Private Miroslav Toman

“We were marching alongside the Russian army and the Germans were retreating all the way to Dukla in the Carpathian Mountains. That’s where they had dug themselves in. A sniper was sitting on the church and I was under the church. The third day I was still there, we found this ravine and we dug ourselves in that ravine. From our position we could see a house with Germans inside. It was evening already. It was slowly getting dark. We were waiting for the salt. Suddenly I saw something crawling up the river bank. I said to myself: “Oh oh!” I always had an axe with me. So I said: “If you are one and you want something I can’t give you, I’ll show you.” You were already prepared for this. And I came closer and realized it was a black sheep.”

“There were twenty-four lying there and only the two of us stayed in this room. Suddenly a rat came out of a hole in the wall. Shortly before they took off my plaster and crutches were already lying there as they were supposed to teach me to walk again. The other convalescent was wounded in such a way that he could walk. He grabbed one of the crutches lying by my bed and killed the rat with it. But somehow he threw the dead rat on my chest. This made me jump up and scream and my healing foot cracked. Till the morning it was swollen and I couldn’t sleep without morphine for two weeks. Then they put all of us Czechs together. There were two, four, seven Czechs. There they fed us with a lot of rice. I say that rice saved my life. The boys were smoking cigarettes and I gave them all of my cigarettes. They gave me for them what they could – some sweets and rice. I left them the bread. And I didn’t want the sugar. I told them I didn’t need the sweet stuff. But they said “just sweeten your life.” It was such a friendship. But as the saying goes: “Every man is good when you are in need.”

“It was from a mine. I took cover from enemy fire behind a tree but my leg stayed out of cover so it got hit when the mine went off. The sergeant lieutenant was nearby so he was the first one to come to me and he asked me: “what is it Mirek?” I replied that I don’t know but that I can’t move my leg. So he called a stretcher bearer, two guys came. One of them was a Jew. They put me on my rifle to carry me away but he said he can’t carry me. So I told him to get up. Then I called that sergeant to get somebody else because this guy can’t carry me. So he found someone else instead. It was a Jew as well, a certain Steiner, but we got along together well. I also had the machine gun on me. As we were traversing a creek I threw the machine gun to the other side and that’s when my wound burst open. So they got me to a doctor who stitched it up and put a bandage on it. I didn’t want to go to a hospital.”

“And to my father the wounded Germans in German. So my father was getting ready. I said: “You’re going nowhere, I’m already thrashed, so if that little bullet hits me, you’ll still have four children at home.” He broke out in tears. I said: “Stop the crying and be silent. Get the horses ready, I’m leaving.” So I left and I came to this German headquarters and a field hospital. Suddenly Soviet “katuše” (fighter planes – note by the translator) showed up. The grass was flying through the air. It somehow passed us and we got into a village. I was carrying four. Three jumped off and the fourth – poor fellow – crawled from the carriage and lay down in the rye. The rye was already greenish. So he lay down into the rye. I was planning to turn around the horse and to go home as we were already on the battlefront. I drove some 30 kilometers with the wounded and when I turned around and saw him lying there I was really touched by it. I turned to him but couldn’t lift him up as he was a big guy. Those three jumped off the carriage under the bank of the river Styer. They saw that they couldn’t help him. One was hit in his shoulder, left or right arm. So we loaded him on the cart and went to some village.”