Martin Mahdal

"I was a sapper in this unit. And as such I only met up with one other men. The others, they were scattered all over. Understand that the Western Desert, that's not like from Prague to Říčany. That's like from Prague to Brno, or to Bratislava. That's a huge expanse. And in this huge expanse, we took up a certain large area, in other words we each got a piece like this. Here - but there it meant a whole big piece, it wasn't easy. And the same goes for the rest. Sweltering in the heat of the Middle East, we missed our homes and the like, but there wasn't time for that."

"But whether there was any animosity there, any antisemitism, I can't recall it. Although I know that I've heard all sorts of things from our people, yes? But those expressions could hardly be described as antisemitic. That's kind of... Simply, for some reason, he doesn't really like Mr. Vopršálek or whoever. So he says as much when he has occasion for it. But that has absolutely nothing to do with antisemitism as such."

"Well and as for the relations to, say, black people, well, there were various sections within the English army. The Australian army, the New Zealand army, the Egyptian army, the South African army. Those were all independent armies. They didn't have one battalion, they had truly enormous units. And there you could see the relation between the officer and his squad. The officers were the masters, they had all kinds of paraphernalia for warding off flies and so on, right, that was part of their, well, and the rank and file could only obey. Say in the Western Desert, when leaving, they had gathered us up again and we were leaving the Western Desert, and we saw this English sergeant and one officer chase one white South African soldier just because he was South African, and just because he was aggravating to them. Well so they accused him of visiting a black woman in Alexandria for some tittle-tattle."

"For us it was a problem of life in the Soviet Union. I'll say straight off that we had, especially later on in Suzdal, the possibility of mingling with the inhabitants. We played football against local people, we went out, we went on visits to some families or others, various stuff. Those who liked a bit of drink went to the places that sold liquor, and had a drink with them. We were told various things, we could agree or disagree. No one could say there were isolated, in that way. Everyone acted according to their own liking. I was, at the time, a twenty, twenty-one-year-old, so for me it was something quite new, so I had my hands full trying to see my way around."