Vlastislav Raichl

“At the beginning of June, we found ourselves in an internment camp near Moscow. I’d like to say that today, we know about the problems related to so-called gulags – but this was not a gulag. As I was able to judge later, we were living there in accordance with the international standards. Nobody forced us to go to work, although many of us, especially, the younger guys wanted to work because we were bored. We even received newspapers and there were notice-boards in Czech prepared for us – which, was not necessary because all of us who ended up there knew Russian. We spent some two weeks there and thus, I experienced the bombardment of Moscow.”

“When I was on the front, I realized how important a commander was in combat – even a commander of the lowest rank. The commander of heavy machine-guns was wounded during the battle of Sokolovo. Just to explain – the first company led by commander Jaroš, was in charge of Sokolovo and on the right side, two squads of heavy machine-guns were dispatched under my command as the deputy of the platoon commander. All of a sudden, I noticed that the heavy machine-gun stopped firing. I looked there and there was a solider running with the machine-gun. I stopped him and asked him what was going on. He replied, ´The commander is limping over there and we’re following him.´ At this moment, I realized how important a commander was. I ordered, ´Who is his deputy? Deputy, take command!´ The deputy returned to his position and assumed command and the machine-gun began firing again.”

“Women in the army – they were obviously a novelty for me, just like for the others; commanders and soldiers alike. In Buzuluk, there was a group of girls of my age. In order to do certain tasks, since there were not that many people in the battalion, they had to serve as nurses. Each company had two or three nurses, one of them was wounded at Sokolovo – she was the wife of general Kvapil. Pišlová by her maiden name and we already knew her from the internment camp near Moscow. I have to say that I – and many others – were surprised by what the women were able to withstand. This became evident, in the arduous march, when some of the girls could bear more than guys and some of them even helped to carry men’s rifles.”

“In relation to the Carpathian-Dukla operation, I want to mention one film which was recently shown on television – there was a comment that the Carpathian-Dukla operation was futile and that Stalin had deliberately positioned the Czechoslovak army corps, so badly that none of us would survive and be able to talk about what was going on in the Soviet Union – well, that’s total rubbish. Military operations are obviously not performed for the purpose of eliminating a unit, which they had to feed and equip before. The Carpathian-Dukla operation was launched following a plea from the London government and command which was headed by president Beneš.”