Josef Haisler

"Protože ta skupina Pavla Hložka si údajně počínala příliš radikálně. Zacházeli s Němci nebo i s majetkem, podle toho, jak oni osobně uvažovali. Protože to byli primitivové ne zrovna nejlépe se hospodařilo."

"A přes ty zbývající komunisty v Boleslavy, kteří ještě nebyli zatčeni, jsem navázal kontakt se skupinou Pavla Hložka, který potom také působil tady v Liberci. To byl akademický malíř, který vytvořil v Jabkenicích na Nymbursku ozbrojenou složku, která působila i tady v Liberci. Tam jsem byl ve skupině ozbrojenců. Pochopitelně na čelnějších místech byli starší, případně vojáci. My jsme byli v táboře Jabkenice a potom jsme byli odveleni do Nymburka, protože Němci dotírali z Milovic směrem po okolí. Já jsem jako mladej kluk, který nic jiného neumí než-li trochu zacházet s puškou, jsem byl pomocníkem u kulometu a čistili jsme lesy od Němců."

"Voves mě propouštěl do civilu a šel jsem v té době domů už jako civil. A pod schody na jednom místě v Mladé Boleslavy pochodovala jednotka, která na mě volala: 'Pane podporučíku, pojďte s námi!' Oni šli na nádraží dole v Boleslavy pod hradem a jeli na Slovensko na banderovce. Bylo mi to strašně líto, že oni tam budou. Oni, které jsem já cvičil a cvičil jsem je důkladně. Ty kluci na mě volali: Pojďte s námi, pane podporučíku!' Tak jsem napsal supliku generálu Svobodovi, ministru obrany, že bych byl hrozně rád se svými vojáky na Slovensku. Dostal jsem poděkování od náčelníka generálního štábu, že jednotky jsou sestaveny a nebudou měněny. To byl takový okamžik, kdy člověku se tak trochu zavaří krev."

“A that time, I had another device to deal with. I was working even at home. I felt asleep, there was a tape recorder next to me. And as I was moving in my sleep, I turned it on just as the evening news were on: 'Wake up all the people in your house, get ready for a special announcement!' And they announced that those armies entered our territories without further notice. And that the Soviets were in control. So I went outside running. A next to the place I was living, at the firemen station, there was this tank. I didn't know yet that I would be involved. So I woke up my neighbours, I went back, I couldn't resist, so I went to look at that tank, as there was this exercise going to take place. And I saw this guy gesturing at the tank behind him which just arrived. The weird thing was that this tank had mudguards painted white. I thought that was just some exercise going on. As those tanks were the same we had. But as this guy was gesturing towards them, he turned his back to me and I was this half-belt with a bras button. That was not how our soldier's jackets looked like. Then I heard him yelling: 'Ješčo, Vaska, ješčo!' So I went, I got in my Traband car, I took my gun with me, and I went to the square to observe the situation. And there I saw our policemen siting on benches, as the Russians were managing the traffic. I passed one of them and he would wave this flag of his to make me stop. I opened the window, and I yelled at him what I knew in Russian: 'Uchodi, jeb tvoju mať, ja oficěr!' And I went on to the research institute.”

“In 1958, they were hiring so I got in. and I got there at the time when this officer left, who back then at the military academy did his dissertation on a tank capable of operating under water. And at that time this new kind of tank, T54, was being introduced. And at the time I joined that... we were still stationed in the Doksy Castle. So I joined this research institute. And I was quite beside myself from all of this, I had no idea how a tank is being driven. Whether there was a steering wheel and so. And I got to know something thanks to my predecessor's work who were into underwater operations. But he left. I was with him at Labe in 1958. That was quite deep... A metre... And the tank... that was nothing. But in the seocnd half of 1958 they gave me those tactical-technical data so I would know what they would expect. As a part of the Warsaw pact, Czechoslovak army had to solve the problem of going seven metres underwater in a stream one kilometer wide. Volga had been considered but in the end they decided that it would take place in Dunaj. Zlatná on an island near Komárno. And they made me a chief of this detail. And during that time I used to drive this T54. And they gave me this old tank from the war, T34, so I would try it out. The solution was that they would put this wide chimney onto one of those holes. And my solution was to use a six-meter chimney. The tank was two meters high, so six meters... I had even had this meter extra. At the top there was a lens and a mirror, at the bottom, I had it cut, as you had those binoculars, so I had just this piece of binoculars, so I could see where I had to go. And there were those two markers, then meters wide, and I had to got the vehicle in between them. So my task was to solve this problem. On September 15th, 1959, I could notify Prague that I solved the problem. It was a top secret issue, I wasn't allowed to tell no one. And I drove it by myself, as I didn't want to send some poor young sucker to drown. Our detail was called 'The River' and it looked like this.”