“There were several air raids on Kolín. We heard bombs detonate in Zálabí, which was the industrial centre of Kolín. It had Tatra, and various other companies leading up to Sendražice. But we had some so-called strafers here twice. Those were fighter planes that flew down to destroy train engines. So they had a turning point here. They’d always came with an air raid because there’s the rail line to Prague out in the back, so they destroyed the engines there, so they couldn’t pull cargo, to limit [freight transport - ed.]. We also so a black pilot once, grinning in the cockpit, he even waved to us and we to him. We climbed up on to the roofs and watched them.”
“The AEC was actually devised by Gottwald’s son-in-law Čepička. He lived in Prague, on the corner by Powder Tower. So when we passed by, we’d salute him from the tram. When we were civilians again, in 1954, there was this Helsinki Movement, and they were told to dissolve the AEC, by order of the Helsinki Committee. [Editor’s note: The witness probably mistook the political thaw after Stalin’s death in 1953, which included the transformation of the AEC into an engineering corps that no longer served as a form of persecution, with the Helsinki Conference in 1975, which emphasised the need to protect human rights in countries of the Soviet bloc.] So the AEC came to an end in 1954.”
“There were drafts here, I guess everyone found out where they’d go. There were also parades of draftees, recruits. But in 1951 I got a draft card with summons to Most. I didn’t know what would happen. We came to the barracks, and there they told us we were AECers, that we were politically unreliable. The battalion was led by First Lieutenant Vršovský, who was a real bludgeoner.”
Miroslav Zlatohlávek was born on 8 August 1929 in Český Brod. His father Emanuel, a Czechoslovak legionary with service in Russia, was a very enterprising type; he owned a car repair shop, which the Communists nationalised in 1951. Miroslav attended elementary school and town school (lower and upper primary school) in Český Brod. As a boy, he experienced low-flying air raids on railway lines in the vicinity. Later, as a “politically unreliable person”, he was drafted into the Auxiliary Engineering Corps (AEC) for military service; he was stationed in a number of places: Most, Podbořany, Teplice, Bílina, and Karlovy Vary-Doubí. Upon returning to civilian life he found employment at a state farm, where he repaired tractors. He then worked as a bus driver at ČSAD Český Brod. He retired into pension in 1989. He also served as a board member of the local football club, and after 1989 he was active in PTP Kolín, a club for former members of the Auxiliary Engineering Corps (that is, for people persecuted by the Communist regime).
