“We cleared a field from the mines. It was wide enough for three tanks so that two tanks could pass and still had enough space left. The stripe was about a kilometer long. We had to do it in the night. It didn’t rain but it was cloudy. One had to wear the earphones and listen carefully to find the mines, those were usually German ones. We managed to clear the field and nothing exploded. Then we stretched a green ribbon to mark the area that has been cleared. There were also landmines apart from the anti-tank ones. We were coming back and a friend walked was about twenty meters in front of us and then: Wham! We must have missed a mine or forgotten to check the area. He stepped on it and it went off. It tore the whole of his leg off. He was screaming. We wanted to keep him quiet but the Germans began launching lighting flares. We had to lay down for about an hour or two until they stopped.”
“When I was there, I used to listen to the radio in the kitchen and I found about the foreign army units. So I tried to negotiate with them, if someone could get me to England. I thought that it was close, just across the canal. Later I realized that it was a bit risky because if they told the Germans, I’d have been dead. I didn’t fully realize that at the time. I found out that there is an option to get out of France. There were guerrillas like partisans in Czechoslovakia. We arranged a meeting, it was about two weeks before the invasion. Some men came and brought me civil clothes. I changed and we went on. It took about two or more days to get to the sea. There they handed me to other people with a small boat. I got on board and was happy to go to England. But I got to north Africa! It was the Mediterranean sea and I was on the other side of France. So I crossed the sea and got to Africa.”
“I remember one incident. There was a house and we could hear shooting coming out of it. We were ordered to search the place and to clear it. So we went there, it was during the day. Nobody was shooting at us on the way to the house and we also couldn’t see anyone when we came to the yard. There was a small window to the basement so we threw hand grenades in just in case. Then we went into one of the rooms and found about fifteen German soldiers. So we shouted in German ‘Hände hoch!’ They all lifted their hands up. There was a wardrobe next to the door and one of ours leaned against it. We were ready to search the Germans and take them as prisoners but one of ours fell down and... I’m not really sure but probably his rifle went out accidentally. The bullet seriously injured Ústecký and we were so frightened that part of was shooting into on the wardrobe and the others shot all the Germans. They couldn’t defend themselves; they had their hands up. We shot them anyway... It was the fear. All the Germans fell down to the ground. We took the wounded soldier and left. So that was a massacre we did. And there was no reason to do it. Or there was? But fear does horrible things.”
“We were on patrol. There was a stream about a waist deep and about ten meters wide. There was no bridge, only a ford for cars. A lane went by lined with grass and bushes so you could not see it from distance. Then there was a wide meadow and tall trees behind it. It wasn’t a wood, just a line of trees, a wide balk. So we were on the watch in a group of about four soldiers (there always had to be someone with a machine gun) and there was another watch on the meadow about forty meters away. We walked along the path and came to a house with a fence. One of us leaned against the fence and looked around. Nothing. The meadow was clear. And then suddenly: klak! He was hit in the helmet. He fell down to the ground. We checked the helmet. He wasn’t injured but he must have felt the shot. That is how it went. You didn’t see anyone but someone was looking at you. And if it was too far, he was looking with a telescope. And then he would shoot and try it out. This time, your fellow was lucky, he wasn’t even unconscious. He lay down for a while to recover but he didn’t stand up. He was too afraid.”
Ing. Josef Liška was born in 1924 in Nošovice, North Moravia. After the Nazi occupation of Czechoslovakia, part of Nošovice was annexed to Poland and his father Eduard (a former mayor of the town) was arrested by the Gestapo. He was released after signing a Volksliste, a form of German citizenship that also applied to Josef Liška, which at the time were not of age. Due to the Volksliste, Josef had to join the Wehrmacht forces. After the training, he was deployed in France. He deserted shortly before the Battle of Normandy and he got to the Mediterranean Sea with the help of French guerilla fighters, then through north Africa to England. He joined the Czechoslovak units and took part in the siege of Dunkerque. After the demobilization in August 1945, he returned home. His father’s inn was confiscated for signing the Volksliste so Josef bought it back. He ran the inn in the evenings but in 1964, it was confiscated again on behalf of Jednota. As a soldier fighting on the western front, Josef Liška was interrogated several times by the secret police after the communist coup d’etat in 1948. He also wasn’t allowed to study. He got to the university several years later with a recommendation from his employer and he got an Ing. degree. He lived in Baška, Northern Moravia, died in 2013.
Onset before the fifth attack on Dunkirk November 1944 (in the front are lieutenant Jan Kavala and platoons. asp. Jen Maixner - both died in the attack)
Onset before the fifth attack on Dunkirk November 1944 (in the front are lieutenant Jan Kavala and platoons. asp. Jen Maixner - both died in the attack)
