Warrant Officer Josef Vazač

“It looked different in Volynia after the war. It was not the same any more. Stalin didn't want to let the Czechs from Volynia. He siad: 'If they don't like it there I'll take them to the Caucasus then.' But we kept saying to ourselves: 'We will cut your Caucasus out, we want home!' But when we were saying good bye to Svoboda in 1945 he said to us: 'Don't worry, guys, we will get you here.' The Soviets played a dirty trick on us, you see. They said that who doesn't come back to Volynia after the war they would send his family to Siberia.”

“Such groups were formed and they called themselves Bandera group (Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists). They came and said: 'You give us this and that, this much and that much.' We had to give them what they wanted. But the Germans were not allowed to know about it. Then the Germans came and took from us and the Bandera group were not allowed to know about it. And the Czechs were giving all the time.”

“I was wounded in Poland. A bullet came and you didn't even know where from. The commander and I stood face to face and I was with my arms akimbo. The first bullet flew between my body and my arm. It didn't hit me. I only heard it swishing. In a while my hip was hit. I even didn't notice that, I only felt something damp warming me in my shoe all of a sudden. There were blood footprints in the dust. I took the shoe off and it was full of blood. It was only a centimetre from my kidney. However, it was not a bad wound, I was not ill with it too long either. I spent just a couple of days in the dressing station.”

“The Germans destroyed the river banks. When you looked down it was some height! The way was very narrow. The tank went just barely through. However, it never happened that a tank fell down. You simply had to drive slowly. The drivers took their doors out so that they were ready to jump out in case it skidded. I also went at the back and very slowly.”