“When they bombed us, like for instance our railway station, Malinovka and the Malín station, at the time of bombing the girders and rails were flying through the air, they were carried by the blast to as far as Malinovka. And Malinovka is about two and a half kilometers away from the railway station, and the rails flew all the way there. So this was certainly not a nice thing.”
“When I was wounded, I served in the position of a signalman, or better to say a sniper, and the Germans have fired their heavy artillery from one whole unit on me. That means 12 rifle barrels, basically. So I was deafened. I was not injured, but my ears were deafened by the noise. I was then treated in Žitomir for that. So this was one such experience. And then, in the Czechoslovak army, it was work in the rear positions, because as a signalman of the corps staff I was in the rear, I kept back from the front line.”
“My name is Stanislav Vyskočil, I come from a Czech family, I am a Czech national, I was born originally in Ukraine, in the former USSR. I joined the army on December 23rd 1943. I served in the Soviet army as a member of the Soviet army. I went with the army from Žitomir, basically from Žitomir to the Polish territory to the town of Rovno. After being wounded on March 18th 1944 I was treated in a hospital in Žitomir, and after my recovery I joined the Czechoslovak unit.”
“No, there was no competition between us, only… It was mutual coordination, whether from the west or from the east. And mutually, we were informed, information regarding what was going on in the west or in the east was available by various means. So there was no controversy. Whether east or west – simply all the armies carried out their tasks as commanded or as agreed. So there was no opposition between us. “
“We had, or my father had, about 10 hectares of land, some cattle, horses, well, a family farm, you would call it. But our house was sold, the cattle and everything was taken to a kolchoz, and so on. So my father…he basically left the village, Puchov, and went to Vylča, and there he worked in forestry. So in this way our family was dispersed.”
“Well, the war….In the time of war, I was… what the war gave me…basically my service in the army consisted in performing the tasks I wanted to do, or in other tasks, which I did not want to do. Because by my original profession, I am a metal lathe operator, and I wanted to return to my lathe man trade. But as an army member I was mobilized, and I remained in the army and carried out tasks of military nature, because I had certain experience, certain experiences from the war, and so on, so I stayed in the army, and remained there till my retirement.”
Everybody feels fear, whether great or small When you are under fire, in that turmoil of combat, the fear comes out
Stanislav Vyskočil was born February 15th, 1924 in Ukrainian Puchov. His parents were originally farmers, but in the 1930s their farm and property was confiscated. On December 23rd 1943, he was drafted in the Red Army as a sniper, later he was wounded at Rovno. After his recovery he joined Svoboda´s Czechoslovak army, shortly served in the artillery, and later as a signalman. After 1945 he stayed in Czechoslovakia and till his retirement he was a member of the Czechoslovak Army.