JUDr. Pavel Holeček

“About 14 days prior to the May Revolution everyone was ordered. We met at an agreed place, in Vršovice it was, opposite the Vršovice train station, across the tracks, in one building where we waited for the weapons to drop. They got there secretly. And the purpose was somewhere near Kolín weapons were meant to be dropped. Unfortunately, I do not know the details, but you can read them somewhere. I know one of those drivers was my classmate Ladislav Hec. They drove with the car. Fortunately, they drove to the agreed place. They were waiting for the weapons to drop. And as you read in literature and history, the drop of weapons did not take place, because the Eastern powers decided and the weapons were not sent by air. There was supposed to be a drop of weapons. The weapons were supposed to be loaded into the truck, which was supposed to arrive to the agreed place. We were waiting in that house down in the cellar for coal. We were given the task, once the weapons were brought in, we were simply to gather them. We were informed in advance that the weapons would be distributed. We had to assemble the weapons. Weapons did not arrive. In the evening, or around ten o'clock in the evening, we always concentrated there. This is how we were there twice and we left twice during the night or in the morning with nothing. The weapons simply did not come, they were not dropped down.”

“I'll go back to the barricade, the days of the fight. You were in Vinohrady, did you live there at the time?”- “Yeah. There I basically also had a patrol. We lived in the house number 24 Zagreb Street, downstairs was the restaurant U Vrbických. The restaurateur had a son who was older, about forty years old, who had guarded the house. I had my turn as well. Otherwise, I came to the barracks from the apartment. After the end of May 5, I was in contact with the barracks, but I slept in the apartment. I normally went home overnight. During that night a patrol was arranged in the house by the son of Mr. Vrbický. He handed me the gun for the first time and said, 'Here's your gun, if anything, use it.' I couldn't handle the gun. Thank god, nothing happened. I just have to say that for the first time in my life I saw and the last time I was watching ...So a member of the Vlasov army ran past me. He was a tall man with a submachine gun in his hand, a backpack or a muff on his back and a few people running, apparently running to a house where some Germans were still, because the Germans who barricaded themselves in the houses were shooting at our people on the street, so he obviously went to compensate for such a shooter.”

“At the academic grammar school, Na Příkopech, of course, I experienced the arrival of the Germans on March 15, 1939. We all looked out of the windows as the rain was down, the snow was falling, and the German army was driving down the street. And we cried.”

“And that was watching the trains outside the Smíchov train station. Behind Smíchov railway station was a small hill in Zlíchov, a small hill. And we should have been there for some time at a certain hour. We were always two. And we watched German military trains going to Pilsen. We are on that hill, the track was divided towards Pilsen and up. And we looked at that Pilsen. Of course, we counted wagons, soldiers, ammunition, cannons, everything and so on. We also wrote it on the note and passed it on. I have the impression that we were there for about 2 hours, then we were replaced by others. ”