“I ask the Czech nation to remember our soldiers and also Russian and American ones having fought honestly for freedom and truth. I ask the people not to believe those crooks who want to destabilize our Republic. I am happy that we have gained freedom, that our people are safe. The main thing is that the terrorist don’t attack us. Pray for it and ask Jesus Christ to prevent it. Amen.”
"Ivan Picura was born on 30 April 1923 in a town called Rachov, at the most eastern tip of that time Czechoslovakia. He had seven siblings, four sisters and three brothers. The family was very poor. He had to work regularly since he was ten to be able to stay at school. Consequently, he rafted logs for paper production. He spent the earned money on school things. His father, the breadwinner, was a farmer, his mother was a housewife. Ivan trained to be a confectioner at the company Purma at the master Jaroslav Glos from Bohemia. The Hungarian occupiers were cruelly suppressing any resistance, and introduced obligatory "voluntary" recruitment. Young Ivan nevertheless did not want to go to the front either obligatorily or "voluntarily". As a punishment, he had to go - together with his father, cousin and uncle - to the forest forced labour camp at Kobylecká Polana in the middle of the 1940. He managed to run away to the partisans. Because of his slim figure and innocent appearance that did not arouse suspicion, the partisans made him a messenger. He refused to enter the Red Army as he wanted to join the Czechoslovakian Army Corps. In Rymanów he joined the 8th battery of 5th artillery regiment where he fulfilled the function of both a cook and an operation of the gun (loader and fusilier). His unit continued from Rymanów to Dukla, Svidník, Stropkov, Levoča and Prešov to Liptovský Mikuláš where the artillery entrenched itself at the village of Jamník. After fierce fights at Mikuláš where these artillerymen helped the infantry to batter the German observation posts on factory chimneys, Ivan Picura got through Vrútky to Žilina. The end of war found Mr Picura in Olomouc. The soldiers at that time heard the call for help from Prague but had to stay where they were. After the war Ivan Picura took up the offer of the Ministry of Defence and joined the police corps. At that time he was arresting various collaborationists and thieves. Later, he moved to prison service. Progressively, he served in the prisons in Pankrác, Liberec, Ústí nad Labem and finally in Litoměřice where he guarded even the infamous commander of the Little Fortress in Terezín, Heinrich Jöckel. After the Bolshevistic coup in 1948 Ivan Picura found it hard to put up with the cries of the tortured whose echo spread all over the prison. In the end he had to leave the prison service because he did not want to join neither the Communistic Party, nor the National Secret Police. After training for electrician, he worked first as a radio and TV repairman, then at the transmitter on Buková hora. He has a daughter and two sons with his wife Vera, née Rampousková, who is originally from Volhynia."
