Otakar Hašek

“We had a political commissioner who 'brought us up' in a political way. He was making us sure they were dealing with the Czechoslovak offices and that we would be alright. They transported us to a repatriate camp not far from the Chinese border. One day there came some cars with the Chinese and they took us to Guanxi province. The Chinese treated us in an excellent way. We were lousy but they immediately gave us new clothes, the Chinese uniforms. The food was fantastic there. We weren't allowed to go out on our own as it was the time of Korean War. The Chinese could have thought we were Korean captives and they could have attacked us. We went out accompanied only, they took us to the cinema every week. (...) We were there for some time. Then the Treaty was signed, they put us on train and transported us to Czechoslovakia. There were about 150 Germans and 21 Czechoslovaks. They divided us in Brest, the Germans went to East Germany and we went to Čierná nad Tisou.”

“All of them were Germans. German was the most spoken language among us. French was spoken officially only. Wonderful guys, they would never walk out on you. We used to say that the Foreign Legion must never let anyone die or leave him. No matter who it was, whether Meisner or Gavritch – he was an old parachutist who was at war on Crete. How did they get there? They were in a cage and the French came there: 'You'll go to the Legion and you'll get French citizenship there. Otherwise you have no idea how long you'll be captives.' Some used to say: 'I've been in the army all my life so I went to the army again.'”

“Boys said: 'Why are you scared, we will go to Czechoslovakia, what can happen to us? It will be better than in Vietnam. You can at least have a bath in prison every week and you get something to eat, why are you scared.' We were consoling one another. They brought us to Čierná pri Čope and they didn't let us out of the wagon. The next day came some civilians and they said: 'We are officials of “I have no idea of which” Ministry. Nothing will happen to you.' But they were all StB (State Security) members. They shut us in a compartment, they bought us food and beer, they accompanied us to Prague. They detached our wagon and shifted it at a side line and there was a green military bus. We were given a towel each. Němček said: 'Let's have a bath boys.' Shucks, we had to cover our eyes and they led us to Anton. They took us to Ruzyně. Then we were transported to Pankrác prison.”

“When the legion was supposed to arrive for an action, they had to arrive at the crack of dawn. We had to set off at three at night and we went where we knew their fortification was. The worst was when monkeys were there. The sods started making racket and the Vietnamese knew we were coming.”