“The toughest thing in Prešov was when the old-hands took a rookie, two were holding him and the third one was punching him in the stomach, to the core. And they were shouting at him if he would sign or not because the biggest disgrace or the biggest military sin was when a rookie or someone else said they would want to stay in the army or in other words signed it. The person would immediately destroy himself. It was a test of persistence when two were holding him and the third one was punching him in the stomach and asking: ‘Will you sign?!’ It depended on the endurance of the rookie how many punches he could take (and say) he would not sign. On the other hand, the old-hands appreciated when the rookie would bear several punches in the core and said: ’I will not sign!’ They quite appreciated it. I experienced that; it was tough. - “You mean, you they punched you as well?” –"I got punched.” - “How many?” - “Maybe three or four.” - “You mean big punches?” - “Those were real punches. But you knew you would get one, so you could at least strengthen your core. The worst thing was when they hit you unexpectedly. When two of them seized you, you knew what would happen. So yeah, it was happening. I did not sign it; I am proud of myself.”
“And did the trench monkeys know what was going on there?” - “There was no one who would report it. It was the second biggest sin in the army. A person who had once reported and complained about the old-hands did not have it easy as a rookie in the whole country. Some laws of old-hand military service were in force in every unit of the Eastern Military District. Whenever you were transferred, if you came in with a snitch label, you did not stand a chance. You were a rookie until the end of your military service, you were never promoted to an old-hand. You were a rookie with a shaved head until the end of your military service. Everyone ignored you; no one would talk to you.” - “Did they let each other know among the units?” - “The reason for transfer would always come to light. The person transferred with a snitch label or the one who complained about old-hands - that was it, it was done, it was horrible.”
“I became a victim of an unsuccessful weekend. As I have already mentioned, I started my military service as a married man. My wife came to visit me in the famous Prešov, she spent all night on a fast train, she arrived on Friday evening, and we saw each other for an hour in the visiting room. And since our company commander decided that our training results were not what he imagined, I did not get to go out again until Sunday after lunch. So, my wife who came across the country to see me spent an hour with me in the visiting room on Friday evening, then three hours on Sunday afternoon walking around Prešov. That is how humane it was to serve in the socialist army. If this happened, heaven forbid, to a contemporary prisoner, they would feel they were not visited enough, they do not write and call home enough and the warden would probably end up imprisoned himself. However, the violation of the rules was quite common during the service in the Warsaw Army. An unwritten (violation of the rules) happened almost daily and you had nowhere to complain, you had nowhere to complain. For example, my grandma died when I was in the boot camp. The boot camp lasted one month, and it was basically impossible to leave the boot camp to attend a funeral, it was out of the question. You are now in the most important phase of your training in the People's Democratic Army. We did not leave the barracks for a month; we were not even allowed to go to the military canteen during the first month. Chocolate was the most wanted product, not even beer but some sweets. We did not have any sweets for a month, I even had dreams about chocolate.”
“I still remember really horrible things when the same ratio of people had shifts in the kitchen, there were more old-hands and fewer rookies. The young soldiers, to keep up with everything, slept in the kitchen to some extent. They washed in the kitchen in the big, tiled baths where they washed the dirty dishes after the kitchen shift and were forced to take a shower there to get the kitchen in a passable hygienic condition by morning. I experienced that as well. As an NCO I was in charge of the kitchen shift, but I still had to clean and do auxiliary work in the kitchen as a young soldier. It got to the point when I went on holiday once. As a married man, I could divide it and I went home for five days. I had had a long series of kitchen shifts, I woke up at home, opened my eyes and jumped out of bed. And my wife asked me: 'What are you doing, where are you going?' I answered: 'To the kitchen, I am in charge of the kitchen.' That is how much it affected me and stayed with me. In a way, I can compare it to post-traumatic disorder. I have two types of stress nightmares; when I am not fine or do not feel good during the day, it affects the quality of my sleep and dreams. I have two common dreams. The first one is as follows: I am going to sit my secondary school leaving exam, but I know nothing which is crazy. The second stressing nightmare is about me being enlisted again and I am not able to explain that I had already done it. And when I am enlisted, I do not know if I am a rookie or an old-hand and which attitude I should have. Those are unique things. It is unbelievable but it still haunts me even after almost forty years.”
