Master Sergeant (ret.) Ivan Sidej
* 1926 †︎ unknown
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"It was my duty, when I was the liaison, to deliver the order in advance, to the staff. So, I either walked or I went to a driver, so he would take me somewhere to pass the order, and then came back. That was dangerous. I had to walk first and of course armed. I had an automatic rifle with binoculars."
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"When we were in Žiar in front of Liptovský Mikuláš, I was guarding there and the Germans counterattacked at night. They did it often and it was the most dangerous. I held the guard and I could see from the right side that they were firing. And towards us. Mortars began and machine gun fire... All of our boys were asleep. I said, 'Everything in arms and out! But better through a window, because there is heavy fire on our door! I opened the window and the boys jumped. As soon as I said that, a mine fell right in the door. Everything collapsed there. If the boys and I went there, it would hit us there. There were eight of us."
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Sidej Ivan
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We lost our freedom easily and fought for it back hard
Ivan Sidej was born on July 30, 1926 in the village Hrušovo in Subcarpathian Russia. His mother died when he was four years old. Then Ivan had other siblings from his father’s second marriage, and at the age of twelve he left home and went into service in the surrounding villages. He worked for farmers, blacksmiths, he logged lumber in the forest and finally on November 7, 1944 he enlisted in the 1st Czechoslovak Army Corps in the USSR. He completed training and after the Christmas holidays he was assigned in Stropkov, Slovakia, as a liaison to the Third Infantry Division of Prešov, the fourth strike battalion of the staff company, with which he participated in the fighting at Liptovský Mikuláš and moved through Czechoslovakia to Prague, where he was caught at the end of the war. He demobilized on November 28, 1945 in Kroměříž and then moved to Ústí nad Labem, where he worked in the North Bohemian fat plants and later in other jobs.