Dobroslav Stehlík

* 1919

National minorities, Member of the 1st Czechoslovak Army Corps (General Svoboda's army), Volhynian Czechs
29. 8. 1944 - April 1945 - The Slovak National Uprising, 8. 9. – 1. 11. 1944 - The battle of the Dukla Pass
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    An encounter with Germans, 25th April, 1945

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    "And suddenly, there were some five hundred of our gun carriages, they called them tractors, and the artillery stood there as well. And now, in the middle of the night - Germans. They wanted to fight their way to Germany. Those were not front soldiers but the SS. And at night, the dark was terrible, it was the most terrible night in all that war. Now, at night, you didn't know who you were talking to, and out of sudden, from all directions, you hear: Germans, Germans, Germans! And they were an unit of about five hundred men, all of them the SS. And when they [our soldiers] managed to catch them and took them prisoners, they said they didn't want to fight us, they only wanted to get to Germany."

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    At Jaslo

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    "And by that Jaslo place, that's where the line was broken. And then we didn't stop, we went on to Liptovský Svatý Mikuláš. That's where the Germans resisted again, the fights were tough there, we fought for six weeks."

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    Mass grave of Zdolbunovo

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    "Chalk Mountain, that's how they called it, and they mined chalk on the Chalk Mountain and took it to the cement plant where they made it into cement. And under that Chalk Mountain, there were huge ditches that they had dug up with bulldozers and there were such pieces of woods, like, beams, put across, and a lorry went there, then they got off and had to undress entirely, those Jews, and the Germans, they had machine guns placed on tables around those ditches and when they got off, they had to go on those woods and there they shot them. It was a terrible sight, impossible to stand it, and I ran away from that Zdolbunovo place, it was horrible what they did to those people, to the Jews."

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    Chotiměř, 08.10.2004

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When peace came, out of joy, we kept firing our guns in the air until the sky turned red.

Dobroslav Stehlík was born on the 18th of October in 1919 in Mirotín in Volhynia. The region where grew up belonged to Poland at that time, in 1939, he witnessed the Soviet occupation and in 1941, the Nazi occupation. During the German rule, the witness was conscripted to forced labour but he managed to escape and he was in hiding for some time. Along with his six brothers, he joined the 1st Czechoslovak Army Corps in Rovno in 1944. After three months of army training in Sadagura in Romania, he joined the artillery and later, he fought at the Dukla Pass. After WWII, he acquired a smallholding that had belonged to expelled Germans

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Photos (1)
  • Vintage photograph of Zdolbunovo, birthplace of Dobroslav Karel Stehlík
    Vintage photograph of Zdolbunovo, birthplace of Dobroslav Karel Stehlík
    photo: web Volynaci.cz
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Links (10)

Snídali, zvedla se mlha a začala jatka

  • date:
    19.04.2015
  • medium type:
    Internet
  • medium name:
    iDnes
  • author:
    Mikuláš Kroupa

Krvavý Liptovský Mikuláš

  • date:
    31.03.2015
  • medium type:
    Internet
  • medium name:
    100 plus 1

Historické drama Volyňských Čechů

  • date:
    01.01.2015
  • medium type:
    Publication
  • medium name:
    Epocha
  • author:
    Karel Richter

Zbytečný masakr, nebo vrchol války? Boje na Dukle dál dělí Čechy

  • date:
    09.10.2014
  • medium type:
    Internet
  • medium name:
    iDnes
  • author:
    Jan Gazdík

Českoslovensští dělostřelci u Jasla

  • date:
    15.01.2010
  • medium type:
    Internet
  • medium name:
    Vojenský historický ústav
  • author:
    Ivo Pejčoch

Banderovci

  • date:
    01.01.2010
  • medium type:
    Television
  • medium name:
    Česká televize
  • author:
    Aleš Koudela

Zdolbunov

  • date:
    01.01.1970
  • medium type:
    Internet
  • medium name:
    The map of holocaust

Volyňští Češi na Podbořansku a Žatecku

  • date:
    01.01.1970
  • medium type:
    Publication
  • medium name:
    Česká akademie věd
  • author:
    Leoš Šatava

Zdolbunov, město na Ukrajině ve vzpomínkách české minority

  • date:
    01.01.1970
  • medium type:
    Publication
  • medium name:
    Otradovice
  • author:
    Miroslav Krušina

Holocaust in Rovno: The Massacre at Sosenki Forest, November 1941

  • date:
    01.01.1970
  • medium type:
    Publication
  • medium name:
    Northeastern University
  • author:
    Jeffrey Burds
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