Pavel Minář

"I am attacked every day during the excursions with questions about whether we should have defended ourselves. These are things that people will constantly wonder about. On the one hand, I can't say no, but I can't say yes either. I have to respect the historical development and that those who were responsible for defence, General Krejčí and others, clearly recommended something to the leadership of the country in the days of crisis. That something had to take place. Not that we approve the Munich Protocol, not at all. But it was based on a real situation where these people saw that although we had signed various allied issues, it was obvious that those parties were not going to carry them out. That means throwing over a million two hundred thousand troops under arms at that time, and it could have been more. You probably notice today - every program talks about general mobilization. But it didn't take place in 1938. General mobilization takes even old men like me, but back then it was up to forty years of age and specialists of the second reserve, that is, the readiness was high, the prerequisites were high. But there is international cooperation, which did not come. From what little information I have been able to record, it was very depressing. Nevertheless, the Republic ended, the fortifications moved to Germany, in our case, in Rokytnice, directly to the Reich."

"We used to go to peel potatoes, and the shift was under the kitchen supervisor. When the rations were finished, the butter was cut a certain way. A cube of butter was cut so that it was in cubes and given to individuals to spread on bread. In the afternoon and evening, it happened that the butter was not all consumed, but was already issued from the storage. So we put it in a military jacket, gave it to the shift men, they gave it to the company, and it got eaten there in the evening. If it was congealed fat, we made toasts, for example. One time, I happened to send it to the barracks via the shift sergeant. There was a battalion quartermaster at the gate at the time, and he caught the shift sergeant and asked who gave it to him. I then had to step out at the regimental roll call on Saturday. I was branded a saboteur who was damaging good socialist relations and even stealing because I sent the boys leftovers like onions, bread and lard, which otherwise would have been piled in plastic containers and taken to the pigs. So I got out there, the regimental commander thundered that the comrades shouldn't take an example from me, and assigned me to report to the commander, which was Lieutenant Colonel Chýla, if I remember correctly. I marched there and reported. He was an old, experienced man who looked at me and told me not to get caught next time."