Beaten to Death

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The village of Dolní Lipka used to be German, and as early as May 1945, several of its inhabitants were dragged to the nearby town of Králíky and put in front of the so called national court. “They walked around the villages selecting people. Then, they dragged these people to Králíky, where they beat them up.” Among the arrested was also Ernst Pabel from Dolní Lipka, whose death Helmut Schramme recalls: “There was Pabel Ernst, he was wounded lying at home, but one of the neighbors planted an old rifle in his house. They found the rifle and took him to Králíky, where they beat him up so badly that his eye was hanging out. His father begged them to shoot him dead.” Shortly after the war, the so called wild deportations occurred in several villages around Králíky. Many Germans from Dolní Lipka were also driven out. “They threw the local people out basically out of every second house. They called them together and told them that they were allowed to take thirty kilos with them. They had to present themselves at the customs in an hour. At the border, they went through their things and took what was still worth something. So the people were really in a hurry, they took few things, put them on a push cart or a pram, and left.”

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Helmut Schramme

Helmut Schramme was born in 1932 to German parents in Dolní Lipka (German Niederlipka). This village is located between the Orlické hory Mountains and the Králický Sněžník. His father, František Schramme, was drafted to the Wehrmacht. In 1945, at the age of thirteen, he witnessed several violent deaths here. Before the advent of the Red Army, he witnessed the shooting of two German deserters by a military police officer. A little later, a Soviet female officer shot two Soviet soldiers, who were looking for women, right before the entrance to their house. They were buried together with a horse in their garden and their remains are probably still there. There were also several killings of Germans in the outskirts of the village who were shot after a sentence by the so-called "national court" or without any trial at all. Helmut Schramme took part in the placement of a monument devoted to seven victims of the so-called "wild banishment". The monument is found at the St. Ann Church in Horní Lipka. The Schramme family were exempt from deportation by the Germans because Helmut's father was vital for the village farms collective that was being created – he was responsible for the livestock trade. In 1948, the whole family was sent to work in Záchlumí, where they worked for several months for the local farmers. In 1960, Helmut married a German, Sieglinde Kristová, and in 1969, he requested to be allowed to leave for Germany, but his request was turned down. Today, he lives with his wife in Králíky.

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Dolní Lipka

Available in: English | Česky

Dolní Lipka (Niederlipka in German) is a part of town Králíky since 1974. Before the war the overwhelming majority of citizens were the Germans and their farms where scattered in the surrounding area. The first written note about the town is from 1577. In 1946, there was a detention camp for the Germans who were gathered there and transported to Germany.

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Beaten to Death

Helmut Schramme