Miroslav Kalabus

* 1914

  • “When the mobilization started, I was in the garrison. They didn’t release us. I witnessed the mobilization in the garrisons in Opava. I saw the reserve officers enrolling in the garrisons. They were sharpening their bayonets. When the agreement about the occupation was signed, the soldiers were breaking their rifles and the officers were ripping up their coats. They just didn’t want to let it fall into German hands. Then we left the garrison and walked back home. It was terrible; people were crying and moaning in frustration and anger, as they couldn’t do anything about it.”

  • “When Vsetín was liberated by the Russians, the Russian troops came from Karlovice. The Germans were, of course, fleeing. In this situation, we captured five German soldiers in Jasenka. We disarmed them and led them to Vsetín. They were dispirited because they didn’t know what would happen to them. We handed them over to the Russians who were living in the grammar school in Vsetín. One of them, Michal Irgoš, took the German soldiers to the vaults of the school and the Russians allegedly shot them there.”

  • “When the big trouble with Hitler began shortly afterwards we (my group with the radio) had to leave the garrisons and move in with the yachters. I was sitting at a table when three elders came and started to chat with me. One of them told me his two sons were in the army. He said it wasn’t easy for him as he was afraid for their lives, but he’d rather have both of them dead than suffer this terrible disgrace of our country that Hitler had done. It was very touching and heartbreaking to hear that old man saying this. He’d sacrifice his only two sons, everything he had, just to stop Hitler from coming to Czechoslovakia.”

  • “We were on a march and stopped in Fulnek for the night. We saw the Henlein supporters putting up arches of triumph and flying Nazi flags and banners all over the place. They were getting ready for the advent of the Wehrmacht troops. Our men, especially the reserve officers, hated to see that and were tearing down the banners and decorations wherever they could. All of a sudden, the mayor of Fulnek came in a car to see our commander. He furiously complained about the behavior of our troops. He yelled at our commander and insisted that we stop disgracing the German nation. Our commander had enough of it. He shouted at him: ‘Halt, enough! If those banners aren’t gone within half an hour, we’ll take the town by force!’ You should have seen how this got them moving! The place was teeming with frantic activity. They had to tear down the arches, and remove all the decorations, banners, and flags. They threw the banners back inside the windows from which they had been hanging. So we stayed there overnight and we got up at five. Then we had breakfast, lined up, and left the town. Our platoon was the last one to leave the place, and before the last soldier was out of the town you could see the banners rolling out of the windows again.”

  • Full recordings
  • 1

    Šumperk, 25.08.2010

    (audio)
    duration: 01:32:56
    media recorded in project Stories of 20th Century
Full recordings are available only for logged users.

“Soldiers were breaking their rifles, officers were tearing apart their coats.”

Miroslov Kalabus - in the army, 1937
Miroslov Kalabus - in the army, 1937
photo: archiv pamětníka

Miroslav Kalabus was born in 1914 in Vienna, in a Czech family. Over the course of the First World War, the family moved back to Wallachia where they originated. Miroslav Kalabus enrolled in the Czechoslovak army in 1936 and witnessed both mobilizations, the Munich agreement and the shameful handover of Czechoslovak garrisons to the Wehrmacht. What he likes to remember the most from this period is the town of Fulnek, where local Nazi supporters and sympathizers (so-called “Henleinovci”) prematurely engaged in the organization of a greeting ceremony for the German troops. They were decorating the town with triumphal arches and flags and banners with Nazi symbols and swastikas. Mr. Kalabus was a member of a Czechoslovak army unit that was passing through the city and forced the Nazi collaborators to remove the decorations. After he left the army, he lived in Jasenka near Vsetín and worked as a technical administrator under the supervision of director Josef Sousedík, who was in charge of the local resistance organization in the Vsetín region. Like many others of Sousedík’s subordinates, Mr. Kalabus joined the resistance as well. He became the deputy of the commander of a guerilla group that was engaged in preparations for armed confrontation with the German occupants. However, the partisans didn’t get the chance to fight the German forces because they were outstripped by the 1st Czechoslovak army corps that liberated Vsetín on May 4, 1945. The guerilla group was involved in the action by capturing and disarming five German soldiers. Right after the war, Miroslav Kalabus left to Šumperk, where he worked as a teacher till his retirement and where he still lives today.