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Pavel Pohůnek (born on 30 June 1948) is a former long-time mayor of the communities of Olbramovice and Křešice, in the vicinity of which a Waffen SS military training area was established during World War II. On the first of May 1945, a train carrying 4,500 hungry and exhausted prisoners, both men and women of many nationalities, stopped in Olbramovice. They came from several concentration camps and had been brought to the labour camp in Litoměřice at the end of the war, from where they were to be taken across the Protectorate to the Dachau concentration camp. During several stops (Kralupy nad Vltavou, Roztoky u Prahy, Praha-Bubny, Olbramovice and others), local people helped the prisoners. They brought food in large quantities, helped organize escapes, hid escaped prisoners and provided medical care to the sick. The train got stuck in Olbramovice due to the impassable track and several dozen prisoners tried to escape. Almost all of the Křešice villagers offered them shelter and help. However, 82 prisoners were murdered in the village or in its vicinity by SS members from the adjacent training ground. All the victims were buried in the Olbramovice cemetery. In 2022, the daughter of one of the murdered prisoners, Mrs. Rose Marie Fraize, came to Olbramovice. It took her almost 80 years to track down her father‘s final resting place. Pavel Pohůnek organized a symbolic farewell to his daughter and her father in Olbramovice and then searched for eyewitnesses to the traumatic event that affected all the inhabitants of Křešice and Olbramovice. He was instrumental in preserving the memories of the last living survivors, at least in written form.
