We could have met the same fate as Lidice

On 18 June 1942, the Gestapo came to Dolní Vilémovice to arrest the close relatives of Jan Kubiš, one of the assassins of Reichsprotektor R. Heydrich. Alois Denemarek, a neighbor and friend of Jan Kubiš, remembers: “At the time, we had the paratrooper, František Pospíšil, concealed in our home – and suddenly we had three cars stopping in front of our house. It was the Gestapo – we just stood by the windows while our blood froze to ice. I happened to be shaving Pospíšil that very moment.” By a miracle, the Gestapo did not enter the house, as they were headed to the Kubišes. “The Gestapo had a paper slip, so they knew well where they wanted to go. If they’d have entered our house too, Vilémovice could have met the same fate as Lidice,” Alois Denemarek adds. The German secret police visited the village another thirteen times. They gradually arrested most of Jan Kubiš’s closest relatives. Later, when paratrooper Pospíšil’s hideout was betrayed, they came back for Alois Denemarek’s brother Karel and their parents.