Josef Pojman

* 1922

  • “As they wanted to merge those coops, I was more than forty years old, and I was told that I had no longer to attend military exercises, but then they called me that I had to go anyway. And I wasn't a young man anymore. I was in Bohosudov. I spent every Saturday and Sunday at home. And then, as there was this meeting and they wanted to merge the coops – there was this major at our battalion, he would always sign my leave, as we were on good terms – so I came to him and he told me that there's no way he would sign that. Why? Order from above. They wanted me to be away as they were voting on that. So they did it. I went to a cinema. And as I came back, this guy at the gatehouse told me: 'There's your permit, you can go home now.' So I came home after midnight and my wife said: 'It's all over, the merger was done.'

  • “Me and Tonda, we were planting wire. At this meadow near Dukla, where the 3rd Brigade went into assault, there were many casualties. And they were all black, as the sun was shining a lot. Well, we didn't mind, soldiers were used to these things. But as we came to Dukla, there was this wall. And we saw two children sitting on that wall. I thought: 'Why do they just keep sitting on that wall?' So we went closer and found out they were dead. Air pressure killed them, as there was this shell crater right next to them. The boy could be maybe seven years old, the girl was five, maybe even less. The boy had a mandolin, the girl was clutching her doll. That was quite ugly, you know.”

  • “Back in the forest, Ludvík Svoboda told us the Russians were in front of us, and if they would encounter a German unit, they would retreat and we would advance from the rear. But there was no one in front of us, we had no recon, and then we were just 500 meters away from them. So we took a licking for the first time. There were many wounded, many were killed. Even our commander was wounded – Krumpholtz, he was a Kike, but he was a good man. He got it in his shoulder, so we had to take him to a hospital, 8 kilometers, maybe more. It was in this estate surrounded by gardens. There were so many dead people... They were undressed and piled on top of each other. People said there was a house full of bodies piled on top of each other. It was just horrible.”

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    Oparno, 05.11.2004

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The boy had a mandolin, the girl was clutching her doll

Josef Pojman was born on July 24, 1922, in the village of Mirotín, Volhynia, in what was then Poland. He went to a Polish elementary school, then he attended a Czech one. He had been working at his family‘s homestead. During Nazi occupation, when the mass murder of their Jewish compatriots took place, his family offered shelter to some of them. In March 1944, Josef volunteered for the 1st Czechoslovak Independent Brigade. He had been trained as a radio operator and fought at Makhnovka and the Dukla Pass. After the war, he was stationed in Postoloprty and in the Žatec region. He left the army in January 1946. He used the opportunity and took over a farmstead, abandoned by the Germans in former Sudetenland. He found his new home in the village of Oparno, starting a family. He married Anna Pospíšilová, also of Czecho-Volhynian origin, and raised three children. Till 1952, Josef had been farming land on his own, after that, he had been forced to join the Agricultural Coop, serving as it‘s chairman for many years. He left the office after the thriving Oparno Agricultural Coop had been merged with the not-quite-as-successful Velemín Coop. He had been working in agriculture till his retirement in 1980. For his exploits during the Second World War, he was decorated the Polish cross of valour, the Czechoslovak Medal for Bravery before the Enemy, the Czechoslovak army distinguished service medal, the USSR Memorial Malplaquet with Shield, the Soviet Medal for the Victory over Germany in the Great Patriotic War 1941 – 1945, the Soviet Order of the Patriotic War, Second Class, and others. He had reached the rank of first lieutenant. In 2004, he had been living in Oparno.