Jaroslav Hlubůček

„Hned v květnu 1945 jsme v Železném Brodě jako všude vytvořili Revoluční gardy a já jsem sice jako mladík byl zařazen do skupiny, která měla jít osvobozovat Jablonec. To bylo už 8. května.“ „Vám bylo 16 let?“ „Mně bylo 16. let. Takže my jsme přijeli do Jablonce s jednou zastávkou, která nás trošku vystrašila, trošku hodně. Když jsme jeli autobusem, tak na Bratříkově na nás začala útočit dvě německá letadla, na autobus, vyskákali jsme pod sokolovnou a schovávali se do lesa. Nikomu se nic nestalo. Letadla shodila pár menších bomb, ale naštěstí mimo nás a mimo sokolovnu, ta byla plná munice. To bylo štěstí, takže první dojezd do Jablonce byl v obavách a se strachem, co nás čeká. Byli jsme mladí a nechtělo se nám z toho života ještě odejít. Ale druhý den už přijela do Jablonce sovětská armáda. Působili jsme tam do konce května jako naše česká garda do doby, než přijeli čeští vojáci. Byl jsem tam tři týdny.“ „Takže jste zažil to drancování?“ „Zažil jsem to drancování. To bylo strašný. Měli jsme tomu bránit. Ze začátku bylo nejdřív ruskými vojáky a pak jak tam přijížděli ti naši… nedalo se tomu zabránit. To byly strašný dny.“

“One such tragicomic incident happened at the funeral of one of my friends… his name was Jirka Malý, a construction technician. He rode a motorcycle and killed himself on his way to his fiancée in Chomutov. Of course, our whole unit had to attend the funeral. In addition to the commander´s speech, the civilian, the chairman of the trade union movement, said: 'Thank you, mate, for the work you have done, live long and well... ' We all got froze, but when there was a chance, we said to each other: ´Well, we work among such folks.'”

“There it bothered me that we were made idiots by people with perhaps only basic school education. That was a disaster. But on the other hand, we made beautiful friendships there, because there were many priests, a lot of people from the foreign army in England, so we had a chance to talk, have fun and somehow the military service was running fast, though difficult, we were still able to have a good time.”

Just before they came to nationalize, my dad´s friend called from the savings bank to advise him not to keep secret any of his claims from abroad or the details of his financial situation here... 'They already knew it all, so be open in that regard in order to avoid further damages, or otherwise they lock you up immediately.'”

“And when the Gestapo arrested Dad in 1944 and took him to the Pečkárna, Dad returned about three weeks later, saying that he was suddenly summoned to a doctor and he said he was sick and released him. The doctor told him to thank his business friends from Jablonec. We still do not know who they were, who saved my dad from the concentration camp and that he returned from Pečkárna.”

“I was totally deployed in Zelezny Brod - we were building roadblocks, sorting out queues from the front... and quite disgusting things - because those clothes were not cleaned, we sorted them for cleaning. So there were bloody leftover fingers in the gloves ... That wasn't quite appropriate at my age.”