A village that was depopulated twice

The family of Josef Cejpek came to Leštnice after the war for the purpose of re-settling the border lands. They began to farm on an abandoned farm that was left deserted after the Germans had been driven out. Six years later, in 1951, they were forced to leave their new home. Leštnice was designated part of the restricted border zone and therefore it was supposed to be demolished. Unlike their German predecessors, the Cejpek family was allowed to take their property with them. They loaded it on a horse-drawn wagon and took it to nearby Slavonice, where they settled. Their cattle and agricultural machinery became the property of the collective farm in Maříž. It took almost 40 years before Josef Cejpek could come back to Leštnice that he considered to be his birthplace. On closer inspection, he could still make out the former dam of the village pond, the well in one of the desolated gardens, the sunken basements of the demolished buildings and other small visible ruins hidden under a vegetation of weedy shrubs and rubble.