"He was an excellent glass cutter during the First Republic, he even had a factory in Železný Brod, but of course, thanks to Beneš decrees and the fact that he was German, it was confiscated from him in 1945 and he lost it. His name was Otto Schaub, I did not know any other grandfather on my mother's side, so he was my grandfather, as it were. He fought in Wehrmacht but in the rear units in France. He could not praise more the service in Wehrmacht - in Paris, horse betting. He used the first opportunity in 1945 and immediately deserted, so he had a great time in the war. Unlike my other relative, his name was Stingel, and he was from Blankenburg, which is also the eastern part of Germany. He fought at Stalingrad, and he had a first-hand experience of the war, so to say. He told us stories from Stalingrad. He survived really by a miracle because he was wounded, but he managed to get transported to the West in time, so he survived the war. He thought that the Eastern Front was crazy. He told me a little story that he was moving ahead in a forest and suddenly a Russian soldier appeared and was pointing a machine gun, a well-known Kalashnikov at him. He thought: ‘I am over, he will start shooting at me.‘ However, the Russian soldiers did not move, so what was happening? And the Russian soldier had frozen to death standing, so my dad encountered a frozen enemy. Even little things like that helped him survive the war, sometimes it is about luck.”
“The most common and popular word in the army was “a nuisance” so the soldiers naturally wanted the least nuisance possible, they wanted to have the most pleasant service possible. So, they forced rookies - or as those young soldiers were called to do the most unpleasant, disagreeable things. In a way, the young soldier would mentally accept it because he thought: 'I will survive a year and I will be the old-hand the following year and my service will be easier, it will not be such a nuisance. In a way, it was a natural progression of a soldier, at first, you did not understand it but later you adjusted to that mindset. However, our experience was hard to share. When you returned to civilian life and said something about the bullying, the civilian would look at you and say: ‘Why did you not revolt, why did you not beat those old-hands?’ But you could not do it, you found yourself in a completely unknown environment and knew nothing. You did not know any of those skills, the old-hands were a tight-knit bunch, and they could take a shot at you whenever they cornered you. I did not meet anyone who would oppose. A guy who had spent five years in prison started his military service in Strašice. He came there as a big boss. ‘I will put it here in order, I had been in prison for five years, I know how prison feels.’ Figuratively speaking, in four days he greeted the broom as the old-hands processed it. If they do not let you sleep for three days and you get beaten every four hours, you will think twice about asserting your pride and ego. Adjusting, breaking your personality was the order of the day.” - “Was the military service like prison or concentration camp?” - “Today´s prisons seem like kindergartens compared to the conditions in the Warsaw Pact barracks.”
Pavel Svárovský was born on 15 June 1961 in Jablonec nad Nisou. He lived in Tanvald in the Jizera Mountains since his childhood. His mum Annelies, née Leppeltová came from a German family and worked in Okula and Dioptra factories. His dad Oto Svárovský was from a mixed Czech-German family and worked in a foundry. Two of the uncles of his mother died as German soldiers in the Second World War, her other relative spent the war quite all right in France. Another relative fought at the Eastern Front near Stalingrad and he managed to survive the war. Pavel Svárovský had an almost idyllic childhood. He had his first negative experience in August 1968 when occupational units of the Soviet Army went through Tanvald in the direction of Prague. A grandma and her granddaughter burnt to death after the accident of a Soviet storage tank in neighbouring Desná on 21 August around noon. Stressed and panicked people in Tanvald were running away from the streets, jumping behind fences and lying down on the ground when the tanks and armoured personnel carriers were going through Tanvald. After elementary school, Pavel Svárovský went to study at grammar school, and he passed his secondary school leaving exam in 1980. He started to study at the Mechanical and Textile University in Liberec, and he got married and had a child during his first year. He interrupted his studies and went to work in the Totex factory, and he voluntarily applied for basic military service a year later. He was enlisted in 1983 in an NCO school in Prešov, Slovakia where he was trained as a radio officer. He was transferred to Slané six months later and in the Spring of 1984, he was transferred to a tank regiment in Strašice, West Bohemia, where he was a squad leader in a reconnaissance unit. During the first year, he as a young soldier, a so-called rookie experienced harsh bullying and humiliation from second-year soldiers, so-called old-hands. Their behaviour was often beyond criminal. The professional soldiers, the so-called trench monkeys, often tolerated bullying because it ensured order in their units. Pavel Svárovský considers the second year of military service a waste of time. During two years of military service, he took part in the military exercise “Štít” (Shield) of the Warsaw Pact Troops in 1984 and a winter exercise in Doupová during which the soldiers had to survive in tents and slept on Spartakiad camp beds at temperatures below minus 30 degrees. Although he was married and had a little son, he was allowed to visit home only eight times in two years. He returned to civilian life in the Spring of 1985. He worked as a foreman in the Seba textile factory and when the company went bankrupt, he had various mainly technical jobs. He was a widower in 2021 and had two children.
