Colonel Jaromír Foretník

"I left to Poland in 1939. It was shortly after my dismiss ion from the army. I went to Poland and it was a lucky coincidence that I came to Krakow and got into this runaway people’s center... Polish people gave us a house in Krakow town where we could live. And so when I got there, it was in May of 1939, there was already about 150 people, most of them soldiers I think. I have stayed in this house for about three weeks. The people there split in three groups then. The first group, those were the people who wanted to stay in Poland army, second group were the people who planned to go to Russia and the third group that headed for the west, you know? And that’s where I was. The west group. There were about fifty people in this group. So they drove us to north port called Gdynia. From here the polish people took us on some cruiser to France."

"I can tell you it wasn’t anything pleasant. Because the Germans knew how to fire in deed, you know? It was real disaster. When they started, you know. We were flying as high as five thousand meters, so the machine guns and other small weapons couldn’t reach us, but the artillery could. They called it ´Flak´, this Archie. Bang, bang, bang, bang always four times bang, bang, bang, bang. And that’s what did look like."

"I have experienced some weird and unexplainable adventure. In about a month I received a call from this French commander who said: You have to move to Algeria city and join the crew there. Another guy went there with me. I remember his name was Drbohlav. So they provided some canned food for the journey and we headed to Algeria city. When we got there I followed the instruction and presented myself to this commander. I could already speak some French, you know no perfect though, but I could understand so it was easier for us. So he grabbed the papers, read them and then he said: You are the foreign legionary! But this is a colonial regiment.´... They were all black in there you know? But this commander was French and all the officers there too. They all were very nice people though... He left for about fifteen minutes, he probably went to see the higher commander and when he got back he said: Well, our general said that once you’re here we’ll keep you. He called this sergeant and told us: Now, this man will take care of you and you can tell him if there’s anything you need.´"

"When the mobilization came in France, according to our contracts, we had to go back to France. I think it was our ambassador who was in charge of this. They took us to some camp there called Agde. That’s by the Mediterranean Sea, you know? In the south. You know? Agde. There was a huge camp with wooden houses. They told us this is where the Spanish refugees use to be, you know? So everybody gathered in Agde. It could be even 400 people there, you know? And that’s where the regiment was being transformed. They made first regiment; I was in the first too. The whole regiment went on the front and only then they built second regiment, you know? There was some captain named Bruha in this second regiment, who knew me. I don’t know, probably from the documentation or something... And he said to me: ´Look, you know all the consequences, you have a knowledge of all the information...´ And I said: ,Well, that’s right I do, you know I used to be a commander aide for a while when I served in Zlate Moravce border line troop. ´He replied: ´I need someone for the second regiment to establish the main statistics, you know? These kinds of things, right? And so he freed me from the first regiment so I didn’t luckily even make it to the front and we began to prepare the second regiment."