Ing. František Kolman

“At the beginning of December I joined the Wehrmacht. Of course you know how it was… mum, when her boy is off to war. I joined in Bayreuth, well and then later we were transferred to Ansbach, even further than Nuremberg. I undergone an infantryman training in three months and off to the front.”

“I also remember my mum sent me a package to the front in Ansbach and packed a Christmas cake in it. And before it could reach me, as I was out in the trenches, we came back totally frozen in the barrack and I got the package. I opened it and of course the cake was riddled with mould in and out. I offered it to my friends and nobody wanted any. And I thought, if no one wants it, I will have a bite. Not that I was so hungry, but I wished to get in a hospital possibly. I ate it with disgust and of course nothing wrong happened to me. On the contrary, the mould, and back then no one knew about it, contained penicillin cultures. So that was a just a little episode of mine.”