Rostislav Čech

“My head was hit before Dukla, there were about twelve hundred casualties there, it was just awful. The Germans were on hill tops, they could see us well down there. We were at the hills, we went but there was no point in it. The mine was dropped, its splinters hit my head, a thirteen-millimeter-long splinter. It was before Dukla, we went through such a sparse wood and I heard the mine. It wobbles, it sounds different than a grenade flying directly. Not only me, everybody went to the ground and all of a sudden there was a bang and I didn't know anything. It fell somewhere next to me when I was on the ground. The little lion saved my life because the little lions on our soldier caps were quite thick. It split just on that spot, it hit my head. It embedded itself, of course I dropped into unconsciousness for I don't know how long, I was all covered with blood. Then I saw somebody wrapping me up. He came also from Volynia, my daddy's friend, so he treated me. He dressed my wounds and asked me if I could walk. I told him there were some splinters in my legs but I hoped I was able to walk. 'Go down the hill, there is the major collection down there.' It was such a kind of place where they took the casualties from. So I got there, our doctor stopped me. He was a Jew, he was scared more than we were. 'Where are you running to?' - 'I'm not running anywhere, I'm on my way to the field dressing. I was sent down there so I'm on my way.' There were still some grenades in my pockets, I took a grenade out and I went down. There was the dressing station there. There were perfect big American tents, quilts on the ground. So we sat down and I got a tetanus vaccination. It was my sister's friend, she fainted.”

“Under the Russians there was a ban on private ownership in Volynia. There was no chance of having a private workshop. They imposed such high taxes on us that we had to work so hard in order to be able to pay the taxes that they imposed on us. We worked in the hop growing, my dad was an older apprentice and I did all the odd jobs but I was paid for it. So we paid it all back. We had a little field from priests. There was a little pig with it so we had some food. My mum had her sisters in the village so we had some food supplies. It was getting worse because the Germans... We could only have bread from barley flour, there was no rye nor wheat. The Germans took it all and there were no rations, nothing. They sold nothing in the shop either.”

“I live in Kolešovice 158, I was born in Dubno – in the Soviet Union (West Ukraine) in 1925. My father was a blacksmith and a horseshoer. He had his own workshop. I have got three siblings altogether, there is my sister yet. One of my brothers already died, the other one is still alive. My sister lives in Sao Paulo, in Brazil now. My Mum was a housewife because we were four children so she had plenty to do with us. There were four workers employed in the workshop, she had to cook and such, you know. I attended primary school, I finished it. Then I went to an apprentice school. I got trained as a locksmith.”

“There were about seventeen to twenty thousand people in Dubno and more than three and a half thousand Jews out of that. In our street there were only two Czechs otherwise the rest were all Jews. They were traders, so many Jews. And I, before the Germans came, I used to go to train football as a pupil. They (the Germans – editorial note) simply dug up pits in the football pitch and they shot them there in front of us and we weren't allowed to leave. We had to be in the pitch, there was a fence around. I knew all the Jews, I used to go to school with some of them, with boys. Many of them ran away, many of them stayed there. Then they dug up deep holes, there was an airport at Dubno in the direction of Křemenec...”