“When I saw the multitude of foreign soldiers who were present, and all those presidents, and the Queen of England with her husband, and our president and his wife…I had tears in my eyes. I remembered our boys, whom we buried in 1940 at Seina, Marna, and Loira. And I remembered our pilots who died on the French soil and on the British soil. And our bomber planes crew, in the waves of the Atlantic. And I also remembered our boys from the eastern front, who did not have the chance to be there. And I took several of the boys from the east with me to France, so that they might see what it was like and how much respect they have for us there. And I thought why it was me who was the first to be decorated. And one thing occurred to me, perhaps it was the true reason. A thing came to my mind: perhaps it was because Czechoslovakia was the first country betrayed by France.”
“On Thursday I was fired, on Friday I made a round of all the three institutes and on Monday evening somebody came to my flat. I was not at home. I was told – I eventually heard a bell ringing – that somebody was ringing at my door. And on Tuesday morning at five thirty they arrested me. The court came to a conviction that if the accused Špaček had not been able to leave the country legally – for he had applied for an emigrant passport – he would have emigrated illegally like he did in 1939 and as a former military officer would have revealed matters and facts which were confidential, and thus would have been guilty of high treason. The facts of the case were not met, but the court reached the decision that if I had emigrated, I would have…And at that time I was already six months out of the army, so what secrets were there to leak? Nevertheless, the court did come to that conclusion, and there it was – ten years. And I went. I spent five and a half years in imprisonment, the last two of which I was employed in the Jáchymov mines. And when I was released, I decided to continue working in the mining industry, because I could not do anything else! After my graduation from secondary school, I went to the army, from the army to jail, and in jail I began working manually as a miner. I returned to the Jáchymov mines as a civilian and spent there – without two months – full eleven years. Meaning I have spent a total of twelve years and ten months by working in the mines in Jáchymov.”
“I was in Dunkerque on the western coast of the perimeter. Behind my defence position in the west section of that perimeter there was a pipeline for fuel, which was led from England through the Channel, and then about six or seven kilometers inland. By this pipeline – pipes 15 centimeters in diameter – the English and Americans supplied fuel all the way beyond the Rhein to Germany. And it was necessary to watch over this pipeline, to prevent the Germans from reaching it and destroying it. So this was one of my tasks there. Whenever I needed something, it was provided to me. So this was one thing. And I also functioned as an armaments and technical officer, taking care of weapons and ammunition, loading, this was my job in Dunkerque. We were not allowed to fire too much. When we discovered some German weapon, like antitank cannon, artillery or mortar battery, we reported it to staff, to the brigade staff, and they relayed the message to the English air force. Often we would have English fighter planes flying to us over the Channel, the Typhoon fighter planes, able to shoot rockets. Our artillery marked the target with colour shells, thus they knew its precise location, and the fighter planes then destroyed the target. We were not allowed to use cannons, because Dunkerque was the only port operable for transport.”
“Franta Brablík lured me to travel to Slovakia as a contact man. My task was money exchange. The guys who were fleeing from the Protectorate needed some money. But in Slovakia, the local banknotes have already been re-stamped. All the fifty-, hundred- and higher value banknotes now bore the Slovak State stamp .My task was to find somebody in Slovakia who would exchange the money for us. Thanks to another friend from the cadet academy, certain Pepík Čech, a Legiobanka employee from Olomouc, I got contacts for some people in Bratislava. I was depositing the money on Olomouc. In Olomouc I would be given a small paper note with a stamp and the amount written on it, I would hide it somewhere in the lining of my coat and go to Bratislava. There, in the Bratislava branch of Legiobanka, I would receive Slovak money in exchange for the money which had been deposited in the Protectorate. But not only the Slovak currency, but also Yugoslav dinars, French francs, Hungarian pengő, different foreign currencies. Legiobanka had its main office in Prague and all its branches in Slovakia were closed down, because as you know, Slovakia declared independence and formed their own Slovak State, and Bohemia and Moravia became occupied by Germans. I had been doing this till January 18th 1940, when our organization broke up when one of our air force members in air force academy in Prostějov got arrested. There was a danger that I might also be found, because I had been in touch with him. So I did not return to the Protectorate and instead escaped from Slovakia to Hungary.”
