Sergeant Vladimír Pajer

„They usually commissioned some horses and carts from the local population. They swapped my horses for some poor, bony horses, that no one wanted. We were in a convoy but were falling behind as those horses couldn’t go faster. I could encourage them to go faster as much as I could but they just wouldn’t. So we got on the very end of the convoy and then got left behind. We completely lost sight of the rest and got lost as the soldier accompanying me didn’t know exactly where we’re going. We came into a village so I got off the cart and went to ask somebody where we are. I knocked on many doors but no one would open – there either wasn’t anybody there or they were too scared to open the door. So I said: “where are you going?” And he replied: “to Panská dolina.” Well I knew where that was so we went to this Panenská dolina and I spent the next two weeks or so there, helping to supply the Soviet troops. The work was miscellaneous – on some day I would transport ammunition, the next day I would... Once I got so close to the front that I got totally frightened. I was driving some machine gun repair man and I was ordered to take some oat. There was a village just next to the battle lines –it was entirely deserted. I was putting the oat into bags when suddenly an air raid came. I had to hide the horses somewhere. I saw a barn and drove in with the cart. In the barn, I realized that there’s a Russian soldier looking through a tiny hole in the wall of the barn. I asked him what he’s doing. He said: “come over and take a look.” There were German soldiers, very close to us. They were drinking water. I was afraid: “Oh my god, I’m so close to the Germans.” Question: “And did they notice you?” „No! We were in the barn and were observing them through this little hole, they couldn’t see us. Then we continued our journey and the soldier told me: “You have to go straight here but go fast because you’re actually moving in between the battle lines.” There were Soviet troops to one side and German troops to the other side and I was passing right between them. I whipped the horses to go faster but they would just stand there right in the middle of the way. But I made it eventually.”

„We were already close to that company, I was carrying a wounded. The attack started but the fire was so dense – the rate of fire was incredible! It was as if it was raining, big rain drops falling to the ground. Well, I had the experience that it was better to be in the front then in the back, because that’s where most of the shelling goes. So we were approaching the company and my three guys who were carrying the wounded stayed somewhere behind. I wanted to catch up with the rest an make it to the front. But I didn’t make it anymore… That’s another thing I wanted to tell you. I was wounded another time. I got hit by a grenade splinter in the back. But I was lucky as it was winter and I was wearing an overcoat, a jacket and two thick pullovers. It didn’t even hurt that much but I felt the warm blood running down my back. So I stayed on the ground for a while and then I got up and felt that I was able to move so I crept in that shelter. There were the radio operators and my three guys with the wounded. So they bandaged me and I walked away on my own feet. That’s what I always wished – to either get killed right away or get wounded in such a way as to still be able to walk away on my own.”

„You know there were the drafts and I remember that once they took us on a train which then halted in Zdolbunov at the train station. The carriage was crowded, people were shoulder on shoulder, and as we were waiting there I fell asleep. Later there was an air raid and everybody got out of that train and sought some shelter. But I kept on sleeping, it didn’t wake me up, you know, that’s just the way I am, I can sleep pretty much under any circumstances. S everybody left except for this one guy who somehow lost one of his shoes and, as it was in the winter, he didn’t dare to run barefoot in the snow. So he was crawling on the ground and searching his lost shoe. He just kept repeating: “Jesus Maria, where’s my shoe?” Then he came across my foot and thought that’s his lost shoe. That’s when he woke me up. When I woke up I saw the inferno outside. There was lightning from the aircraft machine-gun fire. It was awe-inspiring. I was confused the first few moments after I woke up, I didn’t quite understand where I was and what was going on outside. Then I jumped out of the carriage and the cold and this very unusual awakening send shivers around my body.”

„I don’t lament the food. We were handed out food twice a day – always in the morning when it was still dark and then again in the evening after dark. Once I got hungry and I went to a place in the forest where I hid a can of meat. And in this trench where I was, there was a dropped mine! There was so much space and this mine has to go exactly where you don’t want it to go. I said to myself: “Look, what a luck you didn’t leave it there, it would be broken.” “But it was there. I took it and ate it. And in the trench I came to, there also fell a mine. What strange coincidences. It was winter, the machine-gunners had fire in the trench, a sort of an owen. So I sometimes brought a bit of glowing coal to warm up my hands. And sometimes I’d make a fire there. When someone came there (there would hardly ever come anybody) he would tell me: “What are you doing? They’ll see you.” I said: “I can see them too. There under this hill, there’s a lot of smoke from their fires.” How were we supposed to make it through the winter?”