Alena Nekolová

"Our father had hard times, he didn't finish the grammar school because after the war he was with other boys in the forest in Třebechovice. They found a bomb, a mine, and the boys thought of nothing better than to put it in a backpack and go back to Hradec with it. But as his friend was leaning against the wall on the train, the bomb exploded, his friend paid with his life, and my dad suffered severe burnw on a large part of his body. He spent nine months in the hospital, he had eyelids transplanted, skin transplanted on his forehead. And because he hadn't been an outstanding student even before, his parents transferred him to ceramics school, first in Karlovy Vary and then in Prague. But then he was arrested and didn't finish his studies."

"My grandpa was in the Prague regiment, because he was from Prague and he crossed over with the 28th regiment. He and my father used to tell me the story: that they crossed over to the Russian captivity accompanied by the sound of drums. From what I've read about it, I got the impression that that it happened that way, although it wasn't his regiment directly. My grandfather then described working in a factory and taking a complicated route to being enrolled into the legions. He was perhaps one of the first to sign up. I know that he told me about it, that they founded Sokol there, that they were doing exercise there while they travelled. My grandpa talked about it a lot. I know that he said, for example, how ordinary Russian people who were in the fields would keep white and red caps and scarves, and depending on who was passing by, they would put them on their heads. He said the Reds tried to execute him. Versions [of the story] vary - I've heard they were to hang him. The Whites cut him off. I know he wandered for three days through the taiga before he got to his own troops. He swam in Lake Baikal and traveled through the Panama Canal. These are just such fragments [of the story]."