Ludvík Korcz

“I was working at the Ministry of Transport, when in 1958, they conducted employee checks. I was always in some kind of trouble, naturally. But still they were pressing me to serve as a labour union secretary. Nearly all the time I worked here I had conflicts with others, with people reproaching me for something or criticizing me. I still remember it as if it were today. During the checks the political department head, he was an ass, asked me a question. The director and his cohorts were sitting there, together with the Communist Party Chairman, the Labour Union Chairman and the likes, and now this special department guy asks me: ´Hey, comrade engineer, tell me, how did you become a soldier in the German army?´ I got angry because he knew the answer to this question. So I waited for him to finish the question and then I asked him: ´Comrade, where were you born?´ He was surprised and replied: ´In Prague.´ I said: ´And where were you living in 1938?´ He answered: ´In Prague.´ I told him: ´Now, look here, comrade, if I had been living in Prague, and you had been living around Těšín at that time, I would not have asked you such a dumb question today!!!´ He stared at me speechless.”

“One day we were issued new vehicles, new uniforms and hats and all that, linen clothes, for Afrika Korps - for marshal Rommel in Afrika. It looked like we would go to Afrika. But in the meantime, the war with Russia started. Our deployment was postponed, the situation then somewhat stabilized and we had to give all these things back and return the Afrika Korps uniforms. We were told that we would be sent to Russia to accomplish the Durchbruch, the breakthrough of the front and afterwards, we would go to Africa. We boarded a train and off we went. I remember that we were passing through some woods and all of a sudden I saw altars by the road and priests saying the holy mass there – they were Spaniards, a Spanish division, who were providing support to the Germans. They stayed there and the priests were giving a mass. We arrived in a village, somewhere in the central section of the front, near Minsk. That’s where the second offensive started in November, 1941. It advanced, but it began to rain and there was so much mud. I remember that our vehicles got stuck and trucks had to come to pull us out. We had different vehicles than before because they let us keep the vehicles which we were supposed to take to Afrika. These were vans with four seats, it looked like a small bus - the driver and the team commander were sitting in the front, two radio-telegraph operators were behind them, and in between them was a bench with a receiver and transmitter on it. There was also a desk where we received and transmitting radiotelegraphic messages. We were advancing toward Moscow and that’s where I experienced the ´Stalin’s organ', the rockets, for the first time. Our regiment commander lost his life in one of those villages. Lead by Lieutenant Colonel Matting, we approached Moscow, allegedly… Our regiment had one hundred and sixteen had three battalions. There were three batteries in each battalion. The first, second and third batteries comprised of cannons and howitzers; the fourth, fifth and sixth had cannons with longer firing range, and the seventh, eight, and ninth had heavy cannons and the seventh had long-range cannons. One battery was allegedly firing all the way to the Moscow suburbs. But then it began freezing and a retreat was ordered. It was freezing: fifty degrees below zero.”

“They hoarded us on to a train. The train started in the direction of Vostok and was swaying from side to side because the track was still under construction. North of Moscow we passed the Ural Mountains and we eventually arrived to Siberia. Suddenly the train stopped and we were in a forest, in the tundra. Here was the prisoner-of-war camp. Everything around was quiet and calm. They housed us here in subterranean bunkers. They were only about one metre deep because the ground there was permanently frozen; it was impossible to dig deeper. Rumanians had been there before, Rumanian captives, and only few of them were left. All the others were lying outside the camp in a cemetery. Tey had died while building the camp.”

“A fellow prisoner said: ´What do you think you’re supposed to do here? You’re so stupid that in Hitler’s time, during the war, you let the Germans fool you, and now you would be toiling as an idiot in a POW camp?´ I asked him: ´What should I do then?´ - ´An interpreter.´ I told him: ´How on earth could I work as an interpreter if I don’t speak Russian?´ - ´Come on, you know Polish, you know Czech, you know our language and Russian is similar.´ I said: ´Well, similar… a little bit, perhaps, but certainly not so similar that one would be able to speak the language.´ He said: ´I will make you an interpreter.´ To which I replied: ´Come on, how could you make an interpret out of me? What do you do?´ He said: ´Well, I’m an interpreter here.´- ´Don’t even bother, I’m not up to it, I don’t dare to do it.´- ´We shall see.´ And the following day, during a roll call, I learnt from that Russian officer who was commanding the roll call that I had been appointed an interpreter.”