Corporal Václav Bouzek

“They took us to Vrútky. Here we had to go upwards because all tunnels, as well as bridges and roads were destroyed. We went towards Žilina over a hill, we saw Žilina from top. We saw with our own eyes Germans walking down there, there were blockages on the roads. Some kind of five concrete pillars. Žilina was conquered without fighting because when they saw there were more soldiers concentrated on the hills then they run away. We won over them without a fight. We carried on marching. They didn't resist very much. They only stopped us at night and in the morning we carried on without fighting. We got as far as Horní Mariková where we crossed the Slovak-Czech border. We came to Starý Hrozenkov.”

“We came to the village Makhnovka where the Soviet Army retreated and we received our own part. It was a disastrous start as they planned we should go 7 more kilometers. This never happened. We were assaulted by the Germans because we came just within the range of fire. Our reconnaissance, who was supposed to go at least a kilometer ahead, went only 200 meter. The road was totally under German control because there was just one road. When they heard carriage rumbling in the evening, they started shooting with shells. Both horses and people were killed. Luckily enough it was foggy in the morning and they couldn’t see us. They occupied hills around and if it were sunny they would kill us off. The weather actually saved our lives. And then rain, which was a bad thing, but poor visibility helped us and not many of us were killed then.”

“I didn’t reach even the Czechoslovak border. At Hejrová Mountain, nicknamed Death Mountain, a splinter ran into my right jaw. I was hit by a bullet. The bullet was even pointed as if it hit something. I had it for 5 days, my collar bone was broken. The bullet stuck in my shoulder and they took it out only in Lvov. What luckily saved me was that I strove to run about 10 meters – I got to the road. Our brigade major’s car with already 3 wounded people passed by. The driver and one more person jumped out and they threw me to the wounded. They saved my life this way otherwise I would bleed to death from my right jaw artery. They took us to a Russian military hospital.”

“They pulled out the roots that remained there. I stayed there for 28 days. There were even cases when you had a smooth shot through your mouth. Your tooth had to be pulled out so that they could feed you. Civilian nurses gave us liquidized food; it resembled sucking from funnels through some kind of elastics. When they took it off, none of us could open his mouth. There was a kind of gym, we sat there against the mirrors and daily had to open our gobs with small pliers of various sizes.”