Jiří Krůžela

“The military supply management didn’t manage to cater us properly. They only had cans, the so-called 'kádéčko' (dose canned food). When the convoy stopped in the night and we didn’t continue for a long time, I decided to eat something. I took a kádéčko. Leaning out of the hatch, I started to eat it with bread. I noticed that on the opposite side, there was a bus standing and through the window a lady was looking at me. She might have been about 45 years old. She began to cry. She was crying and wiping her eyes. I wondered whether she also had known some soldier. Or we stopped at some place and people started to talk to us. 'Where are you going?’ We answered 'it’s an emergency divisional exercise'. They said 'you’re going to Poland'. We insisted that we weren’t going to Poland, that it was just an exercise. They didn’t believe us, saying: 'They've already taught you how to lie'. A long story cut short - people were angry. People were also very nervous, that was clearly visible from their behavior on our way. I remember that when we were coming back, they were on the contrary waving at us as they did in 1945. They were happy to see that everything went well without any violent actions.”