Leo Cechel

„As we were coming back from holidays, the Polish checked on us at the Moravian borders. And I got a memory, how we took one with a large suitcase, a man around fifty years old. I figured that they were checking us and we took that man, who did not know what was in the suitcase. But they were Polish and I came from that region so could speak some of their language. They were just asking where we were coming from. So we said that we were returning from holidays and they let us go.”

"Jaroslav Jirout, my father-in-law, lived between 1913 and 1963. He died when he was fifty years old following a brain tumour surgery. Of course, there were also the tribulations of the war and other things playing an important role. And also the fact that after February 1948, being a Western soldier, he had to leave the police, and he was passing through life. I would come back to that topic later. After the war, he did not like talking about the war suffering, not at all. As stated in the Confirmation of the Ministry of National Defence, during the Second World War he behaved reliably and bravely. He received numerous war decorations, and later I would mention more details. He was also wounded a few times - the shards in the head in Tobruk, shoulder shot in Dunkerk, and numerous minor injuries about which nobody knew."