“My father was in the training center and I followed him, I was a mediator there. There was a Slovak officer Laurinec and I worked as a servant soldier for him. I polished his shoes, they always had to be spick-and-span in the morning. When he needed to arrange something somewhere he sent me. I stayed with him till the end of the war. He was such a good man. He knew I was a boy and even if I made mistakes he understood.”
“Then they shot all the Jews dead. Women, men, children, everyone. They dug up huge deep pits, they had to lie in there naked, the S.S. men came and shot. Uncle Jaroslav transported them by truck to the burial ground. But there were the S.S. men so he couldn't help anyone. They executed about twenty-eight thousand of Jews in Ludsko then.”
“We kept our uniforms because we had no informal clothes. We got clothing coupons though, for which we bought informal clothes in Prague but we sent it in trunks at this place. But it they got lost on their way, the trunks were delivered empty. So we had nothing again. We kept wearing uniforms for about two more months until we got hold of some informal clothes.”
“My father also saved a few Jewish lives there. He hid them at his relatives. He knew them, he knew they were good people. They all went abroad after the war and they didn't remember we saved their lives. We keep in touch with only one woman who lives in Brooklyn now.”
“We, the Volyně Czechs, we simply had a bad reputation. We were arrested in 1952 because my father had a brother who was also the first lieutenant in Svoboda Army but he fled across the border. Both my father and myself were imprisoned for four months and a half, my sister Stázinka for a month. We were imprisoned in Cejl in Brno.“
“Our soldiers or the Russian ones, it was one hundred and one. The Russians didn't care about anything. When they had something to drink, then simply 'nas mnogo' (many of us), they went and had a good time. Even our soldiers liked drinking, everybody likes drinking but they never said 'nas mnogo.'”
“My father told them what it looked like in the Soviet Union and that was why he was bad. There were many denunciations on him in the village, on top of that he bought a house in Brno. That was the reason for my and my sister's arrest.”
“I worked in the training center as a soldier servant for a Slovak officer. He was a good man. Even if my service was not always perfect he knew I was only a boy and he understood.”
Private First Class (Chief Warrant Officer) Jaroslav Kozák
Jaroslav Kozák was born as the youngest child of František and Zdeňka Kozák in Volyně on July 5, 1929. His father and the eldest sister Emílie joined the army as the first ones in 1944, the second daughter Anastázie followed. Jaroslav with his mother were left home alone. His father managed to organize even their joining the army - Jaroslav was only 15 then. While his mother worked in the kitchen, Jaroslav worked as a servant soldier for officer Laurinec. This way he managed to get to Prague with the Czechoslovak Army. After the war he lived with his family in Žatec first, then in South Moravia. However, they were again suddenly deprived of the land they had obtained there. František, Jaroslav a Anastázie Kozák were arrested in 1952 and they spent four months in prison. Jaroslav Kozák passed away on December, the 3rd, 2014.
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!
