Jiří Krůžela

* 1960

  • “About the year 1968, I remember that it was holidays, so I slept. Suddenly, my mother ran into the bedroom: 'get up. The Russians are occupying us. There will be a war'! So I got up, but it all didn’t make much sense to me. My grandfather, uncle and aunt were living across the street. The whole family gathered there and we listened to the radio, to the sketchy reports of people gathering around the seat of the Czech Radio like they did in 1945. Everyone was nervous. People were buying supplies: flour, lard, meat, canned food ... They really expected that there might be a war. It was not much happening, in the region of Valašsko in Moravia. Occasionally, a truck passed by. At the main intersection in the direction of Slovakia, there was a Russian military traffic operator who was responsible for showing directions. We, the young guys, brought him some food because the Russians forgot about him completely. He had been left behind there. He passed around his machine gun and we were allowed to play with it for a while. We gave him a slice of bread with lard or something else in return. Only two days later, he got a can from his own people, who brought it to him."

  • “The military supply management didn’t manage to cater us properly. They only had cans, the so-called 'kádéčko' (dose canned food). When the convoy stopped in the night and we didn’t continue for a long time, I decided to eat something. I took a kádéčko. Leaning out of the hatch, I started to eat it with bread. I noticed that on the opposite side, there was a bus standing and through the window a lady was looking at me. She might have been about 45 years old. She began to cry. She was crying and wiping her eyes. I wondered whether she also had known some soldier. Or we stopped at some place and people started to talk to us. 'Where are you going?’ We answered 'it’s an emergency divisional exercise'. They said 'you’re going to Poland'. We insisted that we weren’t going to Poland, that it was just an exercise. They didn’t believe us, saying: 'They've already taught you how to lie'. A long story cut short - people were angry. People were also very nervous, that was clearly visible from their behavior on our way. I remember that when we were coming back, they were on the contrary waving at us as they did in 1945. They were happy to see that everything went well without any violent actions.”

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    Hodonín, 17.10.2015

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On our way back were people waving at us like they did in May of 1945

Jiří Krůžela, 1978
Jiří Krůžela, 1978
photo: Jiří Krůžela

Jiří Krůžela was born on August 27, 1960 in Vsetín. In October 1979, he joined the compulsory military service. In December 1980, he participated in the ‘Krkonoše 1980’ exercise as a member of the 2nd Company of the 1st Battalion, 1st Tank Regiment (ECS 5729). In autumn 1981 he returned to civilian life and found a job at the Strážnice Timber Company. Since 1998 he has been working for a private timber company.