Miloslav Petráček

“Several of them (soldiers from the Slovak division of general Malár) remained, those who were scattered in the villages. There were not many of them, but their brought their tanks with them. We lost them quickly. Our first combat action was an attack on armoured train in Kysak – Obišovce, which was carrying about ten tanks. Then they sent s on a revenge party at us as a revenge for the killing of the officers from the express train. They surrounded us and were pushing us to the forests. The tanks could not ride through the forest, they remained on its border, and the Germans shot them to pieces. I also lost my stuff there. At that time I had my rifle, I received my machine-gun only later, and esteemed this rifle were highly, for it was the product of the Zbrojovka Brno factory. I was touching it, even petting it, I considered this rifle not only a weapon, but also a friend.”

“We were in Przemysl, we were returning to our barracks. We had great gear from the Englishmen, battledresses and coats from camel’s hair. Polish ladies were eager to get them, they wanted to buy them from us, those coats were warm and good-looking at the same time. But it was in winter, and we did not want to sell them. One evening my friend and I were returning from a pub to the barracks, and suddenly from one house, a Russian with a submachine gun stepped I front of us:´Davaj šiněl – give me the coat.´ I was stunned, I was not expecting it, but my friend did not hesitate, he grabbed the submachine gun from the Russian’s hands and smashed him on his head with it. I can still hear the tinkling sound the magazine made. The guy collapsed and remained lying there. We returned to the barracks with one extra non-registered submachine gun.”

“My father was arrested by the Gestapo on December 9th 1939; not even a month later, on January 3rd 1940 he was beaten to death during interrogation. My mom was summoned to the Gestapo office in Brno on Mozart street, she came in and there was an urn standing on the table: ´Here is your husband,´ they told her. She did not know anything at all, she carried food with her for him, and she returned home crying terribly. We were never told how my father died, but it’s obvious that they had beaten him to death.”

“It was in summer, on August 27th, the whole camp had unified tents. The tents were triangular, army tents of simple construction. There were wooden poles, insulation in the back and front, to protect it from water leakage in rain. We brought a lot of straw there, so that we could sleep on soft surface. If you lied down in the tent, you still had about half a metre of space around you legs, thus you did not get them wet, except for a very strong rain and wind. The tent cloth was lower above your head, and you stuffed your things, your rucksack in this space. We were not given any uniforms, or at least I was not issued anything. I brought my own warm clothing, a sweater and several sets of underwear, but I lost it all while we were riding on top of a tank. The tank got a blast it caught fire and I was far away, there was no time to run in and save my rucksack. I lost all my things, I was then in the same clothing for about two months, that was not pleasant at ll. I was trying to get some new underwear, I managed to get some, the winter was about to begin, and I needed some coat. When I asked the others, they were telling me: ´Take some from the Germans.´ But those assaults were not easy. There were many assaults, the Germans even put up signs ´Achtung! Bandengefahr´ there, and they were careful, they were sitting on their tanks with their weapons ready.”