František Mališka

“I was drafted on 1 October 1955. Before that, I didn’t know where I’d go; I just got the draft card. We met in Šumperk by the district military administration office. I showed them my draft card in Šumperk and they told me which train car to board. We left afterwards. The next morning, we stopped at the Volary station in the Prachatice District. The platform was full of sergeants and corporals, and they lined us up. Then we marched to the barracks. The gateway had a ‘Welcome’ sign on it. When we walked in and turned round, the sign read: ‘Got you!’. That’s how I joined the Border Guard.”

“The guy served his basic training with the next platoon. Then he crossed the line to Germany. He knew that a patrol walked there once every hour, had to check the upper strip, had to light a torch, and every second patrol had a dog with them. He followed a patrol towards the strip. Once the patrol with the dog had passed, he crossed the strip. He was walking some 150 metres behind the patrol. When they lit their torch, they couldn’t see him because he lay down. He knew that if he followed the patrol, the others would not go out. So, he followed the patrol until it stopped some hundred metres away from the barbed wire barrier. They met another patrol there. Of course, they smoked a cigarette and had a chat, and then walked to the next platoon barrack along the wires. When they were mid-way, someone fired an alarm flare at the platoon barrack. They went to check the wire barrier and saw that the electrical lines were shorted out. He shorted the lines out to shut the power off. He crossed to the other side, walked downhill towards the stream, over the bridge – and there was a German border guard station there. The Americans arrived in a moment and drove him away.”