Antonín Klečka

“They sent us over La Manche, we went to Vesoulle. It was not far – about 50 to 60 kilometres – from Dunkerque. We were deployed on April 11th. I was a tanker - telegraph operator. But you could not use a tank there. They had three fortifications: a flat surface, a hill, another hill, a bigger one, and a third one. They were hidden there, and all the entry points were within their firing range. When a tank rode there, they knew they would get it. So we went there as infantrymen. There were streams and some canals under them. We jumped into them in order not to be seen in the water. But our artillery support failed us, especially the French. Instead of shooting beyond the hill, the smoke bomb fell in front of it. The enemy could see us, but we did not see him. They started fire, because they knew we wanted to attack them. Many of us died there. Not just us, but also the French. The French were bad fighters; they just ducked their heads and started shooting. And so our soldiers, or at least it was rumoured, were shot from behind. For if you launch an attack, you cannot end up with your own soldiers having their backs and legs shot through! We had to retreat. And obviously, when we came back, we were scolded and asked why we retreated? "We were expected to capture the place,” we answered.

“In our company we could take daily leave, and during that time I always took a walk through the town. I began to like one shop, I went there every time, where they had a radio. My advantage was that I could already speak a bit of French. I did not study it at home, but I had talent for French. Not so much for English. I always said: ´ Je suis Tchéque´ I am a Czech. ´Je ne suis pas Allemand.´ I am not a German. They turned the radio on for me, and I listened to the BBC broadcast in Czech. They trusted me. I was often allowed to buy whatever I needed in the shop. We were not poor, in the platoon we had enough food and everything. But the main thing was to be able to talk to somebody.”

“Then we did house searches. One day I went with one German. In the house they had a wardrobe, and as I was young, climbed on it and took a look. I saw a partisan hiding inside, because the wardrobe did not stand right by the wall. As I was leaving, I said to the partisan: ´Attention. Be careful, he is there!´ And to the German, I said: ´Gut, gut, let’s move on!´ They knew that I was a Czech, and they understood me. They knew that if the German had found out, we would have either arrested the guy, or he would have shot him. At that time it did not matter. On the other hand, otherwise the partisan would have given us a hell. So I was doing relatively well. If I had been somewhere alone and in the uniform, they might have possibly given me a threshing. They felt certain hatred against the Germans. But one cannot wonder…We went to another house. Often we did more damage than good. We went into a large barn, there was a layer of straw and there were bottles of wine hidden in there. We, silly blockheads, were taking the bottles one by one, looked at the year, and if we found a bottle younger than us, we threw it away. We only took year 1923. We opened the bottle, each of us took a sip and we threw it away.”

“We moved from one place to another. In 1944 we could already hear and see shooting. We gradually saw French flags being hanged out. Together with one Polish soldier we decided that we would escape. During one move, we ran away, we deserted our unit in the village and we hid in an attic of one barn. Not even the farmer knew that we were there. We hid there, but through the window we could see down on the street. It was in the afternoon. And in the morning we already saw many French flags hanging on the street. Ad we knew they were coming – people were welcoming the Americans. The following morning, after the second night, we came to this farmer and we surrendered everything to him – the gun, our hats, epaulettes, belts, we gave him everything and asked him to lead us to the local school where the Americans were and where they were gathering captives. He brought us there and we got our share, we got some beating, too. The French people, whom we passed, shouted at us and threw things at us. But the farmer who went with us defended us. If we had walked by ourselves, they would have possibly beaten us to death.”