Karel Zmija

* 1926

  • "We were using different kinds of the landscapes. Sometimes it was even funny, like for an example at the Saint Omer airport when the tank in front of us all of a sudden disappeared. Because the whole airport suffered the air attack and the bomb holes were as wide as six meters. The holes were filled up with water with the ice on top. And our tank ran right on it and sank in completely. The crew jumped out quickly otherwise they would have drowned."

  • "I have been called up in March 30th 1944. We have had tons of snow so my neighbor farmer named Hrudsky took me on his sleigh to Trinec town. (And have you been forced or did you go voluntarily?) No way voluntarily...When somebody asked us later: why did you go to the German army? We didn’t go; we were called up upon the order! And if we wouldn’t have come, we would go to jail or to the concentration camp. It is hard to prove it somehow today, because most of the people who were there and could verify what it was like there died already."

  • "Germans were using lots of mines. They sneaked inside of the buildings during nights before we did, so they knew it all there. Someone just grabbed the door knob and flew in the air. Or if somebody touched the gate at the fence, he flew right in the air. Everything was mined. You wanted to sit down on the chair and it exploded. These ´mouse traps´ were just all over. We coudn´t be sure of anything, we couldn´t trust anything or touch anything."

  • "We were climbing up the hill and just as we reached the plain they started to fire at us from the machine guns. It was such heavy rain of bullets that the leaves were falling off the trees like in November. At the same time I have performed the longest jump in my entire life. I’m sure it would be the Olympic Games record if they could have measure it. But we have no thoughts for that. After a while when everything was quiet, there was only five men out of 120 left there. I don’t know what happened to the others. How many ran away and how many died there, I don’t know."

  • „ Work manually or to be a soldier that’s a big different. I worked few 24 hour shifts. Three shifts by eight hours. I spent two hours on the way to work and another two hours to get back again. Then I worked for twenty four hours. I have done this about three times so I know it´s bearable but it’s nothing like being a soldier and serve the army."

  • "Sometimes they would treat the captives just terribly. I remember once, we were on the cattle-box wagons. Not even a bunch of hay was there. We were squashed there we could hardly breath or move. And we were going all the way to Marseille, which was a three day trip. The wagons were locked the windows behind the bars with the cattle wire over it. They wouldn’t even let us use the bathroom. They only gave us this box...You can imagine what did it look like after three days."

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    ???, 05.11.2005

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    nahrávka pořízena v rámci projektu Stories of 20th Century
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I would like everyone to realize that some people, a lot of them in fact, died during the war A better life was ahead of them but they chose to fight for their belief instead It was a rough time for all of us who lived through it

Mr. Karel Zmija was born on January 11th 1926 in Guty village in Tesin (Teschen) region. His father married his brother’s wife - his brother died during the WW I - who had already three children. After seven years of this marriage another child arrived, Mr. Karel Zmija. He attended both Czech and Polish schools and in 1939 was accepted to polish gymnasium in Tsechen. Due to the fact, that his parents accepted Silesian nationality and have been listed in so-called Volkslists (Signing the Volkslist made the average Pole who signed up, give up his Polish nationality and was considered as a proof of his self-perception to be German and had the desire to become German in the National Socialist mould), Mr. Zmija had to enter the German army on March 30th 1944 when he was only 18 years old. He served on the Atlantic coast not far from Bordeaux and participated on the Normandy defense battles on June 6th 1944. Particularly he remembers the seven day struggle of his five men German troop, who found themselves in the middle of the enemy’s command center and tried to fight through them back on the front. However Mr. Zmija took an advantage of the situation and deserted the American side. He spent a short time of the war as a war prisoner. He remembers the forced labor under the French supervision as well as the cattle box transportation with no sanitation as well as hunger. Later on he managed to enter the Czechoslovakian army and on November 4th 1944 he arrived to Great Britain. After short military training he was sent to Dunkerque and fought among the tank units. Then he stayed in France until the end of the war. Shortly after the war was over he returned back home. He left the army for good and worked in metalwork factory.