It’s amazing how Czechs remember the liberation
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Valère Gustin was born on 21 April 1924 in the village of Verlaine near Liège, Belgium. In 1944, in the fourth year of the Nazi occupation of Belgium, he was summoned by the Labour Office to be forced to work in Germany. He did not obey the summons and did not attend the office. He found himself in illegality and had no choice but to join a group of resistance fighters hiding in the forest near the village of Vyle-et-Tharoul. The Nazis tracked down the group and murdered its members, but Valère Gustin luckily escaped. After healing the gunshot wound, he joined the Belgian 17th Rifle Battalion as a volunteer in 1945, which operated within the US First Army. With this army he helped conquering the German territory. In April 1945 the Belgian Battalion united with the Third US Army of the General George S. Patton. Along with it, he participated in the liberation of Czechoslovakia and spent the liberation of Pilsen. As a veteran he began to return to Pilsen to take part in the Freedom Festival.
