Miroslav Kalabus

“We were on a march and stopped in Fulnek for the night. We saw the Henlein supporters putting up arches of triumph and flying Nazi flags and banners all over the place. They were getting ready for the advent of the Wehrmacht troops. Our men, especially the reserve officers, hated to see that and were tearing down the banners and decorations wherever they could. All of a sudden, the mayor of Fulnek came in a car to see our commander. He furiously complained about the behavior of our troops. He yelled at our commander and insisted that we stop disgracing the German nation. Our commander had enough of it. He shouted at him: ‘Halt, enough! If those banners aren’t gone within half an hour, we’ll take the town by force!’ You should have seen how this got them moving! The place was teeming with frantic activity. They had to tear down the arches, and remove all the decorations, banners, and flags. They threw the banners back inside the windows from which they had been hanging. So we stayed there overnight and we got up at five. Then we had breakfast, lined up, and left the town. Our platoon was the last one to leave the place, and before the last soldier was out of the town you could see the banners rolling out of the windows again.”

“When Vsetín was liberated by the Russians, the Russian troops came from Karlovice. The Germans were, of course, fleeing. In this situation, we captured five German soldiers in Jasenka. We disarmed them and led them to Vsetín. They were dispirited because they didn’t know what would happen to them. We handed them over to the Russians who were living in the grammar school in Vsetín. One of them, Michal Irgoš, took the German soldiers to the vaults of the school and the Russians allegedly shot them there.”

“When the big trouble with Hitler began shortly afterwards we (my group with the radio) had to leave the garrisons and move in with the yachters. I was sitting at a table when three elders came and started to chat with me. One of them told me his two sons were in the army. He said it wasn’t easy for him as he was afraid for their lives, but he’d rather have both of them dead than suffer this terrible disgrace of our country that Hitler had done. It was very touching and heartbreaking to hear that old man saying this. He’d sacrifice his only two sons, everything he had, just to stop Hitler from coming to Czechoslovakia.”