“Dcera, Helena se jmenovala, chodila do české školy, a když jako jsem tam přišel, tak ona jednou mně takhle u oběda říká: ‚Šéfe, vy jste to krádlovali – tu naši usedlost?‘ Já povídám: ‚Co je krádlovali? Chceš říct, že ukradli, ne?‘ Ona povídá: ‚No, ukradli.‘ Já povídám: ‚Vždyť já vím, že jsi chodila do české školy,‘ – tak jak přišla na to slovo ‚krádlovali‘? Tak jsem jí vysvětlil, jsem jí ukázal dekret a zúčtování od národního pozemkového fondu, že jo, potrvzení. Politbyrátorem [?] bylo ministerstvo financí tehdá, no tak jsme měli to potvrzení. Já povídám: ‚Vidíš, tady to mám zaplacený.‘ A povídám: ‚Dědovi řekni,‘ on špatně slyšel, ‚dědovi řekni, že jsme to řádně koupili, a kdyby tady chtěl zůstat, tak že by mně asi musel zaplatit ty peníze, co já jsem za to dal.‘ Pravda je ta, že jsme oproti osídlení všech jako lidí – sousedů, kteří se usidlovali, civilové – tak my jsme měli slevu, jsme dostali na to, tuším, že to bylo asi patnáct procent. Nebo: dvanáct patnáct procent, nevím. Nechci abych… (Jako vojáci?) No, no. A jinak jsme to museli zaplatit.”
“Němci to netušili, oni pořád ty Čechy… protože my jsme zaútočili třebas tak, na německou hlídku, že oni to nerozeznali, kdo střílí. (Čili vy jste dělali i přepady?) No, takové malé. Prostě abychom neohrozili prozrazení naše. Protože tam jsme měli v sázce ty naše rodiny a to byl velký závazek, že jo.”
“Ten náš legion utíkal před Němcema až do toho Ruska, kde to bylo okupovaný – a to už byla Volyň tam. Tak oni pomáhali v zemědělství. (To byla ta Kvasilovská skupina, ne?) Kvasilovská skupina, ano. V Kvasilově, protože to tam bylo blízko, jak někteří ještě stihli přijet vlakem z toho [Krakova], tak se to rozptylovalo po těch vesnicích. To bylo takové dobrovolné… prostě dostali jsme zprávu, kolik bychom žádali do obce těch kluků z legionu. Tak u nás byl požadavek na čtrnáct, tak já myslím čtrnáct jich tam bylo nebo patnáct, to už je jedno. Tak přišli a přetrvali tam, až zase když Němci napadli Sovětský svaz, tak museli utíkat ti naši kluci, protože zase by je zajali. Tak utíkali a někteří se dostali až do toho Buzuluku.”
“Přišli do vsi, a že přišli rozkulačit, kulaky zlikvidovat, vesnici. Že si musí založit družstva, začali shánět dobytek do větších usedlostí. No a začali postupovat sovětsky, sovětský režim. (A vy jste se tomu bránili – ti čeští sedláci na Volyni?) Samosebou! No tak spousta pozavírali. To bylo doslova násilný.”
“At the time when it really got hot there, the Ukrainian nationalists even sentenced him to death and they were about to execute him. They were already leading him outside to be shot. Luckily, I slept next door and realized that something was going on. I rushed outside and saw that they were taking my dad away. I knew their commander. It was my former classmate Petro Prichoďko – by coincidence, I used to sit next to him at school. So I jumped up and said: ‘Što ty zduril, Petro?’ I told him it was my dad. So I actually saved his life.” Interviewer: And this Prichoďko, he didn’t know it was your father when he walked in there?” V.K: “No, he thought it was some other guy, he didn’t realize it was my father.” Interviewer: “What did you tell him in Ukrainian?” V.K.: “I told him ‘Peter, are you out of your mind? That’s my dad’. In Ukrainian, it’s ‘Petro, něduríš, to muj baťko’.”
“There was a wooden footbridge that was made of logs. When I saw that the tank would crush me, that it was unavoidable, I jumped underneath it and hid there. He rolled over it, crushed it and turned on the spot to make sure I was crushed underneath what remained of the footbridge. Luckily, there was quite a bit of mud so he just buried me in the mud. It didn’t kill me and I didn’t drown either. It was in a place called Machnowka-Wrocanka, it’s actually known by the boys. We got a beating there. The tank appeared out of the fog some 10 meters in front of me coming my direction. Some panicked and started to run. But the machine gunner on the tank mowed them down mercilessly. If you weren’t hit by the machine gun fire, the driver at least tried to crush you under with the tracks. I didn’t know where to go, it was a desperate situation, so I jumped underneath the bridge, to the side where the logs appeared to be stronger. I was aware that it could collapse as it did, but anyway, the side I was under withheld at least partially and gave me some protection from the tank’s tracks. It broke my nose and scratched my face a little bit but I was alive. After the fighting was over, I crawled out of there and I realized that I didn’t have my full combat gear with me but just a satchel. For cans and other stuff you needed. I had the rest of my documents there.” Interviewer: “Tell me, the tank driver somehow turned on the spot on that footbridge deliberately to crush you?” V.K.: “Yeah, that’s what they did. They pulled the gear lever and the tracks crushed everything underneath them. They did this especially when they drove over a trench, they effectively buried the soldiers in the ground.” Interviewer: “So he knew you were underneath the tank and he intentionally turned the tank to crush you…” V.K. “Sure, the gunner takes care of the machine gun and the driver helps him with the tracks.”
