Ludmila Vondráčková

* 1933

  • "Our family was hiding paratroopers and partisans during the last years of the war. It was a difficult time. They didn't want to tell me about it, because I was a little girl and they were afraid I might tell it to somebody. But I knew it anyway, because they were always cooking enormous amounts of food, and it would all be gone right away. But I didn't tell them that I knew about it. They managed to keep it secret until the end of the war."

  • "What happened was that Malý shot three officials during their meeting in Babice. He had my brothers stand outside as his guard and he and Mr. Mityska went inside. After they had murdered them, they came to Cidlina to my father at night and they told him what had happened. I was not there, but through the door I could hear my Dad saying: ´This should not have happened!´ He has probably already realized that something was wrong. Dad held no grudge against the people who got killed; on the contrary, he knew the schoolmaster Kuchtík well. Then they went to hide. Malý led my brothers and Mr. Mityska to a rye field near Bolíkovice. I don't know why they went to hide in the field, which doesn't make any good hiding place."

  • "I was in the Stehlík family's house. It was during the daybreak when I heard a sound of an engine. I looked out of the window and I saw a bus. The front and rear doors of the bus opened and a great number of militia members jumped out. The bus arrived from Jihlava just in one night, they came very quickly. They took over the house, and obviously, they found me immediately, because I was in my room. They made me stand against a tree and one of them guarded me with a submachine gun while the others were searching the house. They didn't find Dad immediately, because he was hiding in hay, but they found him later in the afternoon. I was taken from the Stehlík' s house to the school in Želetava where they interrogated me. But I didn't know much, I only knew where they had taken me and what they had told me. I absolutely didn't know that Dad had been involved in the resistance movement against the communists. That was true. Therefore, I couldn't even confess anything to them. From Želetava they took me to a detention facility in Jihlava, where I spent two weeks until July 14 (1951). From there I was taken to work on the state farm in Ploskovice near Litoměřice."

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The family has to be eliminated

Contemporary photo
Contemporary photo
zdroj: archiv pamětnice

Ludmila Vondráčková, née Plichtová, was born November 26, 1933 in Šebkovice in the Třebíč district. She studied a school for housewives and then an agricultural school in Jaroměřice nad Rokytnou. Her father was Antonín Plichta, an independent farmer, who had been involved in the anti-Nazi resistance movement during WWII: he had formed a partisan group called Lenka - JIH and he had been hiding paratroopers from the group Spelter. He was politically active in the People‘s Party during the Third Republic era. After the communist coup in February 1948 father Antonín and his sons, Stanislav and Antonín Jr., joined the anti-communist resistance movement. Unfortunately, in spite of warnings, they trusted an alleged resistance fighter Ladislav Malý and began cooperating with him. The role of Ladislav Malý remains unclear: he claimed to be a CIC agent who was organizing local resistance movement in Czechoslovakia, but at the same time he probably served as an agent provocateur for the State Secret Police. On July 2, 1951 Malý and Antonín Mityska killed three officials of the local Communist party committee in Babice during their meeting in the village school. The Plichta brothers were on guard in front of the school building during the murder. After the shooting they hid in a nearby rye field where they were caught the same day. Antonín was killed in a gunfight and Stanislav was seriously wounded. He became paralytic as a result of the injury and in 1953 he was sentenced to death and executed. All this time, Ludmila and her mother did not know that he had been alive until then. According to the official version released by the Communist Party, Ladislav Malý had been killed in the rye field as well. Ludmila however met him in Litoměřice after several years and she recognized him. The murder of Communist Party officials (known as the Babice case) was used by the ruling Communist Party to launch massive repression of the Catholic church (Malý had been helped by some priests) and of independent farmers in the Vysočina (Czech-Moravian Highlands) region. The first trial took place as early as July 12, 1951. Ludmila‘s father, Antonín Plichta Sr. was sentenced to death, although he did not know about Malý‘s plans and he did not agree with the murder. Antonín Mityska and five other persons were executed as well. Ludmila Plichtová and her mother were ordered to move out of Šebkovice. Together with other women whose husbands were imprisoned they were taken to the state farm in Ploskovice near Litoměřice where they had to work. All their property was confiscated. In Trnovany, where she worked, Ludmila met her future husband and after their wedding in 1955 they settled in Klatovy, where she worked in agriculture and later in a dairy. Before retirement she worked as an invoice clerk; during the normalization era she was allowed to study evening classes at a school of economy. Her mother Ludmila Plichtová Sr., who was severely shaken by the family tragedy, was living with Ludmila until her death.