“To give you an idea what we went through there: wasted five and a half years of the war without any hope that we would get back alive. And then, three years after the war, when a bunch of blockheads turned us into traitors… When the Germans were murdering and destroying the elite of the nation during the war here, well, they were enemies, it was their plan to depopulate our territory; when Heydrich came to power, he summoned his officers to the Castle and told them about his plan with the Czech population: one third to be murdered, one third to be Germanized, and one third to be moved away. (criticism of communists follows – auth.) For one this is hard to bear, you know. When I lecture – I have delivered several speeches already – I always say: What Czech mother was capable of giving birth to those monsters, who chose such an abominable course? Against their own people…If it was Germans, it was during the war, and we knew it was in their manifesto, but our own people against us?”
“What Czech mother was capable of giving birth to those monsters, who chose such an abominable course? Against their own people… If it was Germans, it was during the war, and we knew it was in their manifesto, but our own people against us?”
Antonín Špaček was born on May 23rd, 1917 in the Haná region in the village of Hradčany in the district of Prostějov. Altogether he had 12 siblings; three of them served as legionaries in WWI and one of the brothers joined the Green Corps. (He did not have to take part in combat on the front). His brother Čeněk, a legionary from Russia, also inspired Antonin’s patriotism and desire to serve in the Army. In 1937, Antonín Špaček joined the Czechoslovak Army, and a year later, during the mobilization in September 1938, he commanded a machine-gunners platoon as a sergeant cadet in Horní Benešov (between the towns of Bruntál and Opava). After the occupation of the rest of the republic in March 1939 and the formation of the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, he decided to join the illegal resistance activities towards the end of 1939. His task was to exchange foreign currency and then pass the money to emigrants from the Protectorate and to future legionaries. He remained with the resistance group until January 18th, 1940 when one of the members was arrested, and Antonín Špaček decided to flee the country. He left for Hungary, where he reported to the French consulate in Budapest. Along with four other emigrants, he was made to report to General Heliodor Píka in Romania. However, the whole group was arrested in Chust in Carpathian Ruthenia and held in various prisons for 2 and half months. In Košice, Antonín Špaček managed to escape, and with the help of some Poles he got to Beograd in Yugoslavia via Hungary, and from Beograd then by the Balkan way to France. There he was assigned to the 10th infantry company of the 3rd battalion of the 1st Czechoslovak infantry regiment. In the town of Coulommiers, they fought to withhold the German advancement toward Paris. After the capitulation of France, Antonín Špaček got to Great Britain via the port of Séte in southern France. There, he was first assigned to sea guard (due to anticipating a possible German invasion to Britain); he later trained as a gunsmith, although he originally wanted to become a pilot. In 1943, he met Jean Wenda Thomas, whom he later married. Their son Milan was born before the end of the war. Antonín Špaček was assigned to the independent Czechoslovak armored brigade as armaments and technical officer. After the invasion of Normandy in 1944 he took part in encircling the Germans near the city of Dunkerque. After the end of the war and he returned to Czechoslovakia, where he served in the Castle Guard. During the war, he lost his brother, who was tortured to death in Mauthausen in 1942. His other brother, sister, and mother had also been imprisoned. After the war, he entered the Military Academy, but after the communist coup d´état he was dismissed from the academy and voluntarily left the Army. He planned to leave Czechoslovakia and go to Great Britain to his wife and son. He was, however, arrested and sentenced to 10 years of imprisonment, he spent 5 and a half years in prison. The court’s argument was that had he not been permitted to leave the country legally, he would have done so illegally like in 1939 and as an officer. He could have leaked confidential information to western intelligence services and thus committed the crime of high treason. The last two years of his imprisonment were spent in the Jáchymov mines, where he decided to continue working even after his release. He spent a total of 13 years working in the mines in Jáchymov. In 2001 and 2004 he served as the chairman of the Czechoslovak Association of Legionaries. In 2004, French President Jacques Chirac decorated him with the Order of the Legion of Honour, and in 2006, Czech President Václav Klaus awarded him the Order of the White Lion. He died April 3rd, 2007 at the age of 90.
