Otmar Malíř

Otmar Malíř was born in 1923 in Prostřední Suchá (today Havířov). In September of 1942, he was forced to enroll in the Wehrmacht and after his training in Horb am Neckar near Stuttgart, assigned to the Afrikakorps. He fought in Tunisia and in Libya. He was captured by the Brits in May 1943. In the internment camp in Tunisia, he signed up for military service as a Czechoslovak and he became a delivery man in the Pioneers corps for the next four months. Then, he was transported to Britain together with the other Czechoslovaks and became a member of the independent Czechoslovak brigade. After the invasion of the allied forces in Normandy, he participated in the siege of Dunkirk. Back in Czechoslovakia, he worked briefly as an instructor in Moravská Třebová. He was demobilized in January of 1946 having the rank of a corporal. Shortly afterwards, he started to work as a clerk in ČSD (the Czechoslovak railroad company) in Branná in the Šumperk region. He joined the national socialists and became a member of the national committee. After February 1948, he was dismissed from the committee and lost his job in the ČSD. He then founded an anti-Communist group together with a couple of trustworthy people. This group was plotting to overthrow the Communist regime. He was arrested in June 1955 and sentenced to twenty years in jail by the high military court in Trenčín. The sentence also entailed the deprivation of all of his property. He served his prison term of 8 years, 7 months and 8 days in the prisons Mírov and Leopoldov. After 1989, he became the organizer of the Havířov branch of the Confederation of political prisoners (originally the Association of political prisoners). He was also the president of this organization for a couple of years. He was one of the initiators of the placing of a commemorative plaque to the soldiers from the Těšín region who lost their lives in WWII. Presently, he lives in Havířov.

• More info