Vladimír Fros

“We Czechoslovaks don’t have to feel ashamed because when we count how many Czechoslovaks went abroad to fight Fascism in proportion to the number of inhabitants, no other country can surpass us, at least as far as I know. Not the French, not the English and not at all the Americans. Czechoslovakia can be proud on its contribution of volunteers to the fight against Fascism.”

“My father got from someone this quartz radio set and put up an antenna. It was strictly forbidden of course but anyway we listened to the broadcast and heard that a group of Czechoslovaks is being organized, a group of those fleeing Czechoslovakia and many of them were fleeing through Volhynia. Some of the Volhynians, mostly those who were a bit older, were joining them on their flight to the Soviet Union. Some of these people then were moving on to the Middle East. So we had these news but it was extremely difficult to receive it, as it was frequently disturbed. Sometimes it didn’t work at all, sometimes it was just all sorts of insignificant news. But from this one broadcast we knew that Czechoslovaks are organizing themselves in the Soviet Union.”

“I sat on the look-out post. We had fixed our turns, up to six hours of watch, depending on the weather. Then the watch would change. I had binoculars to observe the entire battlefront. Even in the night we were observing the flashes. From this post we were virtually directing the fire of our battery.”

“We had these first-aid courses in school. They trained us for the defense of our country, it was a tremendous catchword – the defense of the nation. A lot of the teaching in the schools was devoted to these things. In the winter we had theory and in the summer we had various practical outdoor activities like rifle firing, marching, camping, physical exercises etc. The more select ones underwent more rigorous exercising, training with equipment and those less select weren’t required to participate, they weren’t accepted to the military preparation courses. It was a matter of choice. Who wanted to participate could do so provided he had the physical capacities. I was a good swimmer and exercised regularly. I passed all the physical checks well. I mastered the bar and the strength exercises. We had this big pond in my place so I was swimming regularly. I once even saved the life of a younger colleague of mine. He would have drowned if didn’t save him. His name was Lojzíček, right?”