„We used to live in a kind of ‚international‘ quarter. There were more Czechs, Poles, Germans than Russians and Ukrainians. And those local Germans already knew that the German troops were approaching. So of their initiative almost everyone would go and welcome the Germans.“
„When I got to know about the existence of the Czechoslovak unit I requested a transfer. But the command of our unit had turned it down flatly. They said that after the war there would be no Czechoslovak army. That everywhere where the Soviet army will step will be no other army. Of course that I as a soldier could do nothing against it.“
„When we drove through those larger cities the Soviet soldiers got to see for the first time girls wearing shorts. You couldn’t see that in Russia at that times – there you could see only some fast woman wearing shorts at the streets.“
„There on those sandy shores would firstly those Russian captives dig holes. And later even the Jews themselvs would dig those graves and when it was finished, they forced them to stand above them and shot them. Then they brought in other Jews and when the holes were full, the captives would bury them.“
„The Soviet regime was evil but when we got to know what represented the one of Hitler than it was clear that the evil there was far bigger. And we could do nothing but to choose the smaller evil between those two.“
„Actually, I saw the beginning of the war myself almost simultaneously with hearing it on the broadcast. They said that Kyjev and Žitomir had been bombed. And I could see myslef precisely that bombing of Žitomir. We were living some 4 miles from the airport and at 6 am I heard a noise of unknown airplanes. The noise was way different from the one of the Soviet aircrafts. When they were above the airport, lots of bombs started falling down and in a while I could hear the rumble.“
„They brough a horse there and shot him through some artery, so that the blood was springing. And the officer who spoke Czech made a paper-cone and let it fill up with blood which he would then drink.“
„An individual cannot fight tyrany, he can only sacrifice himself. And that is why most people obey and live so that they wouldn’t do evil to others but could exist. And that is the fate of all of us.“
„The Soviet regime was evil but when we got to know what represented the one of Hitler than it was clear that the evil there was far bigger. And we could do nothing but to choose the smaller evil between those two.“
Jaroslav Hrásský was born in 1923 in Žitomir at Volyň. His parents used to have a composite goods store but that has been confiscated after the Bolshevik revolution. Mr. Hrásský attended elementary school after which he started studying electrotechnic. Right on the day when he got his report, the war begun. Later the schools were closed, work was scarce so most people would make living from what grew on their crofts. Žitomir was bombed and communists and Jews - the people who could expect nothing but death after the Germans came - were fleeing. There were lots of ethnical minorities who felt the Soviet wrong-doing in Žitomir. No wonder that many people welcomed the German troops. Eventually, Mr. Hrásský got the opportunity to finish his studies, after which in 1944 he joined the progressing Red Army. It was very wild times, so officialy he became a legal member of the army some six months later. Later he requested a transfer to the Czechoslovak unit, which was turned down. Turned down was also his after-war request to end his service in the army and study at an university. Unluckily, he had a diploma written in Ukrainian and German and the Russians won’t accept it. He worked mostly as an electro-technician and was forced to serve until 1947. Then he was released and got to Czechoslovakia on the last possible train - his parents have already emigrated there. After the war he asserted in the production of radioactivity-meters at Jáchymov.
