“They blamed Svoboda a lot, claiming that he did not have to go to Dukla, and they also blamed him for what happened in Sokolovo, saying that things did not need to have turned out as they had. But Svoboda was a small guy to make decisions, too. He had to obey orders from others.”
“As I said, that was this Neuschloss, where they were shooting at us. It was mostly mortar fire. You could hear the cracking of the projectiles. The mortars fire like this and the artillery showers you with bombs. Some people panicked and started running here and there, but you cannot do that. You got to dive to the ground right where you are, and make sure that there is a tree or something by your head, and you wait. It will either hit you or miss you.”
“There was a German officer and a Russian soldier had to serve him. And when the end of the war came, they let the German officers keep their guns. They walked as a crowd. When the war was over, they made them stop and ordered them:´Walk like an army.´ Meaning that they should march.”
“I remember that when things became bad, there were guys named Lancigr and Koblasa from Crimea, and the guy began crying like a baby. He was calling his mom. [He was afraid.] We always used to say that fear has big eyes. I remember one day we were waiting somewhere, it was not on the front, but some twenty or more kilometers away in the rear, I was hungry and I said: ´I’m going to the field kitchen, they will give me whatever I want.´ There was this field kitchen. I had to walk around it and pass by and then go back to the garden. As I was approaching the kitchen, there was a blast, followed by another one. I dived to the ground. There were some cows close by, and they got hit by the shrapnel. I was not hungry anymore; I turned around and ran away from there.”
“There were villages that were entirely Czech like Mirohošť, Straklov or Dubno. They had their organization for support of Czech education, they were receiving books, and they even had private teachers. On the other hand, we were a tiny village. We were just given some reading-book, and the classes were taught in Polish.”
“I was in the native place of general Svoboda. He died in the rent-charge house. I’m not sure if you have been there or not? [No, I wasn’t.] The house was state-owed. A museum was set up there. There was the barn and everything has been left just as it had been. She lived in an apartment.”
“I went to the Russian field kitchen and told them that our field kitchen had left without me, because I lagged behind. I asked for something to eat. They immediately gave an order and they brought me food, and gave it to me instead to the Russian soldiers. I have to admit that. But on the other hand, they were clueless. For instance, a soldier with buttons on the uniform walked by me, and I was supposed to salute him, but he saluted me instead.”
First lieutenant in retirement Jaroslav Souček was born on August 16, 1921 in the village of Ivaniche in Volhynia, which was controlled by Poland at that time. He went through four grades of elementary school while the territory was still under the Polish rule, and then he decided on becoming a tailor’s apprentice. He experienced the Soviet occupation in 1939-1941 and in 1941-1944 also the Nazi occupation of western Volhynia. He joined the 1st Czechoslovak army corps, which was being formed at that time, on August 12, 1944 in Ivaniche. He underwent training in Sadagura and then he was assigned to the 3rd battalion of the tank brigade as a driver. However, in the subsequent part of the campaign, in the Carpathia-Dukla operation, he served as a submachine gunner. Then he was transferred to Krosno where he took a drivers’ course and following that, he was sent for further training to the Krakow area. With the tank brigade he experienced the fighting at Racibórz (Ratibor) and took part in the Carpathia-Dukla operation. After the end of the war he was called to defend a part of Silesia against the Polish and then he returned to Volhynia in 1945. He married there and in 1947 he re-emigrated to Czechoslovakia with his Ukrainian wife. They settled in Meclov near Horšovský Týn, where he worked as a postman. After he retired, he left the west Bohemia and moved to his daughter in Chrudim. Jaroslav Souček passed away on April, the 1st, 2016.
