Captain (ret.) Karel Volena

"They gave me the recovery tank and I was sent to Le Havre in France. The tank was landmines resistant, which means it has sort of a cylinder up front with iron chains on it. And when you got onto the landmine the whole thing would just jump like this and then got back down on the ground. This way I cleared the whole port. Then some French commander came to me: ´What is your nationality? ´ I told him I was Czech. And he replied: ´What are you doing here - the war is over.´ I looked at him with astonishment: ´What do you mean the war is over? It’s the end of the war? ´ I left all the work there, I’ve steel some jeep and went to Dunkirk. There was nobody there. I was asking for our people but they were already gone. They left me there. I refueled the jeep - it was ease to get a fuel there. Then I rushed to Nuremberg airport to catch up with my brigade."

"The soldiers serve the officers according to British military traditions. I was sitting at the table. We were sitting and waiting. Then Jan Masaryk came. We all rose. We shook hands and I heard him saying: ´How are you? ´ I replied in Czech: ´Okay dude.´ I have witnesses. If they were still alive they could confirm it. The commander’s face turned red and if he had a gun I would have gotten shot. And this Czech named Skalník (he was from Most town) said: ´Mr. Minister, don’t be angry with him, he’s not Czech he’s French. He only speaks Czech what he learnt in the army.´ He asked him again: ´What is he doing here? ´ He replied: ´His father is Czech and his mother is Italian. They are Czechs, but they lived in France. Therefore he doesn’t speak any other language than French.´ Me and Mr. Masaryk sat down then and talked in French. He wanted to know how I got there and what my planes for when the war is over are. I said to him: ´Only God knows what will happen after the war. I have never been to Czechoslovakia; only when I was two years old. I have no idea what is it like there..."

"I remember suffering the pneumonia when I was a child. We played soccer and then I drank cold water and got sick. I was rushed to the hospital, but the French sent me back home because we didn’t have money to pay the doctor. All our French neighbors got united in order to help us. One of the women was a wife of the mine superintendent. She went to see the doctor and complained about the situation. Finally they took me back to the hospital and her family paid all the expenses. After I came back home they used to bring me the medicine and everything. They also told me to drink the Champagne so I did. I was having a wonderful time. Our neighbors were great."

"Not much was going on in Sallaumines. The only event was when the Allies were bombing the town and one bomb hit the local church. Nobody was hurt, the church was destroyed though. And my father who was drunk didn’t go with us to the shelter, but went to this church and played the harmonium. The bomb exploded above his head and he didn’t even notice that. He was drunk and playing the harmonium."

"What we could do is unique worldwide. There were stacks of wood to build the shelter tunnels with. We were steeling this wood and built our own bunkers - all of us. Then we connected each others. The pile of wood that used to be there for five years was then gone within two years; there was no single stick left. All houses were connected through the garden. We built some sort of a room there where we could hide. Everyone was able to get in there."