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This cache honours 16 patriots purposelessly murdered at the Bratru�ov shooting range at the end of World War II. Let�s worship their heroism � they died for our freedom as well.

	The Patriots Memorial

When driving from �umperk to Hanu�ovice you may notice a memorial on the right hand side, about half way to Bratru�ov. If you are curious enough to stop and come closer, you can see a memorial plaque quoting:

HONOR THE MEMORY OF 16 NORTHMORAVIAN PATRIOTS WHO WERE BRUTALLY MURDERED BY THE GESTAPO ON AN EMBANKMENT OF THE LOCAL SHOOTING RANGE ON 31 MARCH 1945

The plaque also includes names of murdered ones. Who were they? What had happened here at the end of the war, more than a month before the liberation? And why?
The purpose of this cache is to answer at least some of the questions and walk you few hundred meters around the scene of the tragedy itself.

Let's go back now to eventful days at the end of September and beginning of October 1938...After the betrayal when the Western Allies signed the Munich Agreement on 29 September, Czechoslovakia was forced to withdraw from border areas with majority of German population between 1st and 7th October.

Border regions after withdrawal

The so-called fifth zone of �mainly German character� should have been defined by the International Commission and handed over to Germany by 10 October. However, demarcation was determined by rather economic and military aspects as well as efforts to penetrate the heart of Moravia as far as possible. Villages with vast majority of Czech population were therefore annexed to the Reich as well, such as the Czech isle in the Uni?ov region (�umvald, Troubelice, P�skov, Lazce, Lipinka) or Czech areas around Z�b?eh. Many Czechs fled inland, especially government employees and their families, however, people tied to their land often remained.

Resistance activities grew significantly stronger influenced by turnover on the Eastern Front, where the German army was defeated at Stalingrad. Cooperation with "the National Association of Czechoslovak patriots" in Z�b?eh was established. During 1944, the association was, however, seriously weakened after the organization was revealed and many of its members were arrested by the Gestapo.

After the worst wave of arrests was over, a new resistance group Troubelice-P�skov was formed in 1944. It was called �Bradlo� after the liberation. In particular, the group tried to acquire weapons and ammunition.

Young members of the group Milo� V�tek and the Kov�? brothers decided to get weapons at a repair shop where V�tek worked. The owner Ernst Burischek � enthusiastic �umperk Nazi � reported the loss to the Gestapo. They set off a trap and brought a car with grenades and panzerfausts over to the repair shop. V�tek was immediately arrested that night for stealing another weapons and he was taken to the Gestapo office across the street from today�s cinema �Oko�.

After horrific torture he gave in and revealed names of other members of the group �another five people were arrested in just a few hours. Pressure of beating and torturing in Gestapo dungeons grew stronger. Total of 18 people were arrested in the attack of 15-23 March, two of them were later released. They were lucky...
The others were taken to the Gestapo prison at the former manufacturing plant. Karel Hermann Frank, Ministry of State for Bohemia and Moravia, got informed about the whole matter and ordered that all the arrested were to be executed. Wilhelm Prellberg, chief of the �umperk Gestapo, chose the Bratru�ov shooting range as a place of execution and ordered to dig a mass grave there in the evening before the execution � on Good Friday 30 March.

It is early in the morning 31 March... Holy Saturday... it is still dark. Sixteen arrested patriots are taken out of the prison and loaded into a truck. Do they know yet what is going to happen at the end of the road?

The car is passing through quiet �umperk. It is leaving the town and heading to Bratru�ov. It slows down on the way and turns right...to the shooting range. It is slowly going up the hill an stops in the middle of the shooting range.

Everyone gets out of the car and is handcuffed in pairs. They walk to the last place in the dull morning. It is only five meters from here to the dug hole. Everything is clear now...
� it is the end...
� end of all dreams, all plans, all hopes...
� they will never return home to their loved ones...

They are dragged in pairs and they have to lie down next to each other...in the grave. The gestapo men Hufer and Tilg executed them by shooting in the back of their heads. Nobody begs for mercy, two of them are quietly praying...
That cold dawn is horrible. Even a tough Gestapo man Hufer collapsed after execution of several pairs and intentionally damaged his gun. One of the SS non-commissioned officers finished the execution for him.

