Marie Spilková

* 1921

  • “In our granary, we were hiding twenty one** Polish partisans. One of them, a small Polish man, he kept saying he'd shoot them- the two Germans, some higher ranking officers. My father begged him no to do it, that they would burn down our house, they would kill us all, so they obeyed. They stayed with us, they come in the evening... no, they came before the day [before sunrise<], they slept, they were hidden, and in the evening, they left again.”

  • “Once, it was also during German occupation, there was supposed to be a blackout and we didn't do that. It was in the evening and we were picking blueberries at the table. And when I was pouring the blueberries from a jug and I went to look out the window. And there were two men. I screamed, startled. My father already knew who these people we, so he went outside. It was a Russian teacher with his brother, they wanted to go to Svitavy. So father told them which way to take. And they were caught somewhere around Svitavy, and shot. One of them was a teacher, they were siblings. He took a loaf of bread, a piece of butter, we didn't have to give it to the Germans at that point yet, he took it to them into our forest (we had a forest next to our field) and showed them directions. And they caught them. They were executed, shot.”

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    Hlinsko, 26.06.2019

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Do everything honestly

Marie Spilková was born on December 27, 1921 in a remote area of Humperky in the village of Dědová near Hlinsko. Together with her younger sister, she helped at the family farm and work in agriculture remained important throughout her life. She started working on the family farm right after finishing elementary school. To avoid „Arbeiteinsatz“ (total deployment) during the Second World War, she worked in a hosiery factory „Spangaro a Musil“ in Chrast u Chrudimi. She has unpleasant memories of the first wave of Germans who came to her village at the beginning of the war. At the end of the war, the family‘s secluded house became a refuge for partisans (prisoners, who escaped from transports) of various nationalities. Marie‘s father and other villagers supported them with food and provided them shelter. During the period of collectivisation of agriculture, Marie‘s family was forced to the „union cooperative“ (JZD). At that time, Marie was employed in the factory Plysan Hlinsko and in addition to that, she had to do the prescribed work for the union cooperative and worked at home at the croft. Her private life was unhappy - her partner, with whom she had a child, left her, and later her son committed suicide. In 2019, she lived in elderly care home in Hlinsko and recalled on her work, and animals she took care of.