as part of the post-war repatriation of Volhynian Czechs. During a devastating flood in 2002, Zdenka Sitařová‘s family lost their house and all their possessions, and the witness now (2022) lives in a nursing home in Obříství.