Ladislav Kovařík

“We were chosen to dig up trenches. Those were anti-tank, deep, about three or four-metre-deep trenches.” "And it was in Zlín?" “No, it was the stage Valašské Meziříčí, there were different stages, you know, the Germans were consistent.” "And in which year was it?" “In autumn 1944. Franta Tlak and I fled. Many people fled. And we were out of Valašské Meziříčí, we were with the guerrilla in the Beskydy mountains...” "So you just joined them?" “Do you think that it was because of our persuasion? No way, it was just because of the adventure. Each action was a kind of tension, a game.” "And how old were you then?" “I was going on eighteen.”

“I was rather an active man. I was for example chosen for a delegate to Dubček. I was supposed to hand over some presents and support him when they came back from Moscow. So we went there but it was all underlined with a red pen for another negotiation with us. We were excluded from the Party of course. And who was excluded from the Party had to leave the Army. And it concerned us as well. It was strange that many friends,who were would-be friends really, used to say: 'You have to, you have to go, you are so good, you must go to Dubček, you will make a great speaker for us.' And then the same people, all of them raised their hands fairly when they voted for the exclusion of lieutenant colonel Ladislav Kovařík from the Communist Party.”

“I got involved in 'plundering guards' because I knew how to use the gun. We helped to organize transfers of German citizens. We simply handed them over on the region boundaries and they sent them further on, either to Germany or to Austria, depending on their 'Ausweis', the order in other words. And it was specifically in Otrokovice where I was.”

“I was allowed to do it. It was still under Morozov, the Russian regiment commander, so I was allowed to fly and parachute jump for the last time. Believe it or not I was in such a situation at that time. I jumped from two thousand metres. I had enough time when I jumped out. So I was thinking, shall I go down, shall I not open the parachute, you see, they were mentally already... I was not alone, there were many others who were dismissed and fired from the Army. And they were so mentally tired and pushed to the fact that they were considering even a suicide – going straight to the ground. Well, and then I said to myself, you have got a family, you have got juniors. I did not realize what to be dismissed would mean, if they would be accepted at schools. Well, I opened the parachute in the end and I lived on.”