"So, I'm Věra Citterbergová, maiden name Větrovcová. I was born in Volyn on the 26th of June 1926. We joined the army... my brother joined in 1943 and I followed in 1944. My brother was sent to a flight school in Russia for pilot training. And I was placed in an anti-air defence unit. They trained us there for quite a long time, we took part in combat, heavy combat. As anti-air defence, we had to suppress the Germans. After some time, I was approached by my lieutenant, as there weren't enough nurses, and too many wounded. Lieutenant Novikov, Russian he was. They put me through medical training, just the basics, it was awfully fast. Then I was allocated to a forward dressing station. There was doctor Tekza from Subcarpathian Rus, medic Štilicha, there was me, Novikov, and the two orderlies. And we moved along the front lines, there all the wounded passed through our hands, all of them. So sometimes we couldn't even sleep for five, six days, I tell you."
"And when I came to Miroslav, it was after the war, one lady came to me and said: 'Mrs. Citterbergová...' 'Frau Věra,' she said, very German-like, she spoke: 'Did you recognise anyone here?' I replied: 'No.' I couldn't say yes, because we had a house in Ramoš, in Pendorf, and when I went there, someone shot at me. Three bullets whizzed past my head, so I was scared. You couldn't trust anyone. And she told, she begged me, if I had recognised anyone. I said: 'I recognised no one.' And she asked me: 'Let those people go.' They had already been in camps." (Q) "You mean Germans?" "Germans." (Q) "Sudeten Germans?" "Sudeten Germans were back home (in Volyn), they could speak Czech, they lived like princes, altogether they were... the Russians, those were poor blokes, but the Germans when first they arrived, they drove up on motorcycles, in white shirts, they were dressed amazingly - thanks to the army... But the Russians, the Russians, they were poor as mice, they didn't know what bacon was, they didn't know what a stuffed bun was, they didn't know anything."
"In Slovakia, when we were at Svatý Ondrej (Saint Andrew - transl.), we were moving the wounded for five, six days. Blown legs the lot of them. So we had to saw the legs, put this stuff on them, žgud, I don't know how to say it in Czech, so that... It took two hours, he had to be en route to the hospital, or he'd get blood poisoning. And it had to be opened up and straight off to the hospital with them. It was awful there, indescribable." (Q) "And so you were in the field hospital, actually on the field?" "Yes, right on the field. We were right in the front lines, we were advancing."
(Q) "How many of the soldiers died and how many did you manage to save?" "Well, they kept coming in to us, they were being sent on the whole night through, we didn't let a single one die. As far as I can remember, not a single one. Gipsies, when you wanted to tend to them, they started fleeing from their stretcher. They were scared of treatment. And of how we gave injections... We didn't have equipment like they do in hospitals nowadays, you know. We had one syringe, I had two or three. And there were no antiseptics, they guzzled down all the alcohol, so what we did is we used a lamp and heat-treated the needle. And then we just wiped it with the alcohol. I had one case where I gave him the injection, I won't be forgetting that, and he squeezed it and sucked it out. And he got blood poisoning, you see. Then he came to me: 'Nurse, I is kill you!' And I said: 'And why? You pig, you squeezed it out with dirty hands. They complained about you straight off.' And it got pretty painful, they had to amputate it, because of the poisoning. But that was his own fault. But otherwise, that there would be any critical cases, anyone dying with us, no. We had to send them on straight away. And we couldn't do that in daytime, because when the Germans saw that, they shot at them on the road. You can imagine, the killed a good many, broke a car, hit a landmine, you know. But otherwise they drove them back to the rear."
"So that was in April 1945. I went to see my husband, he wasn't my husband yet at the time, we were still dating. I was bringing him a bottle, some sort of smelly home-distilled stuff, and a bun. And as we entered the grove at Vinčol, I was joined by these two handsome and capable men - soldiers. We talked for some time, it was afterwards I found out... I said: 'But I should go right.' And they told me: 'No, it's this way, straight on.' They were kidnapping me, simply. Then those, what are those front ones called, with the sub-machineguns, that went first. They just climbed up a tree..." (Q) "You mean recon?" "Recon, yes. If it wasn't for them... they saved my life." (Q) "And how? They told you?" "They took them captive and disarmed them. They wounded the one first and jumped them from the trees and disarmed them. And then there was this other time. In Chodeč, we were moving some wounded. They had been in a trench and they had been using these lamps to see around, these spring-lamps - they pressed the wick and the oil squirted out and burned them. So we were taking them away in a jeep. And just imagine, the driver was German." (Q) "How did he get there?" "The German got there by killing our driver. And you can't tell that in the army." (Q) "And he took his uniform?" "He took the uniform, he spoke Czech like normal. But we managed to dispose of him too, so everyone was saved."
Věra Citterbergová, née Větrovcová, was born on the 26th of June 1926 in Volhynia. Her parents were wealthy landowners. Her father, mayor of the village of Brišeč, was killed during the war by Banderites. In 1944 Citterbergová joined the Czechoslovak Foreign Army, the same as her brother Josef Větrovec and her future husband Jozef Citterberg. At first she served with the anti-air defence, but later became a field medic, working at the battlefront, where she provided first aid to the wounded. After the war she settled down with her husband in Miroslav, Czechoslovakia. For a short period of time she was manager of a hotel, later she stayed at home to look after her three children. She was also active in the Red Cross, in the Association of Antifascist Fighters and in the Community of Czechoslovak Legionnaires, she also talked at schools. She died on the 2nd of December 2007.
