Event description

1945 – On Sunday, May 6 at 9 a.m., the US Army rolled into Koloveč and continued from there into Pilsen. These were soldiers of the 3rd US Army, from the 5th Corps of the 2nd Division. An artillery battery unit with six howitzers remained in the village, as well as a squad with two Piper planes, on the meadows below the cemetery. Other soldiers were lodged in houses and remained here until October 13, 1945.

After the Communist coup in 1948, the monuments to the Americans became politically undesirable, and preparations were made for their removal at the Communists’ behest. Thus in 1950 three brave citizens of Koloveč secretly removed and hid the memorial plaque in the night so as to prevent its removal by the authorities.

Eighteen years later, in 1968, a hopeful time of political relaxation, the plaque reappeared on the monument in the beginning of May. It remained there until 1972. To again prevent the plaque’s destruction as the chill renewed after this thaw, two other citizens of Koloveč again secretly removed and hid it. The retaliation for this was an investigation in the village and the dismantling of the whole monument.

Eighteen further years later, in 1990, the entire monument was restored after the fall of Communism, a mere four meters from its original site. The monument is in the village’s very center, by the crossroads across from House no. 41. It is decorated with a plaque bearing the inscription “Na paměť osvobození Kolovče armádou U.S.A. 6. května 1945” (“In memory of the liberation of Koloveč by the US Army on May 6, 1945”).

Reminiscences

Another contemporary witness from Koloveč, Jan Kufner, has reminisced about the events in 1983 when Americans visited the area around Domažlice. By this time the original monument commemorating the town’s liberation by the US Army was gone, and so they brought in a wooden table and placed it, along with a wreath, on the site of the abolished monument. But then the local head of the Communist administration came and ordered them out. His actions made Mr. Kufner so angry that he and a friend went and painted some disparaging words on the official’s house. “They carted me off to the secret police in Domažlice. And at four a.m. they told me I could go home once I’d signed everything,” he says.

When he asked whether he’d get his jacket and boots back, the reply was that these were exhibits to the investigation. “Then they hustled me out of the district, and I had to march sixteen kilometers in my socks.” But, he says, he didn’t fare too poorly at the court: “A six-month pay cut and two years’ probation.”