Second Lieutenant Miroslav Škrabal

“Rovno was relatively much inhabited with Jewish population. The Germans drove all the inhabitants into the so called ‘ghettos.’ Our town had about sixty-five, perhaps seventy thousand inhabitants, OK. Well, and perhaps twenty percent out of that, OK, they were Jews, you see. OK and they simply drove them, well, moved them to the ghettos. 'Course that everyone had to leave his or her home with, as we say, with a little bundle, OK, all they could carry themselves. And they had to leave all the rest where they originally lived. As far as I can remember, they changed the ghetto once more, OK. They found another place and moved them again and of course many people actually lost their lives. There was a street at our place, it was called the White Street. And then they actually put all the Jewish population to death there. I witnessed once on my way to work how they were destroying the ghetto. There was a German soldier who drove a completely naked girl in front of himself on the road. I have no idea how old she was, perhaps 15, 16, 17 years old, OK. Well and she of course when she ran in front of him and he followed her with a bayonet, OK, she held her hands on her genitals. Well, and he always poked her with his bayonet from behind, OK, and of course she always threw her arms up, OK. What did that end up like, I haven't got a clue. However I saw this with my own eyes.”

“I think, it's again my subjective opinion, that they so often wasted so many human lives in vain there at that time, totally in vain. After the assault that was at Nižný Komárnik, which was unsuccessful in a way, we actually had to come back. The headquarters reported that the Germans retreated. And I remember that because I was lucky, of course, that I was always among the commanders, OK. You actually got to know quite a lot there, OK. And a chief staff officer came and simply said that we actually had to follow upon the Germans' heels. OK, however, to follow upon someone's heels and upon someone's heels, there is a great difference. And he meant by that that we would immediately get into our tanks and off after them, OK. However, what was needed first was to clear the ways of mines. Because when the Germans retreated they placed mines in all the ways. Well, and we went through a ford there, we got behind the first villages and there was another ford there, OK. And a friend of mine and I said: ‘Let us not go in the first tank, OK, in that case let's get into the third one.’ OK, it was a good decision. Well, the first tank went simply through the ford across the river, and it of course crashed into an anti-tank mine, OK. Of course there were two casualties, two with serious injuries and a battalion commander, a Novotný. It only took his watch off his wrist and it took his cap, OK. And of course we got stuck in there until they cleared all the ways of mines.”

“And during the second wave of bombing it was about four o'clock in the afternoon... we actually lived just at the military property. And there was a street, it was a point and well, we lived there... all the archies shooting the planes... The Germans dropped, well the plane dropped a bomb and it fell right into our yard. Well, there were about ten dead bodies. In only those... we three as we lived next to each other. My aunt, we lived in the middle and my Granddad lived next door. I was the only one in our family who was directly injured, OK. Otherwise they were killed... it was my Granddad, a splinter hit his forehead. Then my aunt died – she was pregnant in the eighth month. She held a two-year-old child in her arms, OK, it was dead. My cousin, nineteen years old, was dead. And there were also two wives of the officers, OK, they were also dead. Well, virtually seven people by one hit. And it was on the first day of the war.”

“Well, I remember, I remember, there was an attempt of an important SS officer's life. And then what happened, it was the next day or so, I cycled to work and the workshop was still closed. I carried on through the town to the Orthodox church and there were gallows. There hanged five men on the gallows. And there was a poster in Ukrainian above them and there stood: ‘ V sehonji dni kly jadovitoj zmiji zniščeny.’ OK, it means that the poisonous teeth of a viper were destroyed on that day. OK, and they were Ukrainians, they probably took them from prison because there was quite a large prison at our place. I even heard one telling that one of them fell down, OK, and eventually they hanged him anyway.”