“We formed a division in Poland next to Krosno with the aim of supporting Svoboda’s army corps in Slovakia. The division consisted of English pilots, Fajtl’s men. They were 8 men in total plus there were some Slovaks who came to complement the unit. The objective of that division was to provide aerial support for Svoboda’s operations but at the time – it was at the turn of February and March and the weather was really bad – it was nearly impossible to fly in the Tatra Mountains. The Russian command therefore decided to transfer our division to Poland to the area of Krakow. The transfer lasted about five days and we were employed in the Ostrava-Opava operation that took place between Český Těšín and Opava. Our division was incorporated into the sixth army. They would set up a new airport near to Spišská Nová Ves. It had to be done quickly. The commander sent someone there to do it as quickly as possible. At that time, nobody knew yet, that the command would change its mind and would send the division via Poland to Český Těšín and Ostrava. Those who were there became famous including us.”
“I’m Colonel Pavol Vaněk, I was born on February 28, 1921, in Lakšárská Nová Ves in Záhorí. The village I was born in borders on Moravia, so we’re sort of a mix of Slovaks and Moravians. Our region was named after Moravia, I’m not sure whether it’s right or wrong. I went to elementary school and then to municipal school. After four years of studying at the municipal school I went to a business school in Bratislava. I graduated from that business school in 1937. We had a good class, all wonderful people and as the term of the graduation was approaching, we were looking for an occupation for the time after graduation. I was into aviation, it had always attracted me like a magnet. I studied economics and wanted to become a pilot. By the time Hitler had already annexed Austria and was getting ready to get Czechoslovakia. The Czechoslovak government realized that they had no air force to defend the country against the anticipated invasion. Therefore they came up with the idea to quickly train 1000 pilots who would constitute a force capable of standing up against the Germans. That’s how I signed up with the Czechoslovak army. I was a big aviation enthusiast and wanted to be a part of the defense of our country. All of my professors in Bratislava, and my schoolmates, they all greatly encouraged and supported me in my decision to become a Czechoslovak army pilot.”
“Then he pulled me up and put a map there. The one who was repairing the bicycle spoke Romanian and Polish. And the woman that I greeted was Hungarian, so she spoke Hungarian and Slovak. We were sitting at a table and that’s how we communicated: the officer was posing questions to the soldier and the soldier forwarded them to the woman. That’s how we talked. He put a map on the table and told me to explain to him where we were. I took a look at it and pin pointed our position with my finger. He looked at me and I confirmed. He told me that we can’t be in that position because the Germans were there. I told him: “That’s correct, the Germans are right next to us, we are encircled in a cauldron. He didn’t believe me so we spent the next two hours arguing about it. Eventually he believed me because he saw that I’m nervous because I have my people there. There was a young officer sitting there who asked me: ‘Verstehen Sie?’. I said: ‘Langsam, langsam…‘ or something like that. But that was a mistake. He started to speak German to me very quickly and I had no chance. I decided that I’d rather pretend to understand nothing of what he said because if I started to speak German again they would have kept me there. Then I somehow managed to explain it to him. We came to understand ourselves – they figured out that the Romanians were ahead of us and that our troops were behind the lines. It was a so-called ‘broad’ line with guards – it’s impossible to dig yourself in there. The woman let us stay over for the night and the officer wrote us a pass. There was no other way to get there. Without the pass, I’d have no chance because the place was full of soldiers. Without the pass, we’d get arrested immediately. Some one of the soldiers would arrest us and get a leave to Romania as a reward. So he sat down and started to write the pass in beautiful letters. Then he tore it to pieces and started it over again. I didn’t understand a word of what the Russian was saying. I could make myself understood a bit with the Romanian – he was helping it with his hands and feet and I got what he wanted to tell me. He started to write the second letter, he almost had it done. I understood his delicate situation, it was extremely dangerous to have a man sent into the first line. I could have been an agent.”
