Ležáky (1942): The Tiny Settlement That Refused to Break
Ležáky is often described as a village.
That word is too big.
Ležáky was a tiny settlement — a handful of houses, a mill, and several families living on the margins of the wider world in what is today the Pardubice region. So small, in fact, that it was never an independent municipality. Administratively, it was split between neighboring communities.
And yet, this almost invisible place became a key node of one of the most important resistance operations in occupied Europe.
Ležáky did not fall because it failed.
Ležáky was destroyed because it held.
Ležáky Before 1942: Not a “Village,” but a Split Settlement
Before 1942, Ležáky was a modest settlement in the Chrudim–Skuteč area — not a center of politics, industry, or transport. On a map, it barely registered.
Its structure was unusually fragmented:
- Švanda’s mill on the Ležák stream belonged administratively to Dachov, part of Miřetice.
- The remaining houses on the opposite bank belonged to Habroveč, part of Louka.
- In total, Ležáky consisted of eight houses and one mill, with approximately 54 inhabitants.
This detail matters. Ležáky was not chosen at random.
It was a place where people knew one another, trusted one another — and where a secret could survive longer than it could in a city.
Why Ležáky Became a Target: The Radio That Connected to London
In January 1942, Ležáky entered the history of the Czechoslovak resistance through Operation Silver A — specifically through its radiotelegraph operator Jiří Potůček.
His mission was not symbolic.
It was communication.
Potůček operated the radio set Libuše, maintaining contact with the military radio center in Woldingham, Britain, which relayed messages to the Czechoslovak government-in-exile — including to intelligence chief František Moravec.
This invisible radio traffic was the bloodstream of resistance: intelligence, coordination, and proof that the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia was not silent.
Potůček made successful contact with London in mid-January 1942 (15 January is commonly cited), and his first dispatches followed immediately after.
The Ležáky Network: The Mill, the Quarry, and the People Who Said “Yes”
Ležáky’s story is not only Potůček’s story.
It is the story of the local network that protected him.
This included:
- the Švanda family and their mill,
- the resistance line often referred to as the Čenda network,
- known local helpers Švanda, Šťulík, Stantejský, and Bureš,
- and the protective presence of gendarme Karel Kněz.
Geography mattered. Nearby, the Hluboká quarry served as an early hiding and operating point before the transmitter was moved. The settlement’s isolation, discipline, and silence made radio operations possible far longer than in urban environments.
This was not romantic resistance.
It was practical resistance — shelter, logistics, silence, and the full awareness that discovery would mean death.
After Heydrich: When the Protectorate Became a Killing Zone
After the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich on 27 May 1942, terror was no longer threatened — it was implemented methodically.
The Nazi hunt expanded beyond Prague safehouses to regional resistance networks. As attention turned to Pardubice and the radio links operating there, Ležáky became exactly the kind of place the regime could erase without hesitation: small, isolated, easy to surround, easy to burn, easy to silence.
24 June 1942: The Settlement Is Liquidated
On 24 June 1942, German forces surrounded Ležáky.
People were arrested — including individuals from the surrounding area who happened to be nearby — and transported to Pardubice, to the site known as Zámeček, which served during the Heydrichiáda as an execution and terror center.
That evening:
- 33 men and women from Ležáky were executed by firing squad at Zámeček.
In the following days, further arrests and executions struck additional people connected to Ležáky and the wider resistance network.
There were no trials.
No distinctions.
Only a message: this is what happens when ordinary people protect resistance.
The Children: Thirteen Taken, Only Two Survive
The children of Ležáky were dragged into the machinery of extermination.
- 13 children were taken from Ležáky and first transported to a children’s facility in Prague.
- They were later moved to Łódź, where they were subjected to racial selection.
- Two sisters — Marie and Jarmila Šťulíková — were chosen for forced Germanisation.
- Eleven other children were transported to Chełmno and murdered in gas vans.
This cannot be softened.
Ležáky’s children were not collateral damage.
They were an objective.
Why Ležáky Was Not Rebuilt
After the war, Ležáky was not rebuilt as a living settlement — and that absence became the memorial.
The land was left open, exposed, and uncompromising. There are no reconstructed houses, no staged comfort. Only foundations, names, and silence.
Ležáky does not explain itself.
It confronts.
Jiří Potůček: The Ending Ležáky Deserves
Ležáky’s story ends where it should: with the man whose survival depended entirely on trust — and whose final words captured exactly what Nazi terror was designed to destroy.
Jiří Potůček’s last dispatch is dated 26 June 1942, two days after Ležáky had been wiped from the map.
His words do not sound like a hero speech.
They sound like reality:
„Ležáky, kde jsem byl se svou stanicí, byly srovnány se zemí. Lidé, kteří nám pomáhali, byli zatčeni. Jen s jejich pomocí jsem mohl zachránit stanici i sebe. Zůstal jsem nyní sám. Lidé se bojí a jsou nedůvěřiví, lze těžko navazovat nové styky.“
“Ležáky, where I was with my station, were levelled to the ground. The people who helped us were arrested. Only with their help could I save the station and myself. I am alone now. People are afraid and distrustful; it is hard to establish new contacts.”
That is the true ending of Ležáky.
Not “a reprisal.”
Not “a tragic village.”
But a tiny settlement that did its job, paid the price — and a man whose last message revealed the real target of terror: human trust.