Michal Misla

“Let’s get back to the mobilization one more time. Could you tell us what it was like?” “Well, they came at about midnight and asked that landlord for his horses. They needed them to drag the carriages with the munitions and troops to the border. I told them that I’d go with the horses. I wasn’t full aged at that time so they assigned me to the carriage drivers. I was carrying munitions and men to Stříbro and to Cheb.”

“Jaslo, Krosno, Velký Sacze, that’s the places where we fought. I was severely wounded at Bělsk. I still have splinters in my left feet. I have two splinters in my left feet. I got also hit in the head and both shoulders. So they took me to the hospital but the surgery was done in Přemyšl.”

“We had beautiful uniforms, caps and boots. We had it all. The Germans were shivering with cold and we were hot. We had lacing boots to carry in wet places. When it got frosty and freezing we were carrying so-called “válenky”. These are boots made of some sort of hairs. You put this on and the colder it gets the warmer your feet feel. It feels like having your feet in a stove.”

“When I saw the weapons all I thought of was revenge. They killed everyone, even children. So that’s why I joined the guerillas.”

“I remember that once I was sent on a survey trip. My task was to explore one house that was full of Germans. I removed the safety pin from a hand grenade, grabbed a machine gun with my other hand, opened the door and stepped in shouting ‘hands up’. They understood. They knew that if they had shot me the grenade would go off killing them. But as long as I was holding the safety lever I could go on standing there with the grenade in my hand for the rest of the day. But as soon as I threw it, it would turn in the air – once, twice, three times, four times, five times, six times – and then it exploded."

“How come you speak Hungarian so well?” “Well, I worked in Berehovo, that’s where I learned it. I worked like a dog there. I really worked my hands to the bone at that place. I was carrying water for the workers on the vineyards – I was carrying the water in buckets. I got beaten very often. I was very poorly paid there, I had almost no money at all. We had to walk 36 kilometers to work. Every Saturday we would walk home. At home, we washed and went to the church – it was compulsory. In the afternoon we got maize bread, potatoes and a bottle of oil for the bread. Then we had to walk back to work – those 36 kilometers again. And I stayed the next week there again.”

“In Touškov, I set out each day in the early morning to collect pomace for the brewery. In Lobzy, there is a steep hillside and I was going by this hillside, just a few steps away. I saw our people being shot there by the Germans. This was tearing my heart apart and I said to myself that I have to flee, that I can’t live here any longer.”