One time I wasn’t clean-shaven. And here comes General Svoboda, and he says, “Why are you not shaven?” So I told him: “Mr. General, your barber doesn’t want to shave me.” He was lower ranked than me, you know. I later cried that I said that. Because he shaved me without any shaving cream. Do you understand? I cried when he shaved me.
I’ll give you an example. My captain, his name was Stroganov, he fell so deeply in love that he ended up in the hospital. I had to send his stuff to his wife in Moscow. She asked what happened. I told her that he was injured, and he was sick, do you know with what…a woman, he had venereal disease. And I couldn’t tell his wife that. She was pretty, but I was scared of her.
Here she is: Libuse Mrazkova. Very pretty girl. She was the wife of my bandleader, you know, from that band. She got it right in the stomach, and her husband had to bury her because the musicians were the grave-diggers. She enlisted into the First Czechoslovak Brigade voluntarily. She was an operator.
One time the telephone broke down, and I had to go to the radio station. Now, I didn’t know the password. There was my friend, who went to school with me, and she said, “Password!” I said: “Mary, don’t fool around, I’ll kill you. Why, I have to report it.” So she shot a gun into the air, making me hit the ground. Until her commanding officer came, only then did she let me through, and only then could I do the reporting. Either every hour or I don’t know how often, I was supposed to report it. And she didn’t let me. I said, “Mary, when this is over, I will kill you.” Now she lives near Prague.
Look. I have here a missing finger from an ax. I was making a fire in the sauna. A woman physician treated it for me. She gave me penicillin for it. Excellent doctor. Stones, heated very hot, on those we poured water and there was a sauna. Well, we were eaten up by fleas. Fleas, your body was completely covered in bites.
He comes from Volyn. He was born on March 30, 1924 in Straklov. He attended elementary school. In this school, there were students of many nationalities. He shared a desk with a Jew.: “One time he brought me matzah. There were many rumors about this food, that there is human blood in it. I was scared of him.” His father was a shoemaker. His father was married three times, so Václav Mat’átko had many siblings. His family had a store. The Germans were sending off young people to work in Germany. V. Mat’átko was assigned to work on a road leading to Lvov. He attended the Sokol Organization. They would travel to exercise to neighboring villages. He played the violin in a band. He wanted to be in the army band. He was auditioned by Vít Nejdlý. Unfortunately, he was not a good enough violinist, and he didn’t make the band. His friend was Colonel Masopust. In March of 1944, he joined the army. He was conscripted in Rovno. Many of his relatives got into the Czechoslovak army. After basic training, he went for special training to Romania, in Besarabia. Next for about a month, he was in Radom, for chemical training. After that, he specialized in meteorological measurements. He joined the front in Dukla. From Dukla, he made it to Stropkov, Lipt. Mikulas, Zilina and Vrutky. At the end of the war, he was in Kromeriz. Next, he was in the border region and was present when the Germans were expelled. Further on, he worked at SNB as a policeman. He attended a high school specializing in mechanical engineering and also the police academy. After some time, he left the police force and had big problems finding work. He became an official of Svaz bojovniku za svobodu (a national organization of war veterans).
