Michal Malejko

* 1922  †︎ unknown

Veteran of WW2, eastern front, Prisoner of a Soviet concentration camp, Gulag, A 1938 – 1945 emigrant/refugee, Inhabitants of Subcarpathian Rus, Witnesses of local events connected to WWII
8. 9. – 1. 11. 1944 - The battle of the Dukla Pass, 1944 - 1945 - The liberation of Czechoslovakia, 3. - 6. 11. 1943 - Battle of Kiev, 8. 5. 1945 - End of WWII, Deportations to the Far East, Siberia and North Kazachstan 1939–1941 and 1944–1950
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    From a Siberian prisoner to a Czechoslovak soldier in Buzuluk and at the front in Kiev

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    “When we were able to travel on the water in the spring, we went 200 kilometers to the port Igarka. We boarded a ship and sailed on the Yenisei River further 2 200 kilometers to Krasnojarsk. From there we continued by train to Buzuluk. There I enlisted into the army. We had about three-months long training, where they prepared us for fighting at the battlefront. From there we left to Novochopersk, where we got on a transport leading directly to the front. At the front we were within the 1st Czechoslovak Brigade embattled to the operation for Kiev´s liberation. I was in a communication battalion. After the city´s liberation we continued in fights for Beloj Cerkva, Obruč. When this operation ended, our unit was re-formed and reinforced by Volyn Czechs.”

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    neznáme, 01.01.2000

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    duration: 01:02:53
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The heaviest fights were near Dukla and Liptovský Mikuláš. At Dukla there seemed to be white snowy mountains, but the battlefield, that was just a black soil.

Michal Malejko was born in 1922 in Sub-Carpathian Ruthenia, which was back then a part of the first Czechoslovak Republic. After the Vienna Award in 1938 and the subsequent break- up of Czechoslovakia, the Sub-Carpathian Ruthenia was taken by Hungary. From this reason many citizens chose to immigrate to the Soviet Union. In 1940 Michal Malejko happened to find himself in such a group of people as well. However, after the immigration he was arrested and sent to forced labor in a Siberian camp. In 1943 he enlisted into the forming 1st Czechoslovak Army Corps in USSR. He was released from the camp and underwent a military training in Buzuluk. Later on he took part in liberating fights with the so-called Svoboda´s Army from the city of Kiev to Prague.    

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