"Here from that yard I went to the main road, which was about five hundred meters, half a kilometer from that yard, so I expected to stop there. The principle was that I should not track normal cars, because we never know who is still sitting in that car, but to track trucks. And with those trucks to get to Hrozénkov on the Moravian border. It just took me a while. I spoke like a Slovak, so no one knew I was Czech. So I stopped the truck there and the truck took me to Hrozénkov's. There was a long line of cars in front of the border, there was control -both Slovak and German control. Because all the cars had to be checked. The Germans did not check their cars, they drove by. The Slovaks also did not check, but all of the civilian cars were checked So I walked there until I found one such older truck driver and asked him what he was going to do. Well, he said that he crossed the border here, that he was going there. So I agreed with him that he would take me, because I told him that I was running away from the guerrillas, from Slovakia, where I was studying, to Brno to visit my parents. With this German I reached Uherský Brod, where he had his way again, his own. And in Uherský Brod I stopped there, then a normal car. So until that Uherský Brod, I worked as a German there. From that yard until the truck took me, I had to be a Slovak, and here from that Uherský Brod I prentended to be a normal Czech. "
"And there was a group of Soviet officers, and from what I've come to know, during that time, in the few months I was on the front line, one of them was a general, the rest of them were all officers, red-tapes. Well, they had fun there, and when I was walking around, I understood, because I had already learned Russian, I was beginning to understand, so I simply understood that they had captured some high-ranking German officers, and that the German officers they were willing to testify, but only if they were questioned by an Russian officer or non-commissioned officer. But there was no other officer or non-commissioned officer in that depot. And so he looked at me, and now that he finds out that I can speak German perfectly, that I can write and read, he made a decision. He immediately appointed me a non-commissioned officer, a corporal. They quickly brought me new clothes, I was allowed to have the two straps on my shoulder, like a junior sergeant. And they sent me to interpret. It worked, they were satisfied. And when the interpretation was over, I now assumed that they would send me back to the front and I was sad because I thought, 'The way my friends ended up, I will end up too, with the only difference being that my family, my parents won't even know where my grave is." But in this thought, so sad, the general suddenly decided not to return, but decided to move to the parachute unit. "
"And we all thought, even those who were in those villages, that after that New Year there would be peace for a while, but the whole SS battalion appeared there. With equipment including cars, tanks, etc. Even though it was snowing, they got there and as they arrived in a village, the citizens had to go outside. They looted whatever was of any value. And because the villages were mostly wooden, wooden barracks, they set it on fire. They ordered the citizens to stand on the square, and shot them all. This is how it turned out in Ostry Grun, and it turned out that way in Klak. They shot them all. In short, those who were just visiting or living somewhere else have survived. We fought with them, but there weren't many of us, so we simply took refuge in the forest, because the forest was a short distance. And now we saw, now we watched it all. But it was terrible! We watched them shoot, the barracks burning around, the barracks all around, and they shot them. But they were not all dead, some of them were just wounded, and they moaned, moaned and called for help. And the Germans got on and went to Klak. We then came to them, did the best we could, and the Germans did the same in Klak."
"We were on such a plain among the forests, where we rested, because we were still at the front and out of about fifty of us there were about fifteen of us, everything else- the rest- fell. And so we rested, we packed ammunition, we packed food, when it was necessary to change clothes, a piece of clothing, so they equipped us there. Well, as we were lying there, I suddenly needed to go ["to the toliet"(in the forest)]. So I ran to the forest, about forty, fifty meters. And when I was returning, suddenly artillery shells began to fall into the place of our platoon or company, and when I ran there, I found that I was perhaps the only one left alive, because everyone else was either wounded or was dead. Heads torn off, hands torn off, torn people, it was a terrible, terrible sight. So those who asked for help, I started to help them as much as I could, but in about ten minutes the trucks started arriving and there were paramedics, nurses. Well, those who were wounded were loaded into those trucks, those who were dead stayed there. And I got an order with them to go to the mooring, to the infirmary. It was about two kilometers away. "
"The boss told me that I would simply have to stop this clutch operation because the Gestapo was on my trail, and if I didn't disappear in a short time, I would probably be arrested and they wouldn't say what would happen next. But they agreed with the boss, and the boss took me to them. In short, they kept me in those Ratibořice for two days. They equipped me with a warm coat, warm underwear and a dress, but everything was civilian, with a warm earmuff and took me to the railway station in Týniště nad Orlicí. At that time, when they took me there, there was an echalon standing, it was part of the motorized rifle division, which was sent to the Eastern Front. The locomotive was pumping fuel and especially water there so that they could move on. The foremen then arranged for me to put me in the brake booth of the last car. "
Václav Čeřovský was born on August 29, 1926 as an only child in a mixed family of a German gendarme and commander of the station in Bernartice in the Trutnov region, his mother was Czech. At the age of seventeen, when he was assigned to a construction company instead of studying at a secondary industrial construction school in Hradec Králové, he became involved in resistance activities as a liaison in the Rival Group. He came into contact with Soviet paratroopers. In 1944, the Gestapo issued an arrest warrant for him. He secretly fled by military train from Týniště nad Orlicí to Ukraine. He was found in the forest by guerrillas who were looking for the remaining German soldiers from the protectorate train. He received the slogan “Olga” from Soviet agents and thus proved himself. After verifying his identity, he was enrolled as a Red Army soldier and went to fight at the front. He translated for the Soviets during interrogation and was promoted to corporal. He then completed parachute training and was enlisted in the guerrilla unit Čapajev in the fighting at the Slovak National Uprising, where he was seriously wounded in a shootout with German soldiers near the village of Prochoť. He was promoted to sergeant. After his recovery, he was given another task, the function of a liaison with a cable to Brno for a Soviet intelligence group. After completing the task, he joined the groundbreakers in Brno. The war ended and he went home after a year. Here he joined the Václavík group as a soldier of the Czech army. They disarmed and captured German soldiers in Eastern Bohemia. He resumed his studies at the secondary school and during them he was sent to Slovakia, where he controlled the quiet passage of groups of Banderos. He then enrolled in college and went to another event, monitoring criminal camps in Germany. He then left the army. He received the Czechoslovak Jánošík Medal, but because he did not want to get politically involved, he was banned from studying and sent to a criminal brigade in Slapy, where he performed various sabotages. The police followed in his footsteps, so they decided to flee abroad with a friend from the studios. However, they were betrayed and caught. For high treason he was sentenced to 7 years of work in Jáchymov, where he replaced several camps and shafts. He spent a total of 5 years in the camps. Václav Čeřovský died in March 2021.
