Ing., Lieutenant Colonel (ret.) Karel Kalista

“In the summer of 1968, my five-year-younger brother and I were spending out holidays at our grandma’s in Bezděkov near Klatovy. Suddenly, an UAZ drove up on to the village square, and a Soviet officer got out, spoke a while with the chairman of the local national committee, and then announced that the Soviet soldiers would take their water from the cowshed and that people shouldn’t go into the woods because the soldiers are camped there, and they practically don’t even know where they are. To avoid a disaster. My brother and I took no heed of that, and we set of mushroom picking. On our way back with our baskets full, we were suddenly surrounded by a group of raggedy soldiers. And they checked our baskets. They took us to the edge of the forest, where there was a heap of mushrooms about 2 by 2 by 1.5 to 2 metres high. They wanted us to sort the mushrooms into edible and inedible ones. When the soldiers saw which mushrooms we put on which pile, they joined in. And the whole heap disappeared very quickly. Then they cooked a soup out of the mushrooms, but they didn’t let us go until we ate at least a bowl of soup. We even let them give us an extra helping. When they saw nothing was wrong with us, they set at the soup themselves. It was obvious that what with their speedy deployment in Czechoslovakia, their supply chain was not working as it should and for at least a week they had to eat whatever they could get their hands on.”

“One time in winter I took a V3S [from the surveillance station on Mt Poledník - ed.] full of soldiers and crates of provisions. Suddenly we got stuck. The road wasn’t cleared properly, and our right wheel fell through into the ditch. I told the soldiers to get out. That wasn’t allowed, of course, to stop someone from fleeing to Germany, seeing that we were so close to the borders. Suddenly, I heard a rumbling as if an ironmonger’s was tumbling down the hill. An M113 armoured personnel carrier stopped at the border stone, some 80 metres away. A smiling African American watched us from the turret through binoculars. Then he called something into his microphone. The driver climbed out, took out some rope, tapped the hull with it and gesticulated that if I wanted to, he could pull me out. It would be easy for him. But I was afraid that if he hooked me up and pulled me, I wouldn’t be able to detach myself. It’s not possible when the rope’s taught. I gesticulated that I don’t need the help. Perhaps he would’ve helped me. He might’ve pulled me up on road, detached himself, and left. But he also could’ve towed me all the way to Munich, and that would’ve meant a boatload of trouble. We had to fell a few trees, wedge them under the wheels, and after several attempts we managed to back up on to the road.”