"Again, with Maria [Halámková] we walked twelve kilometres to Rovno. We checked in there and then we went. There was a whole wagonload of girls, we rode in a pig cart, as they used to say. There were a lot of us going, about thirty-five girls. That was about the sixteenth of May, I think, after the air raid. By the time we went there after that, it was a little later, before they prepared the whole train. There were boys and girls. We girls had one car. We went to Kamenec Podolski, where the third brigade was. And we were in the third brigade. I was like a radio operator."
"It was the first of May in the forty-fourth year. It was still a farewell party at school because the holidays were slowly beginning. It was the end of the school year. So we gathered there, the youngsters of ours. Whoever could, brought something, some sweets, tea. We sat and danced. And they said there was going to be an air raid. So my friend and I went home. Marie Halamkova, she was in the army too. I said to her: "Maši, come, you'll sleep with us. Because my sister was so afraid of air raids, she always ran to the village. She slept with us. When the air raids started, we crawled under the bed. We threw the blankets on top of each other. A blanket won't let a shrapnel in, you knew that, but if a bomb falls on your head, not even the Holy Archangel can help. At first we started counting. It was 12:30. We counted fifty bombs and then we couldn't count any more. All we could hear was the bottles falling in the chamber. Until 3:30, it was one and the same, all the time. Three hours, from 12:30 to 3:30."
"The most beautiful memories I have are of Vsetín, it was already spring. And I've been corresponding with the girls there ever since, to this day." - "And what was so nice about Vsetín?" - "There were nice people there. And there, if I'm honest, I had my first bath since I'd been away from home. The first time I had a bath and slept in white blankets. After that, I was worried that there might be some lice left behind. We slept on straw and everywhere, we didn't have beds. Let's be honest. The airmen, when they came off the flight, they'd go for a bath, they'd go to the bar and they had their dormitories. We had no place to sleep. We slept wherever we could, in barns and sheds."
Jiřina Bajborová, née Voženílková, was born on November 15, 1925 into a Czech family living in Zdolbunov in Volhynia. During her youth she experienced both the Soviet and German occupation of Volhynia, which strongly influenced her growing up. In October 1942, she witnessed a massacre in which the Nazis murdered several hundred Jews from Zdolbunov. She was lucky to survive the bombing of Zdolbunov on the night of April 30-May 1, 1944, when the town was hit hard by German retaliatory air raids. On June 15, 1944, she joined the Czechoslovak army in Rovno and after completing her training in Sadagura, Romania, she served as a radio operator in the 3rd Brigade. She was deployed to fight in the Carpatho-Dukla Operation, where she faced difficult combat conditions. In May 1945 she took part in the welcome of Edvard Beneš and the victory parade through Prague. In 1947, she helped with the repatriation of Volhynian Czechs in Košice, including her parents and sister. After her army service, during which she reached the rank of sergeant, she settled in Žatec, where she started a family. Jiřina Bajborová died on July 1, 2011.
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