Vlastislav Raichl

“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.”

“Ludvík Aškenazy – perhaps you have heard of him or read some of his books – was in our platoon. He was a writer, who served in our platoon. He was a skinny and lanky type but after the war everybody knew him to be of a rather stout composition. At that time, none of us expected that he would become a successful writer. We rather saw him as a disaster for the unit. When rifles were being cleaned, the guys from his squad soon realized that it would be better if they cleaned his rifle for him because nobody was able to put his rifle back together. Every time there was either something missing or extra parts. Women helped him a lot; as a commander I was obliged to know what was happening among the soldiers and eventually, I found out that he was really not able to do it. He eventually did survive the war, however.”

“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.”