People forgot about the murdered father, the daughter regretted. Then she got a big surprise

Those who enter Sulic-Želivce, located a few kilometers outside of Prague, must focus primarily on driving. Here, one car after another enters the village from the hill and takes a bend where there is a monument dedicated to four men. They all died at the end of the war.

One of them is František Šimek, a postman who was murdered by the Nazis after cruel torture on May 5, 1945. At that time, his daughter Jarmila was fourteen years old. Every year, on the anniversary of her father’s death, she goes to the monument to lay a bouquet. When one of her relatives drove her to the memorial this year, she had no idea what was in store for her.

“When we recorded her in the past, she talked about how sorry she is for forgetting people like her dad. And that if she puts 40 tulips at the monument, someone will steal them the next day,” said the founder of Aktuálně.cz Memories of the nation Mikuláš Kroupa even before her arrival. And in his hand he held a bouquet of tulips. “We want to show her that we will not forget her dad and we greatly appreciate his heroism,” he added.

A moment later, a surprised Jarmila Hermanová got out of the car with two canes and observed a group of approximately twenty people. “Jesus Christ, there are people here. I’m going crazy,” she shook her head in disbelief.

Mikuláš Kroupa explained to her that he had been listening to her narration, which was recorded a few years ago by an associate of the organization, Robin Kvapil. “Your story touched me so much that we wanted to make you happy so that you know that your dad is not forgotten. He is a great hero,” continued Kroupa.

But she gradually recovered from her surprise, thanked everyone for their participation and finally told her father’s story. “I can see him putting on his shoes on the chair and leaving,” she recalled. At the end of the war, the father went with fourteen other men to a nearby farm, where the SS crew settled. They managed to disarm them and get their weapons. At the same time, they created patrols and sent information to other insurgents in Prague about how many Nazis were heading through the village to the metropolis.

But František Šimek was reported to SS headquarters by a local Chetnik guard. The Germans waited for František and arrested him. As evidenced by one of the testimonies of the time, the soldiers interrogated him for several hours using cruel methods and wanted him to tell the names of the men with whom they disarmed the German garrison. “I don’t know them,” he answered, revealing no one.

Subsequently, an eight-member SS firing squad dragged him out to a meadow near the Štiřín Pond and shot him. The platoon leader finally came to the shot and shot him in the head. “That’s the meadow,” Mrs. Jarmila pointed to a place a few steps away. “I’ll never forget how daddy lay there dead,” she said.

The story of František Šimek and other heroes of the anti-Nazi resistance will be recalled in the coming days by Czech Radio. The stories of other heroes can also be read on the Memory of the Nation website. By the way, the other three men from the aforementioned monument – František Hluchý, Bohumil Doležal and Bohuslav Hubka – belonged to the anti-Nazi resistance.

Video: Your dad is not forgotten. He was a hero, Jarmila Hermanová heard from the Memory of the Nation