“I just remember when they were taking them (the Jews) to be executed. I was standing outside, at our gate, and one guy broke off the group and came to me to say goodbye. He went willingly, because his wife had to go as well.”
“As soon as I rolled up from under the logs, there was the Soviet commander Bogomolov standing next to me. He grabbed my shoulder and shook me, asking where his assistant Bagrij was. I told him that he was running behind me, but when I looked back, there was only a crater from the bomb. He and one other soldier started searching the crater for any signs of Bagrij. They found one shoe, so they knew where he was.”
“This one time we found a connecting cable, so we followed it along the ridge. We cut it and waited to see what would happen. A German patrol came to check on the cable and they surrendered without a fight.” “Were the German soldiers young?” “Yes, you could say that they were young.” “Did you have to come back every night or did you sleep in between the battle lines? Did you hide for the whole day?” “We came back every day. It was very risky with the lines moving back and forth.”
“I was hiding in our loft for some time. I had a shelter there, so they could not find me. Later we moved to my uncle's, to a secluded place in a village called Frankov. There, through my cousin, I joined an underground resistance group.” “Was it the one called Blaník?” “Yes, Blaník. They had to hand in all of their radios but my uncle hid one of his old ones and on top of that he had an acquaintance in the town, so he wasn't under surveillance.”
“My father had a small business so I worked for him. There was also one Russian lawyer living with us, who had trouble with Polish grammar, so I worked for him as a registrar.” “Since you were renting, did you have a large house?” “More than 24 square meters!”
Antonín Vašek, a retired Colonel, was born on March 30, 1922, in Mlynov na Volyni in Poland. He graduated from a 7-year secondary school in Poland and then he went on to work for his father. Later on, he also worked as a registrar to a Russian lawyer. After Germany invaded the Soviet Union, he was supposed to be taken away to a forced-labor camp in Germany, but he escaped and hid at his uncle’s place, and was introduced to the resistance unit, Blaník. Together they listened to foreign broadcasts and informed the Czech minority about the events of the war. After the Red Army arrived, he joined the newly-formed 1st Czechoslovak army corps in Rovno. He served in the 1st brigade’s mixed reconnaissance platoon as a scout. He took part both in the Carpathian-Dukla operation and in the Machnówka fighting. Later he was transferred to a tank brigade, where he served as a driver, mechanic and an instructor in the auto-academy. Right before the liberation of Czechoslovakia, he was chosen to provide safety for Edvard Beneš during the announcement of the government agenda in Košice. This was also where he spent the last few days of the Second World War. After the war was over, he settled in Broumov, where he worked as bicycle serviceman, garbage man and an employee of a car-repair shop, just to name a few of his jobs. He retired in 1983 and he currently lives in Broumov. Antonín Vašek passed away on April, the 30th, 2012.
