Richard Brhlík

“He believed - his diary shows that clearly - he believed the whole time, from when he en route from Palestine to England, the two years he was there, right until the end, in 1943, the entries he wrote with his own hand show how he longed for the war to end, and how he believed, maybe somewhat naïvely that, okay, the Russians had stopped Hitler before Moscow, so now things will go quickly and he could be back home by Christmas. That wasn’t true, however, not for another three Christmases. He had his sights set so amazingly clearly on getting home as soon as possible, no matter the cost, no matter the danger, just home, home, home.”

“Two or three days after his return to Bratislava, the ‘black-leather coats’ turned up in their big black boots and their big black hats. They were probably members of Hlinka’s Guard, and they arrested him just like that. They interrogated him for a long time, for months on end, I guess they tried to wear him down also mentally, so that he’d tell them what they wanted him to. Suffice it to say that the trial took place half a year later. Much to my surprise, the court found him guilty on only one of the three charges. They couldn’t prove the other two. But the one charge, that was deserting during peace time, was enough to land him with five months in prison, his ranks were stripped from him immediately, all his property was confiscated by the Slovak state - and his prison sentence was supposed to be high security, I don’t know what that meant at the time, but it’s written there: high security.”

“His main goal and the reasoning behind all of his negotiations was to get to England. Except that even in 1939 it was not possible to go to England directly. That’s why he travelled to Palestine. The journey was accomplished through a combination of boat and vehicle through Greece, through Istanbul. In Istanbul - I guess there was mission of the Czechoslovak foreign service there, I don’t know exactly, but simply - they gave him back his uniform and insignia. They accepted him back into the Czechoslovak army, as an officer with the rank of artillery lieutenant, and when he arrived in Haifa, his uniform was already awaiting him.”