Vladimír Kunášek

* 1923  †︎ 2006

  • "And then at Machnówka, when Dukla was taken. So you know, there were the wounded and the dead. I'll tell you honestly, I'll tell you straight. When it came, the hell of the ninth of September at Machnovka and Wroclaw, it was about thirty-two kilometers of the front, and it was wounded and dead, they drove, walked, and just some of them. after the army. "

  • "And the bullet was a kind of stray, as they call it. It stayed here, so I took off my coat and cut it out. And Kadava, my friend, tied me up. We each had a bandage in our left pocket. We were already over Teodorówka. Von tied me up, I took out the bullet and he said, 'go to the emergency room, let them give you an injection.' I took it out (her) myself. It was kind of stray because it wasn't punctured, it just stayed here in that muscle. And I say, I'll get on with it. I need no emergency, I am already tied up and it healed ok."

  • "That was when I... Barwinka, when the wounded man was, Babák Pepík. So I went with that motorcycle ... and then we had to... as they say, the Germans started washing us, so again we had to... the flag remained standing, it was shot through and we had to retreat."

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    Vysoké Třebušice, 13.08.2005

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    duration: 01:52:26
    media recorded in project Stories of 20th Century
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I took off my coat and dug a bullet out of my arm

Crossing the border at Dukla - in the foreground a flag bearer Vladimír Kunášek / Source: archive of Václav Širc
Crossing the border at Dukla - in the foreground a flag bearer Vladimír Kunášek / Source: archive of Václav Širc
photo: Soukromý archiv Václava Širce

Vladimír Kunášek was born on May 14, 1923 in Bojarka in Volhynia, Poland (now Ukraine). The family owned thirty hectares of land, but after the arrival of the Soviets, they lost most of their land. They had to fulfil mandatory contingents and Vladimír Kunášek was expelled from studies due to his class background and was reassigned to work. After the invasion of German troops in the USSR, he witnessed the bombing of the town of Mlynov. In March 1944, the 1st Czechoslovak separate brigade was relocated to Rivne, which he joined on March 21. After military training, he was assigned to the autorota in Jasła as an intendant and later became a liaison officer. He took part in the Carpathian-Dukla operation, during which he was shot in the arm near Teodorówka. He took part in the liberation of Czechoslovakia and arrived in Prague on May 11, 1945. He left the army in December of the same year and, as a member of the agricultural interest group, acquired a farm after the displaced Germans in Podbořany. After 1950, he joined the unified agricultural cooperative (JZD), from where he soon withdrew and tried to cultivate his farm privately, which resulted in high to liquidation of mandatory supplies. He eventually handed over his farm to the state estate administration. He died on October 12, 2006.