Captain (ret.) Eduard Svobodinský

„The front rolled over Volhynia several times so regimes were changing repeatedly there. What was your impression of that?“ „I was very careful. Everybody warned us not to get involved in anything, because both sides were coming and leaving. We were loyal to anyone who came. We took no action against either of the sides.“ „Did you have any problems with the Germans or Russians?“ „ No, we didn´t, because we didn´t get involved into anything.“ „ How did you percieve the fashist menace?“ „As major one. It rolled at such great speed. Within a year they were standing by Moscow. That was tremendous danger.“

„I was sentenced. A district court in Přeštice withdrew the charges, but the prosecutor appealed against this ruling. A county court then sentenced me to seven months. So I served the sentence and as I left the jail here in Pilsen, two SNBs – policemen came to me and said: „Come with us.“ I said: Why? It´s over, I´m free!“ But no. I was taken to a SNB office, there a long list of charges was read to me, saying that I wanted to leave, so the Communist party can see that I belong aminong the hostile elements, and every such a person will be sentenced to a camp of forced labour. So I got a year in a forced labour camp. I didn´t get any pay for that year. Now they say that a forced labour camp wasn´t a prison. And I was in uranium mines in Příbram! What hard labour was that! And I got nothig for it. Now I have sent it to the Interiour Ministry. I don´t know if I will get anything or not.“

„Then I started a kind of conspiracy. I wanted to flee to the west, but it didn´t work out. I got together with a friend of mine. They didn´t catch me on the border, not at all. But that companion of mine had a bicycle and his girlfriend wanted that bicycle. He wanted to take her to the west too. But then he changed his mind, he said he couldn´t leave his mother behind, ill and lonely. ´So give me that bicycle, at least…´ ´But I want to sell it to get some money.´ His mother told it to her neighbour, that neighbour again to another neighbour and in a while police knew it. He was arrested in Bělá nad Radbuzou. They beat him. They called me up to a militia station, too. I arrived and looked at that beaten person, all covered in bruises. I couldn´t recognise him at first, only after a while. So I was saying to myself: ´This will be bad´. He said to me: ´You can see what they have done to me.´ So I had to decide quickly. Should I deny all, or give in? He denied and they kept beating him until he said yes, and also told them about me. So I simply said that we wanted to go. They just can´t do anything to me for that! This is not a crime! But it was enough for them that we wanted to leave. They wrote a record.”

„Many people were killed there. The main cause of this were mines. Every one, two meters one of the infanterists died. That´s why they then picked about fifty people who had to take an anti-mine course. We were given such iron poles and searched for mines and then slowly demounted them. I was terribly scared that the mines could explode. I was chosen for the training, hardly anyone would enter it voluntarily. A lot of people in the batallion lost their arms or legs. There were mines everywhere in Dukla.“