Mass grave

Old?ich Du�ek, 20 years
Miroslav Jurka, 26 years
Bohum�r Kov�?, 31 years
Franti�ek Kov�?, 37 years
Franti�ek Langer, 25 years
Rudolf Otev?el, 25 years
Jan Pol�k, 20 years
Jarom�r Spurn�, 21 years
Old?ich Spurn�, 34 years
Arno�t Stryk, 23 years
Adolf Schwarzer, 29 years
Josef Ut?�en� Jr., 18 years
Josef Ut?�en� Sr., 42 years
Jan V�tek, 26 years
Miloslav V�tek, 20 years
Anton�n Vl?ek, 23 years

The Gestapo then filled up the grave and covered it with pieces of turf and small bushes. Commander Prellberg stressed that the executed were saboteurs of the German people and he warned about the same fate for those who speak up. The Gestapo was celebrating that day. To hide the horrible murder they even issued release orders with names of the murdered ones. They told to relatives that their loved ones were taken to a court in Berlin or to concentration camps.

�umperk was liberated by the Red Army 38 days later. Nobody knew, however, what had happened to the 16 arrested. Uncertainty was unbearable...Turning point of the investigation came after Brunhilda Puschmann, former secretary of the Gestapo and Prellberg's mistress, provided investigators with information and even with a Prellberg's photography.
A phonogram reply came from Liberec � some Hans Ulrich was being held at a local prison and he matched the description. He was arrested at the end of May 1945 while trying to cross the Czechoslovak borders. He confessed his identity in January 1946 and he had marked the location of the execution after he was transported to �umperk.

Funeral of murdered patriots

Exhumation and forensic examination was carried out between 16 and 18 January. On 20 January, a national funeral was held and it was attended by 20.000 people. Germans were forbidden from walking in the streets during the funeral. After the memorial ceremony, coffins were paraded by a military personnel to the station, where remains of the murdered were transported to their home towns (victims from Troubelice and P�skov to a parish church cemetery in Hrade?n�, victims from Kr�lov� to Mendlov).

K. H. Frank at the verdict announcement

How did the killers end up?
K. H. Frank, who ordered the execution, fled towards the American lines on 9 May 1945. He got arrested by the U.S. soldiers in Rokycany and he was taken to Wiesbaden. After that he was handed over to the Czechoslovak justice, sentenced to death penalty by the People's Court in Prague (as well as for burning out Lidice and Le��ky) and he was hanged in the Pankr�c prison yard in front of 5,000 spectators.
Wilhelm Prellberg was sentenced to death by the People's Court and hanged in Olomouc on 13 November 1946. Executioners Hufer and Tilg were hanged the following year.

The memorial, designed by Ing. Ladislav Doubravsk�, was officially unveiled On 9 May 1945. Here your journey begins. The memorial plaque was added in 1996 and in 2013 a group of enthusiasts who called themselves the Searchers finally marked out the grave with guideposts and adjusted it respectfully.

If this cache makes you think for a moment to value freedom and honour these 16 heroes, then it has served its purpose.

And now you can set off for the cache...remember you are walking in the same place as victims and their murderers more than 65 years ago.

1. N 49� 59.312 E 016� 57.803     Count the highest number of the executed ones from the same town (A).



2. N 49� 59.312 E 016� 57.803     You will find slightly different data on the memorial. B is the digid of the day that is the same



3. N 49� 59.369 E 016� 57.878     You are standing by a small pond. On the opposite shore is spruce ( F=9), willow (F=7), birch (F=5) or maple (F=3).



4. N 49� 59.411 E 016� 57.928     Here the path levels uneven terrain with a few steps. C is half of the number of steps.



5. N 49� 59.546 E 016� 57.955     There are four concrete stairs between you and the path. One stair has different number ( E) of degrees than the others.



6. N 49� 59.574 E 016� 57.982      You are standing at the mass grave with the memorial plaque in front of you. Number of letters in the second word on the last line is D.

Final coordinates are N 49� 59.ABC E 016� 57.DEF. Apart from a logbook, pencil and a pencil sharpener this cache also contains some trinkets for trading and a CWG for the first three finders without trading and another two CWG for trading.

Aside from the path. In a corner.