“I went through basic training in the Red Army, but I wasn´t there for long. An order came one day from the county army office. There were two of us Czechs in our unit and they called us and ordered us to go to the army office the following day. There were also Poles besides Czechs. And from there we went to our army to Jefremov by Moscow. The Poles got off earlier, they joined the Polish army. There we were given a uniform and the training began.” “What was your attitude towards army at that time?” “I had positive attitude to army because I was young then, and I enjoyed having a uniform and a rifle. The training was really tough there but as we were young we could endure.” “What exactly were you taught?” “I was allocated to a signalling battalion as a telephonist. They taught me how to place a telephone cable on trees, on the ground, how to dig under a road, how to put wires under a railway track.
They also taught us how to dig trenches, how to hide oneself and all that stuff.”
“Were you aware of the possibility of being captured by Germans?” "They would never capture me. When I was injured I was lying there, a grenade ready in my hand, a loaded gun, and as soon as I had heard Germans coming, I would have only throw that grenade at them and then I´d have shot myself. They would have never got me alive. I saw that already when I was still at home, when Germans were transporting captured Russians - they were beating them, gave them nothing to eat. When somebody couldn´t go on, they just killed them and it was finished. My friend was a prisoner of war and he told me all about he had gone through. I would have never ever let them take me.”
“They told us that if we liberated Czechoslovakia, we could move there from Volhynia. That we would be given some land in Žatec region and that we wouldn´t have to pay “kontingent” (taxes paid in goods). That was true. But when we arrived in 1947, Žatec region was already occupied. After the war I spent some time home, in Volhynia. Then there was a mobilisation of Volhynian Czechs. Everyone who wanted was enlisted. We were taken to Czechoslovakia in railway cargo wagons. We arrived to the camp in Třemošná. There they told us: ´Go and find yourselves a house.´ It was difficult, one didn´t know the place, we didn´t have much money either to travel around. But then I found myself such a little house in borderland, woods all around, no electricity supply, but it was fine for me. I lived there for many years. I worked in JZD as a tractorist.”
“Could you describe a little the situation when you were wounded?” "I was wounded in a mine-thrower fire. It was in “Dolina smrti” (the Death Valley). We had dug a trench, me and a friend. When they opened fire we kept saying – they´ve missed, they´ve missed again… but then, when another shell started whizzing I knew that one was going to be mine. We jumped in the trench. He jumped first, me upon him. My friend came out of it unwounded but it started tearing my coat, my belt and trousers. Everything was torn and destroyed on me. I got it, in my belly. It happened in the morning. My buddy gave me first aid but then he had to go. He said: ´Try to save yourself, do what you can.´ I was lying there all morning, only at noon an officer found me and called a carriage. A soldier arrived with horses and took me across woods to an ambulance car. Those who were, as me, seriously injured, were taken before others. The rest had to wait. I was carried in an ambulance car at once and taken to hospital, where I was operated immediately.
“I did. When Germans took over Ukraine. There were two small towns nearby – Ostrog and Kunova. A lot of Jews lived there. They wore yellow stars. They were imprisoned in fenced barracks. A market used to take place on Thursdays, and the Germans always let them out so they could buy something. Except for that they were never let out. And all these people were then killed near our village. It was just over a wood. They were forced to go to a place by the wood and there they had to dig those enormous pits. We could here the shooting and we could even hear those people cry. The Jews were falling into those holes and then Germans covered them with only a little soil, and it was finished. It was horrible. When we went there later we could see those graves. In the other town they buried them behind the wall of the Jewish cemetery.” “Did you have friends or acquaintances among them?” “I knew some of them. I can remember them. They all died there. They were all murdered there.”
Vladimír Voráč was born on 12. November 1925 in a small village Jervanina in Volhynia, about 100 km from Lviv. His grandparents came from Moravia. His father, who fought in the WWI, had his health ruined and he died soon after his son returned after the WWII. His entire family worked in agriculture. He didn´t go to school due to lack of finance. As a small boy he used to tend cattle, later he worked in a “kolkhoz”, where he used to be a carter.
He was summoned to take basic military training in the Red Army, soon after that he joined the Czechoslovakian Army, where he went through signalling training. In the years 1944 – 1945 he was fighting for fourteen months on the east front in the 3. brigade as a signalman, he took part in the Dukla and Nižný Komárnik operations. He suffered major injury in a mine-thrower fire by “Dolina Smrti” . This severe injury required three operations. He did not come back to the frontline.
After the war Vladimír Voráč returned to Volhynia. In 1947 he took advantage of an invitation from the Czechoslovakian republic and came to live there. First he was sent to a camp in Třemošná by Pilsen. He settled down in borderland, later in Horní Bříza, where he worked in JZD as a tractorist. Later, because of his health condition, he took up a job in a factory.
Vladimír Voráč passed away on September, the 6th, 2013.