“I was following the footsteps and all of a sudden I heard a voice. I raised my head and noticed Germans ahead of me. They were marching in columns, I didn’t know how many they were but they were numerous. They were following the footsteps in the snow and the stupid German thought they had us. He saw a few footsteps and thought we were a whole regiment. I can still see him in front of me – he had a machine gun on his shoulder, stretched arm and he probably wanted to say something. Maybe he just wanted to tell the others that they are very close to the group they’re after. Then it all went very quickly. In situations like these – I mean sudden encounters with enemy units – there’s usually no time to issue regular orders. Your subordinates have to react very quickly and basically copy your actions. So I jumped to the right, the other man I was with jumped to the left. Meanwhile, some of the Germans shouted ‘Halt’. But all of this happened in just fractions of a second. Then the shooting began. We were faster and so we fired at least 70 rounds at them. This dispersed them and gave us time to get up and retreat about a 100 meters. It was a very complicated terrain – except for our beaten track there was dense woodland everywhere around. We were just two men but the German unit must have counted at least a hundred men. We were very brave but imprudent young boys. We retreated and hid behind some fallen trees. We were waiting for their reaction – what would they do? My guerilla fighters had no idea whatsoever what happened to us. We were taking cover behind the trees and expected them to attack us. Our position was more advantageous then theirs since they’d have to come forward while we could have remained in cover. It was getting late and dark and we could hear someone chopping wood. It was awkward as we hadn’t seen any lumbermen there before. The sound stopped after about half an hour. We still lay down and waited what would happen. They must have been scared – they probably thought that there’s a guerilla fighter behind every tree. They knew that they got a beating by two machine gunners and they were afraid it’s gonna be much worse if they confronted a huge unit which they believed we were a part of. S eventually we got up and carefully went back to the scene of the gun fight. When we got closer to the place, we heard someone screaming ‘hilfe’ and these strange wood-chopping sounds. We found out that they were chopping tree branches and carrying away the dead and wounded. That’s why we heard these sounds.”
“The Slovak nation was against the fascist and the Slovak clerical fascists and therefore the Slovaks were planning a national uprising against them. I was transferred to Žilina where I joined an illegal resistance group that was plotting the uprising. The uprising itself broke out on August 29, 1944, but thing had gotten into motion well before that date. Word was spreading and the Slovaks were getting ready to rise up. Things moved ahead in the garrisons of the Slovak army where soldiers were among the first to join. As there were already guerilla fighters on Slovak territory even before the uprising, soldiers were instructed to exercise operations against the partisans, but in fact they were exercising combat against the Germans. At a certain point it started to be untenable and Hitler probably got wind of the situation in Slovakia. Therefore he ordered the German army to intervene and crush the plotters. This then started the real uprising. So we fought and the fight lasted two whole months. Hitler gave his orders to armies advancing from Hungary, Dukla pass, Poland and from the Protectorate to quell the uprising in four days. He wanted to have the rebels killed in cold blood in just four days! All the other revolts against his rule up to that point had been eradicated very quickly and therefore he was convinced that an uprising in a country as small as Slovakia would be no different. He miscalculated badly, however. We fought tenaciously from one tree to the other, from one building to the next, and they had to deploy five divisions instead of the one division originally conceived. It took Hitler two months to subdue one little Slovakia. They had everything – tanks, guns, airplanes, artillery, mortars…”
Colonel Ing. Pavol Vaněk was born on February 28, 1921, in Lakšárská Nová Ves in Záhorí in Slovakia. He went to municipal school and later to a business school in Bratislava. In 1937 he joined the initiative “1000 aviators for the Republic”. He wanted to take part in the defense of Czechoslovakia. Then the Slovak state was formed and Vaněk was forced to attend a school for pilots in 1940 - 1941 although he disagreed with the new regime. He attempted to flee abroad onboard of a Russian plane in order to join the resistance movement against Nazism but his attempt failed. In August 1944 he became involved in the Slovak national uprising and became the leader of a guerilla platoon named “Kadeti”. This platoon was later joined to the platoon “Ivan Štěpanovič”. The main task of his platoon was to scout enemy territory. He got encircled four times but managed to escape each time. After the advent of the Red Army to Slovakia Pavol Vaněk went to Svoboda’s army with the intent to become a Czechoslovak pilot but as the war was drawing to a close, he stayed in the air force head quarters. After the war he studied an officer’s school and later, in the years 1946 - 1948 a military aviation academy in Hradec Králové. At the time he worked at the head quarters. From 1948 on he studied at the Military University and he concluded his studies at the Military and technical academy in Brno in 1953. After his studies, he was transferred to České Budějovice where he served as an air force captain, deputy chief of staff and chief of the operations and intelligence division. In České Budějovice, the task was to form air-force divisions. In 1958 Pavol Vaněk went to do his post grad studies at the Military Academy in Brno. He went into retirement in 1976. He presently lives in Bechyně and is the president of the local organization of the Czech freedom fighters and of the regional Czechoslovak legionary community. He wrote a book about his war-time destinies. He died on May 1, 2016, in Bechyně.
