Lieutenant Colonel Eduard Zirnzák

* 1928  †︎ 2017

  • “All of a sudden they came and told us that the war was over and that those who wanted were able to go home. I thought: ´Fine, let’s go home then.´ They provided us with documents for our embassy, and I got the decoration, the war cross For Valour. The documents were in Russian and Czech, written for our consulate in Kiev. And so we arrived home, and I came to our house and learnt my mom was just with her sister in Czechoslovakia at the moment.”

  • “We reached Košice, but it took me ten days to get from Košice to Prague. Ten days from Košice. A road was broken here and there. I had to get off and walk three or five kilometres, and then ride again. We eventually got to Bratislava, and then the journey from Bratislava to Prague was fine.”

  • “I was born in Carpathian Ruthenia. My father had been there during the First Republic era, and his parents had been living there as well. They originally came from Budějovice, but I didn’t know exactly whether it was České Budějovice or Moravské Budějovice. My father worked there as a forester and I was born there.”

  • Celé nahrávky
  • 1

    Trutnov, 10.03.2013

    (audio)
    délka: 01:11:41
    nahrávka pořízena v rámci projektu Stories of 20th Century
Celé nahrávky jsou k dispozici pouze pro přihlášené uživatele.

I was really no hero

Contemporary photo
Contemporary photo
zdroj: Muzeum Podkrkonoší

  Eduard Zirnzák was born in 1928 in a small village in Carpathian Ruthenia. His father came from Czechoslovakia and his mother was from Hungary. He remembers the peaceful coexistence of many nationalities who lived in Carpathian Ruthenia before the world wars. The situation grew worse when the region was occupied by Hungary at the beginning of WWII. Eduard joined the Czechoslovak army corps after the liberation of Carpathian Ruthenia in 1944. During the draft he lied about his age, and he thus became a member of the reorganized tank brigade when he was only sixteen years old. He went through arduous training and he experienced dangerous crossing of Poland as the army advanced towards Czechoslovakia. In spring 1945 they reached the Silesia region, where they took part in the liberation of Ostrava. After the end of the war, Eduard received the war cross For Valour and he was allowed to return home. However, he was not content with life in the communist-controlled Carpathian Ruthenia and he thus decided to go back to Czechoslovakia. His uncle in Prague helped him to find a job in the army. After a short period of service in Prague-Ruzyně, where he became a corporal, he was transferred to Žatec, where he served as the deputy to the company commander. The entire Žatec garrison was dissolved after 1948 when preparation for an anti-communist revolt was discovered. Eduard moved to Lázně Kynžvart, where he and his unit worked on the construction of a tank shooting range. In 1950 he had a disagreement with his superior, and the Party committee decided to dismiss him from the army. Eduard married and had three children. As a civilian, he found employment as a driver. At first he worked as a truck driver and then a personal driver in the company Texlen and later in the company Plynostav in Pardubice. Eduard Zirznák passed away on July, the 20th, 2017