Evžen Vondráček

“So we arrived in Říčany, which is only a stone throw away from Prague, and stopped there. I remember that there was this manor in Říčany. Next to this manor stood a Russian general and as we were approaching the manor, he was separating the Russian and the Czech units by showing to the right or to the left. The Russians were going to the left to a gigantic field where the Russian divisions and battalions were assembling and the Czechs had their place on the left side. There we stayed for three or four days. But on the very same night we arrived there, I think it was on May 4 or 5, Prague was calling out for help via radio. I remember that the farmer’s wife came to us and said: “You’re resting here while Prague is calling for help.” But what were we supposed to tell her? We couldn’t say anything. We had to wait for the order. But the order only came on May 9 at about 10.00 a.m. We were ordered to get on the trucks and armored vehicles and march to Prague. Prague is in fact right behind Říčany so it was only a very short march. We arrived in Prague and marched through Vinohrady, Wenceslas Square, the National Avenue all the way to Charles Bridge and the Old Town Square. We ended up in Valentinská Street. We were the very first Czechoslovak soldiers to come to Prague. There had been no one before us. We received a warm welcome from the people of Prague.”

“Before we moved ahead they shelled the enemy positions with artillery fire. They had missile launchers, large guns and mortars. You can’t imagine the droning the artillery fire produced. It was overwhelming. I don’t even know how long it lasted. After the artillery fire died away, we set out in the direction of the enemy… I tell you we must have walked over twenty kilometers and there was not one soul there – it was dead man’s land, literally. We came as far as Kobylany. Not far away from Kobylany was the village of Wrocanka. Our advance came to a halt there again and the Russian cavalry had the task of braking through the enemy resistance. Apparently, they weren’t successful so the Russians had to come in with their rocket launchers, the “Katchuschas”. It was the first time for me to see them in action close up. I was in a trench and they rolled in behind our trench at dawn. The officers told us to lie down and they fired over our heads at the German trenches and fortifications. The Germans were hidden in a forest – it was fir trees some 30, 40 centimeters thick. After the shelling, all that was left was smoldering tree stumps. They literally grounded the place. One day, American bombers flew in from Italy or somewhere. They arrived in the morning and bombed the enemy positions. So the Russians were shelling them, the Americans were bombing them, it was hell. I remember that there was one German fighter plane – a Messerschmitt – attacking the American bombers. The Americans, however, shot him down and I remember how he was falling from the sky, leaving a smoke screen behind. That was the first and the last time I saw the bombardment of the German positions in front of us. The Americans must have done a great job because we were completely free to move forward again.”

“The first operation was nearby Machurka. It had gotten a bit messed up and we got out in the front although originally we were supposed to be in the second wave. The first brigade was supposed to be in the front and we should have been behind. However, somehow, we got in front of the first brigade. Nobody was able to imagine how it was directed that night because we just ran into each other. For instance, we were from the same village but he served in the first brigade, while I served in the third. That was the first time we saw each other. It was a mess. In this respect the army was a mess, this wasn’t right. Because we approached the German trenches up to a 100 or maybe 200 meters and the whole area was under friendly fire – our own fire. It was hell on earth! They were shelling it from four-cylinder mortars. When somebody stood up, he was gone immediately. What it took to survive this carnage was to lie low. Ideally, you’d have a dugout. I dug my dugout right at dawn, when we arrived. The soil was rocky there so you couldn’t dig really deep. So I dug a shallow dugout which offered me at least some protection while l lay low. So when the shelling started I was already lying in my dugout. I was lying to the right side and some 200 meters separated me from the Russians. The area between us was completely empty and deserted. I could see one Russian heavy-machine-gun outpost. I saw the Russian gunner sitting in his outpost. After they had initiated the shelling, it didn’t take long for half of our company to be gone. These were terrible moments. If somebody panicked and stood up or tried to run away, he was blasted away instantly. You had to remain calm and stay in your sheltered position. I stayed in my dugout. As I was lying there, grenades were exploding a few meters next to my dugout. One hit the ground some 30 centimeters in front of my head. Another one fell about a meter to my side and a third one right behind me. But my dugout wasn’t hit and I went unharmed.”

“After the liberation of Prešov we got stuck between Levoča and Poprad in some little village. I don’t remember today what it was called anymore. We were only four men there and they accommodated us in a tiny house in the village. We slept in the kitchen on a pile of hay. They had one more little room. This family had two kids. He was a Ruthene. I guess it was on the second day of our stay there, when three Russian soldiers entered the house. One of them was an officer but I don’t know what rank the others were. They might have been majors. They came and they had a list of these Ruthenians that lived in eastern Slovakia. They came to talk this Ruthene into moving to Russia. We just sat there and listened to this conversation. They were trying to persuade him to leave Carpathian Ruthenia and move to Russia. They were luring him by promising huge tracts of land to him. They told him he’d have a better life there, a better farmstead then in the Carpathians etc. At one point he asked whether they’d give him 40 hectares of land right then. I remember this as if it were today and he’d be sitting in front of me. The officer told him “of course, of course, we’ll give you as much as you want, as many hectares as you’ll need. So they talked for a little while and then they left and said they’d come in two days. I don’t know how it turned out because we left the next day. But when the Russians left, the Ruthene asked us what we thought about it. I told him that they’d give him nothing, that there’s only the Kolkhoz and that he’d have to work in a Kolkhoz like a slave. He said: “But did you hear what they said?” I told him that it’s solely his own business and that he has to make this decision but that I wouldn’t go there. I don’t know how he made up his mind back then. I’ve never gone there again and I’ve never heard about him again. But when the agricultural collectivization began even in Slovakia in the fifties, I often thought about that Ruthene. How did he decide back then? If you consider, that this was propaganda from the Russians, and that it was happening already at such an early time. They were luring Russians and Ruthenes from Bulgaria and Slovakia. They were transferring them to the Ukraine. They must have had some lists of these people. They were transferring these Ruthenian citizens back to Russia because the human losses there were tremendous there.”