"It was like this: there was a very wealthy man, Mr. Drbohlav was his name. He suffered a stroke. He was just lying there on the sofa and he dedicated his property to his neighbor, Mr. Zikmund Pospíšil. He gave him a small farmstead. Mr. Pospíšil took him to his house in return and looked after him. Mr. Drbohlav used to be our teacher; he used to lie on his bed and teach us. I was about seven or eight years old back then."
"My predecessor, the owner of this farmstead was a German. There was a bazooka on the backyard ground. People from Červenka village were looting here and they ordered him to get rid of this bazooka. So he grabbed it and carried it away. There was another man standing outside who thought that this German wants to use the bazooka against him so he shot him."
"I was also mobilized back then. We held the defense of Lviv which is the capital of Volhynia (Ed.note: Lviv was a capital of the historical region Galicia). I served in the 27th artillery regiment. We were there for two weeks, maybe longer, and we were completely broken. I returned home from the war as a beggar. We were protecting Lviv against the German enemy. But then the Russian army came and occupied the town."
"We went through some military training which lasted a few weeks. After that we participated in the Dukla Pass battle. Dukla - that was a real disaster. I couldn’t bear staying inside of the tank, I suffered bronchitis... After I spent about three weeks in a hospital my commander came and told me: ´You know what? I’ll provide you quick training and you’ll be a car driver.´ I was assigned to a Russian driver with whom I drove for two weeks. When I had passed the exams I got my own truck. And in the Ostrava operation I was already a truck driver."
"When the repatriation started, they were supposed to move from Volhynia to Bohemia. My dad killed a pig, prepared sausages and was all set for the journey to Bohemia. He had a neighbor though who was a Ukrainian and they were not really friends. This neighbor was hiding the Bandera’s members, and they robbed my father completely. They took everything from him; everything, including clothes. My dad went to his neighbor in the morning wearing only his underwear and a shirt. Of course, the Czechs provided him with new clothes. So my father arrived here - to Bohemia - in clothes that some people gave him."
"The tank was quite damaged. He was a friend of mine. He was the tank driver. The tank was so damaged that it couldn’t go any further. He was driving it and was also injured. It happened by Dukla Pass at the beginning of the battle. The name of this boy was Jaroslav Horáček. He shouted: ´Guys, help me! I’m hit and can’t get out of the tank.´ The tank was on fire. Poor guy, he was injured and burned inside of the tank. We couldn’t help him. Nobody could get inside of the tank. There were some munitions in it and it exploded. He was injured; being a driver he was sitting in front of the window. He could have escaped through the window though, but his legs were injured likely."
Mr. Václav Jedlička was born on February 18th 1908 in the town of Hlinsk in Volhynia. During his life he experienced several revolutions and regime changes. When he was a child, Hlinsk belonged to tsarist Russia. Since 1920 the teritorry belonged to Poland. When Mr. Jedlička was 22 years old he enlisted for army training in the Polish army. He served in the 28th artillery regiment in Deblin nearby Warszawa. After the German occupation of Poland he joined the defense troops in Lviv. Polish army troops awaited for the German army, but they were ambushed by the Soviet army from the East instead. The defense of Lviv lasted only three weeks. After the capitulation Mr. Václav Jedlička was taken to a prison camp, but in Ozerany, where he escaped from the transport train and thus avoided internment. At home, he worked as a locksmith until he was forcibly deployed to work in a joinery in Zdolbulnov. In 1944 he joined the Czechoslovak army troops. He was assigned to the 2nd tank battalion as an armoire. Due to his bronchitis and persistent breathing problems he has was transferred from tank duty to the driver. His main task was to provide the tank‘s ammunition. He experienced both the battle of the Dukla Pass and the Ostrava operation. After the war he was assigned an estate in Renoty (presently a part of Uničov). He joined the local JZD (former collectivized farming - translator‘s note), where he functioned as a chairman for five years. After his resignation he worked there as a chief engineer. Václav Jedlička died on October 15, 2010.
Hrdinové 20. století odcházejí. Nesmíme zapomenout. Dokumentujeme a vyprávíme jejich příběhy. Záleží vám na odkazu minulých generací, na občanských postojích, demokracii a vzdělávání? Pomozte nám!
