Second Lieutenant (ret.) Emanuel Kop

“They told us: ‘Follow the wires.’ Our boys who laid the phone wires went there. We followed the wires until we saw a reel on the ground but there was nobody around. We were examining the surroundings and we found out there were mines there. Well, it was bad. ... There was a kind of a stream and one of us crossed the water just in order to avoid the mines. He trod on one and it blasted his foot off. He was thrown at the bank so that one of his arms and his head were out and the rest of his body was under water. Who was courageous enough to go there and help him? Nobody felt like going. I was trained to do such kind of things. ... I went and pulled him out. Luckily the Nazis exceptionally stopped shooting. At least at me. I pulled him out, we took our rain coats and carried him to the next village where our ambulance was. I bandaged his leg and tied his tendon together. His foot was loosely hanging on his tendons. We took him to the surgery and they amputated his leg there. They used to do everything in a rather radical way.”

“We got to know that the Russians were arresting everyone who fought with the Poles. We hid it (our documents) so that they didn't know who we were. We arranged with one another how to reply and we got to know the way the Russians did it. When they caught you somewhere they said: ‘Show your hands.’ And they asked what your profession was. So we said among ourselves how to behave. If we were addressed by the Russians we had to answer according to the state of our hands, how worked off they were. Those whose hands were not worked off, they had to say they had studied.”

“I have no idea whether the rumors were right or not. When reporting you never know whether they say the truth or just pretend. At that time people used to work differently in contrast with today. For instance such as BIS (Czech State Intelligence Service), they were yellow bellies. They didn't even know what their duties were or what important was. When you came with something important to them, they even wouldn't know whether it was important or not. ‘We are here only to protect the government,’an official told me once. I never spoke about those things, not even with my wife. I'm used to keeping such stuff for myself.”

“I was the only one who did something when something came. (I.e. treated for the ill – author's note.) First of all I bandaged his leg so that his Achilles heel was covered and it was not bleeding any more. Then I took his second leg. However, you cannot do splints on your own. There have to be two people to do it. The leg completely twists. So I went back right away in order to find someone to help me holding the leg. We were about seven people there. Nobody wanted. They said they couldn't look at anything of that kind. Finally, a big blob plucked up his courage and said he would go with me. ‘OK, I'm coming with you even if I've never done it before.’... Luckily we found some very narrow little planks. He held the leg and we were bandaging it. You know, he burst into tears when he saw it all. Such a mountain of a man and he eventually cried. There are cases like that. We took him to hospital in the neighboring village.”

“If you want to know why I believe in God, I'll tell you my definition then. God is a supreme power of universal actions, of all living on Earth. We are used to calling him God. We will never be able to get to know Him fully. This God gave a part of His power to our bodies when he created us on this planet. So that a human could use that power, we were given our brains. Those should be possessions of each of us. However, those who are not able to use the power in the right way, they have to be ready for critical times when they can be stricken by mental or physical detriments. Tell me now why I shouldn't believe in God. The supreme power of all universal being, it is there, everybody knows that. This is our God. He appointed Lord Christ to teach us to follow His commandments to be able to live well. We shouldn't do what we don't want the others did to us. I accept this all. I don't know why I shouldn't.”