The general's son, Karel Mareš (*1925), "He said he was going to Horažďovice to visit his mother for the holidays and he and a friend had escaped across the border to Germany. He got to New Zealand, married a Czech girl and they moved to Australia. Of course, that didn't help my dad either. First he was in jail because of General Píka, and later because of his brother. But we didn't find out that he had fled abroad until just before my father's death," says Dagmar Jungmannová about her half-brother Karel.

He lived out the last years of his life as an agricultural worker for the State Farm, ill, on the verge of poverty and still under the watch of State Security, Kosova Hora, 1950s

Funeral farewell to General and Commander of the 311th Czechoslovak Bomber Squadron RAF Karel Mareš. "Professor Niederle from Motol told us that if my father had stayed in the ranks of the army and attended regular medical check-ups, the carcinogen could have been discovered in time and it might not have turned out the way it did," recalls the general's daughter Dagmar Jungmannová

Degraded, evicted from Prague and humiliated over and over again by the communists, war veteran Karel Mareš and his daughter Dagmar, Kosova Hora, 1950s

Ice skating and sledging - winter games of Karel Mareš and daughter Dagmar - exactly as the witness describes them, Kosova Hora, 1950s

The general's son Karel Mareš (*1925) from his first marriage, who fled across the border after the communist coup

Dagmar with her father and grandmother, Kosova Hora, 1950s

Married couple Karel and Růžena Mareš, 1946

Karel Mareš (right), as the first commander of the 311th Czechoslovak Bomber Squadron with Czechoslovak President Edvard Beneš in Great Britain, 1940-1942

Air Force Major Karel Mareš (left) receives thanks and appreciation from Bulgarian Tsar Boris III (centre in white) for a demonstration flight at Sofia airport, 28 May 1935

National air competition 12 heures d'angers, which was also attended by Czechoslovak aviator Karel Mareš

Military Attaché Karel Mareš in the Soviet Union (1942-1946). He replaced the image of the dictator J. V. Stalin with the Czech thinker Jan Hus

In England, Karel Mareš (right) became the first commander of the 311th Czechoslovak Bomber Squadron, Great Britain, 1940-1942

A picture before one of the operational flights over the Third Reich, 1940-1942

Karel Mareš (centre) as the first commander of the 311th Czechoslovak Bomber Squadron RAF, Great Britain, 1940-1942

Karel Mareš (left) as the first commander of the 311th Czechoslovak Bomber Squadron, Great Britain, 1940-1942

Karel Mareš (left) after his return from the USSR, 1947

Young Karel Mareš during the First World War in the ranks of Czechoslovak troops, who wore standard uniforms of the Italian army with a red and white ribbon on the collar

Graduation board of students of the Real Gymnasium Pierre de Coubertin in Tábor. Karel Mareš in the front row, third from the left, 1916-1917

Dagmar Marešová after her birth in 1947 with her father Brigadier General Karel Mareš

Karel Jedlinský in 2023

Karel Jedlinský (middle row, second from left) in first class, Pardubice, 1946

Karel Jedlinský (in a group among soldiers) at the army, 1959-1961

With siblings Miloš, Věra and Jaroslav (from left), 2023

Karel Jedlinský, 1943-1944