Michal Rozman

* 1923

Veteran of WW2, eastern front, Prisoner of a Soviet concentration camp, Gulag, Emigrant, A 1938 – 1945 emigrant/refugee, Inhabitants of Subcarpathian Rus
8. 9. – 1. 11. 1944 - The battle of the Dukla Pass, 1944 - 1945 - The liberation of Czechoslovakia, 8. 3. 1943 - The battle of Sokolovo
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    How to get into a Gulag

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    duration: 00:34
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    “When I emigrated to the Soviet Union, they immediately caught me. They called me an intruder and a spy. Alright, I crossed the border to the Soviet Union. But how was I a spy? I was seventeen years old when I fled from the Hungarians. The legal age back then was 21.”

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    Michal Rozman's Gulag

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    duration: 00:44
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    “I was in a Stalin-style Gulag. A lot of people died there! You wouldn’t believe how many died there. I remember 1942. There were over five thousand inmates in the camp and in February, the inmates started to die of hunger. Barely two thousand, some eighteen hundred, stayed alive. That’s something terrible…”

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    Vojenská nemocnice v Praze, 29.06.2010

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    duration: 03:09:33
    media recorded in project Stories of 20th Century
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Fifty pieces of man buried

Young Rozman Michal before escape to the USSR
Young Rozman Michal before escape to the USSR
photo: sbírka POST BELLUM, archiv pamětníka
photo: sbírka POST BELLUM, archiv pamětníka
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Michal (Michail) Rozman was born on March 26, 1923, in a farmer’s family in Carpathian Ruthenia. At age seventeen, he ran away from the Hungarian occupation forces to the Soviet Union. He was intercepted by the Soviets and arrested as a spy. He was then sent to a Gulag. After 30 months in the Gulag, he was released and joined the Czechoslovak army corps in Buzuluk. He attended the Officer Cadet School in Novochopersk and first saw action at Sokolovo. He was severely wounded in the battle for the Dukla pass (he was shot in both thighs). After he recovered, he was a mobilization officer in Slovakia. After the war, he was an innkeeper in Kamenický Šenov. Later, he worked as a gatekeeper in Telč. He stayed in this job till his retirement.

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Photos (8)
  • Young Rozman Michal before escape to the USSR
    Young Rozman Michal before escape to the USSR
    photo: sbírka POST BELLUM, archiv pamětníka
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  • Michal Rozman during recording
    Michal Rozman during recording
    photo: sbírka POST BELLUM, autor Mikuláš Kroupa
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  • Retired Colonel Michael Rozman
    Retired Colonel Michael Rozman
    photo: sbírka POST BELLUM, archiv pamětníka
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  • Michael's Rozman wedding day
    Michael's Rozman wedding day
    photo: sbírka POST BELLUM, archiv pamětníka
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  • Michael Rozman middle-aged, on a visit to the USSR
    Michael Rozman middle-aged, on a visit to the USSR
    photo: sbírka POST BELLUM, archiv pamětníka
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  • Michael Rozman honored
    Michael Rozman honored
    photo: sbírka POST BELLUM, archiv pamětníka
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  • Michael Rozman with grand-grandchildren
    Michael Rozman with grand-grandchildren
  • Michal Rozman in 2010
    Michal Rozman in 2010
    photo: sbírka POST BELLUM, autor Mikuláš Kroupa
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