Second Lieutenant Jiřina Bajborová (1925) - Biography

"I would like to tell the young people to value freedom, for it is more precious than gold."

Mrs. Jiřina Bajborová was born in 1925 in a Czech family living in Zdolbunov in Volhynia. She attended a Czech school and enjoyed the rich cultural life that flourished in Volhynia. The Russian occupation did not influence the family life as much as the German one, which came shortly after. Mrs. Bajborová stopped going to school and she had to find a job in the place she lived, otherwise she would have been called into forced labour in Germany. She witnessed murders of their Jewish neighbours and in the tense atmosphere she decided to join the Czechoslovak army in May 1944. There she served as a radio operator in the 3^rd brigade. She was sent to the front and during the liberation of Czechoslovakia she got as far as to Pivín in Moravia. Afterwards she was helping with repatriation of Volhynian Czechs and after her release from the army she lived with her family in Žatec.