We found ourselves in the front line with Russians right in front of us
Eduard Císař was born on July 19th 1928 in Beringen, Belgium. His parents, both of Czech nationality and natives of Kladno, moved to Beringen when his father found a job there as a miner. In 1934, the family moved back to Czechoslovakia, and Eduard Císař began to attend primary school in Prague (Praha). In 1945, as a sixteen-year-old, he was ‘totally deployed’ and had been sent to dig trenches. From February to April, he had been living in Velká Bystřice near the city of Olomouc, building fortifications around Svatý Kopeček, in April, the young men had been sent to Zábřeh near Dolní enešov in Hlučínsko, where heavy fighting was going on between the Red Army and the retreating forces of Wehrmacht. Eduard found himself in the front line. During an air raid on April 15th he managed to escape and got to Prague on his own on May 12th 1945. After the war, he completed his apprenticeship as a turner in Jawa Enterprise and later he had been working as a researcher in traffic and transportation. At the same time, he did social dancing, winning the national championships in 1959 and 1960 with his wife, Stanislava Císařová.