“We had just arrived with the horses and my dad went to talk to him for a bit by the wall. I was just eying them, observing what was happening. It was a beautiful, shiny pistol. A German Mauser. I took it and put it underneath the… Lavrov came with my dad, they still talked and laughed. The relationship was very good. He took a look and told my dad that he had a gun there. My dad asked me if I knew something about it. He asked if I had taken it. I played dumb, pretending I had no idea what he was talking about. We boys were always after things like that at the time. I was already in the Blaník and I was looking for guns. I lied to my dad because I really liked the pistol and I wanted to keep it badly. But then he told me not to be foolish: ‘Look, Lavrov is risking his life. If the Germans catch him, he won’t be even able to defend himself’. So I said: ‘it’s under this seat here’.”
“We used to distill a lot of home-made liquor. The commander of the artillery garrison stayed at our neighbors’ place with the whole officer corps. Once they got really drunk and they came up with the very clever idea to go on a horse ride right into enemy territory. They Germans spotted them at the outskirts of Mirotín and shot them. They shot the commander, two high officers and a political officer. It was a great fuss. They aimed their cannons at Mirotín – a Czech village – and started to shell it heavily. My mom distinguished herself immensely back then because she managed to persuade the gunners to stop the fire. It took us a great effort to persuade them to stop shelling that village.”
“The recipe is called ‘the gypsy way’. You take a hen with the feathers still on, cut it open and remove the insides. Then you stuff it with dried leaves that you collect in the forest and add salt to it. You can also put some spices on it. You put a coat of yellow clay on the hen. It’s the same clay they use for making pottery. You make a fire and wait till the ash is hot. Then you put the hen in the clay inside the fire and the hot ash and cook it. When it’s ready, you take it out and break the clay which hardened in the fire. The clay plucks out all the feathers and it smells and tastes really good – it absorbs the flavor of the spices.” Interviewer: “Well, that sounds really interesting. What are actually the leaves good for?” Václav Kuchynka: “The leaves give the meat a specific flavor. It’s really nice, sort of smoked meat. Well, that was our own recipe, kind of an improvisation.” Interviewer: “And the feathers, they got stuck in the clay, right?” V.K.: “Yeah, it all stayed in the clay which hardened and then you just had to break the coating. All that stayed was a neat and clean hen.” Interviewer: “Whose recipe was it actually, who made it up?” V.K: “The gypsies.”
Václav Kuchynka was born on September 13, 1925, in a little village called Český Závidov (Czech Závidov) near the eastern border of then Polish Volhynia. His parents, Václav and Xénia, née Tintěrová, managed their own farmstead. His father, Václav Kuchyňka sr., was a member of the local firefighting corps, was active in the Matice česká and for long years took care of the administrative affairs of the village. Václav Kuchynka jr. was trained as an electrician which predestined him to later become a signaler in the Czechoslovak army corps. In the years 1941-1944, he witnessed the raging of various Ukrainian nationalistic gangs, in particular a group led by his former class mate Petr Prichoďka. He also visited the mass grave of Jews murdered shortly before in Ostrog and its surroundings. He was also a member of a clandestine resistance organization of the Volhynian Czechs in Závidov called Blaník. After he joined the 1st Czechoslovak army corps in the spring of 1944, he was trained in Jefremov nearby Moscow, where he got malaria. He saw his first action in the dramatic battles at the Carpathian villages Machnowka-Wrocanka. In a desperate combat situation, he hid in the mud under a small wooden footbridge that was subsequently crushed by a German tank. As if by a miracle, he survived the onslaught and escaped with only a minor injury. Václav Kuchynka participated in the whole war campaign on the eastern front line. He fought in the battles in the Carpathian Mountains and the Dukla pass and was among the liberators of Czechoslovakia. He was decorated with a number of high military orders and distinctions. After the war, he settled in the village Polepy in the Litoměřicko region, where he worked at his farmstead and later, after the collectivization, at the collectivized farms. Since 1989 until today (2009), he’s been actively involved in the activities of the Czech community of legionaries (ČOL) and the Czech union of freedom fighters (ČSBS) of the district of Litoměřice. He takes part in the sessions and activities of both the organizations regional and national committees. He met his wife, Božena, née Šeráková, in 1951. They had three sons: Karel, Václav and Zdeněk. Václav Kuchynka died on 15 December 2020.
