Czech Republic town still celebrates liberation by U.S. troops during World War II

Editor's note: This story originally was published in Slovo, a biannual publication of the National Czech & Slovak Museum & Library.

On May 6, 1945, U.S. troops with the Third Army division — led by Gen. George Patton — marched into Pilsen, Czechoslovakia, and the surrounding area to liberate the Czech people from Nazi Germany toward the end of World War II.

This area in western Czechoslovakia was the only portion of the country liberated by U.S. troops. And each year at the beginning of May, a Liberation Festival is held — this year marking the 70th anniversary. Thousands of citizens and visitors from around the world will gather in Pilsen to celebrate the momentous occasion.

One Cedar Rapids woman, 87-year-old Jitka Schaffer — who owns the Czech Cottage in Czech Village with her son Bob — was in Pilsen 70 years ago and saw history made right before her eyes.

Schaffer's memories of World War II, 'which was a very long ago' as she says, poignantly give a firsthand account of what life was like near Pilsen during a pivotal time in Czech and world history.

German occupation

Jitka Hajek was born in 1928 in Klabava, a small village 12 kilometers from Pilsen. She lived with her parents and brother and had a happy childhood.

But in 1939 the occupation of Czechoslovakia by the Germans as part of World War II transformed the world as she knew it, filling her teen years with the realities of war.

'During the war I had to take German in school, and I wasn't very good,' she remembers of the Nazi occupation. The school notified her mother that if Jitka did not pass her German tests she would have to repeat a year of schooling.

'There was a person in my town that spoke German, so my mother went to him to see if he would teach me,' she says. 'Ironically, he was Jewish. He told my mother he would do it but that he didn't want any money. He wanted food for payment because, being Jewish, he was in hiding.'

There were several stories, Jitka says, of others in her town hiding Jewish citizens in their homes during the war to keep them safe from harm.

In some ways, because the occupation lasted for years, Jitka's memories seem to reveal that life went on as any child might expect, albeit with more exposure to the images of war.

But now looking back, it's easy to admire the wisdom of her parents in keeping her safe, especially after the Germans closed her Home Economics School. 'Young students who didn't have jobs during the war were sent off to work in German ammunitions factories' Jitka says. 'That's why my mother paid off the baker and got me a job in the bakery; otherwise, I would have had to go. And a lot of the students who did have to go and work in the ammunition factories came back in caskets, because the factories were often bombed.'

Of course, she also remembers having to run for shelter when air raid sirens would blow, often while out on errands for the baker. Jitka says she occasionally was sent on black-market errands to deliver products that had been intensely rationed during the war. 'Commerce never rests. I always said that if I got stopped with something on the black market I would say it was not mine.' Luckily for Jitka, she was never caught by Nazi authorities.

She also was kept safe from harm one evening when she missed her train stop on her way home from Pilsen to Klabava. She arrived at the train station in Rokycany and planned to spend the night in the station until she could ride the train home in the morning. 'I sat there and watched as a lot of freight trains loaded with Jewish people went by.' Jitka soon was approached by a German man who kindly told her she couldn't stay the night at the station and that he would walk her home, several miles, despite the curfew.

'We went on this main highway and the German soldiers were on both sides. We walked through them without any trouble. When we got past the woods outside Klabava he told me I was all right and to just go home and not turn around. But I did turn around to see where he was going and he was already gone, like he disappeared.'

Liberation

Jitka has vivid memories of celebrations and a parade-like atmosphere on and around May 6, 1945, when the U.S. troops began to arrive in the area. She and others from her village watched as American troops streamed along the highway from Pilsen toward Prague.

She recalls being at home and remembers her father not wanting her to leave the house.

'My dad said, 'I don't want you to go anywhere,' but people were trying to go over to the highway, and I wanted to see where the U.S. troops were going.'

Later, while walking with her mother, they encountered a group of German soldiers coming out of the woods that surrounded Klabava.

'As we were going to greet the U.S. troops on the main highway, this big truck with German troops holding machine guns pointed at us came out of the woods, and we jumped.' But the truck of soldiers was simply headed toward the highway to surrender and left Jitka and her mother unharmed.

In the days that followed, Jitka and her mother traveled to Pilsen to take part in the celebrations with local citizens enjoying their newly found freedom and with the U.S. troops who were in good spirits with the ending of the war.

After the war

As the war came to an end, Klabava and the surrounding towns attempted to find a new normal. 'People joked and said, 'Now what will we do for excitement,' ' Jitka remembers.

U.S. troops remained deployed to the area for some time, and she remembers the large prisoner of war camps set up for the Germans in the fields surrounding Klabava.

During the year after World War II, Jitka worked as a civilian employee at the military air base in Pilsen. In 1946, she was encouraged to travel to the United States via Denmark and Sweden. She says the journey of her coming to the United States is 'another long story.'

'I didn't really want to go,' she says, remembering that she fully intended to return to her hometown after her visit. Jitka first took a bus to Germany only to discover the bombed-out shell of a country. 'I was going to stay in Germany, but when I saw what was going on there I changed my mind and I went all the way to Sweden.' From there, she traveled by ship through the North Sea en route to New York City.

When Jitka finally arrived in New York City, it was January 1947. She made her way to Cedar Rapids to visit the aunt of her sister-in-law who lived there.

With the new communist government in power in Czechoslovakia, relatives warned Jitka not to be in a hurry to return home. Then in 1948, the borders of Czechoslovakia were closed to visitors by order of the government. So Jitka stayed in Cedar Rapids where she became a naturalized U.S. citizen, met and married her husband, Virgil, and had two sons.

Once visitors were allowed back into Czechoslovakia in 1956, she began making annual visits to see family and friends. She also began to import antiques, folk art, glassware and garnet jewelry that the Czech Cottage has become well known for to this day.

Remembering the past

Today, Jitka and Bob continue to travel to the Czech Republic at least once a year on business and to see family and friends still living near Pilsen. Bob says he has heard many stories and memories of his mother's youth and the war years during their time traveling throughout the Czech countryside.

During a visit to Klabava in the 1970s, Bob recalls coming upon an excavation site near the side of the main highway leading into town.

'They were excavating the roadside ditch, and you could see rifle barrels, rusted parts of gas masks, a German helmet and many shell casings,' he says. 'There was, and is, an amazing amount of war debris there.'

The pair has made a point to attend the celebrations at the Liberation Festival in Pilsen a couple of times. They first attended in 1992, shortly after the Liberation Festival was started. They also were present for the Liberation Festival five years ago, on the occasion of the 65th anniversary of the end of World War II. 'We didn't realize it had become such a highly involved event,' Bob says.

That visit was notable as they were able meet and talk with Gen. George Patton's grandson, who also was attending the celebration that year. 'I got to talk to him,' Jitka recalls. 'I told him that I wished his grandpa had gone all the way to Russia. And he said, 'Oh, come on, forget it. That was a long time ago.' It was a really nice visit.'

During that same visit, Bob recalls a poignant moment of humor as well.

'We were sitting in what at the time was called the American Club. There was to be a late afternoon re-enactment of the battle for a bridge in Pilsen. A friend asked Mom if she was going to attend the re-enactment she simply replied, 'No, I saw it the first time.'

'The looks on everyone's faces were priceless.'