“The room was dark. They were carrying something in the tent canvas. I thought they had shot some deer. When there was no meet, we’d shoot deer and you had plenty of meat. It didn’t occur to me at all that they didn’t go the kitchen to the left but to the room on the right. I walked in and saw Pepa lying there. He was shot in the shoulder but that wasn’t lethal – it was just about three centimeters below the skin. He was screaming terribly: ‘guys, help me, please, save me’. The worst was that after they called the ambulance, it couldn’t make it to Železná and they had to take him to the hospital on a sleigh. Pepa died on the way.”
“First of all, you had to trust each other. One for all and all for one. While patrolling, you were depending on your colleague. You had cases of runaway Germans from East Germany or of Poles. You never know what such a fugitive German or Pole would do. You have to form a good and well coordinated team with your partner. And you have to fight for each other. But the service was fine, that’s why I’m still interested in it.”
“In 1963, I was barely 17 years old. Around July 20, a draft notice was delivered to me and my parents weren’t home, they went on vacation. So I went to the military administration where I met some Major, I asked him what I was supposed to do and that I received a draft notice. He took that paper, looked at it and – to be decent – said that some woman had messed it up. But he added: ‘you know what, just take it and go to the army; it won’t do you any harm’. He gave me my paper back and left. So on the first of August, I took a train and went to Český Těšín.”
Petr Motejl intervened against an intruder only once. With his colleague, they detained an old German man who was in the forest picking up mushrooms and unintentionally crossed the border. He was detained but released by the border guard the same day at the Rozvadov border crossing.
“On December 20, 1964, at half past seven in the morning, the alarm bell was ringing as the border guards heard some shooting coming from the border. They called the observation outpost but no one responded. Therefore, they sent a group with dogs to check. They found Pepa Ulrich lying on the ground wounded. They also found the hatch hole in the barbed wire that was normally locked, open. The commander of the patrol, Ulrich, had the keys. Dobřichovský needed the keys to be able to escape to Germany. That was the reason for the fight and the shooting (two shots were fired) at the top of the observation tower. Dobřichovský threw Ulrich down the tower, which was some 12 meters high. He was badly broken from the fall but he was still alive when the patrol came.”
Petr Motejl was born in 1946. He originates in Planá nad Lužnicí, but when he was a kid, his family moved to the region of Děčín, where the witness still lives today. After his apprentice as a locksmith, he was prematurely drafted to military service in 1963 at the age of 16. He was assigned to the border guard and after a short training in Český Těšín and a short service in Domažlice and Rozvadov, hejoined the troop “Železná” (Iron). Here, he witnessed a tragic event. He swapped a shift with his friend Josef Ulrich, who was killed while patrolling by his fellow border guard Dobřichovský. Dobřichovský deserted and fled to Western Germany. After this event, the unit was split and Motejl finished his service in a troop in Jedlina na Tachovsku. After his service, he had a number of jobs (a waiter, railroad man), and finally ended up working as a bus driver in Děčín, where he stayed till his retirement in 2009. Petr Motejl died in 2022.
