Otmar Malíř

“In Africa, we were on the retreat from Tripoli to Gabès. It is several hundreds of kilometers. Then we drove to Sfax and Souss, all the way to Grombali, which is a few kilometers in front of the city of Tunis. I was asking myself where our retreat would end, as there were not many places left. We could only have gone to the Cap Bon peninsula but that was about it. Beyond it, there was only the see left. And that’s actually what happened. The last retreat to the Cap Bon Peninsula was a terrible mess. There were twelve or even twenty Spitfires attacking the retreating formations every ten minutes. They didn’t care who they were shooting at. They would go after a sole soldier, circling above him and firing at him. The Brits thought it was great fun. Once, we were attacked and I saw the English fighters coming to us so I told the driver: ‘Flieger Alarm. We have to get away!’ I screamed in Czech because I didn’t speak any German. I got out of the car and ran as far as I could get. I ran on a stony road that was about two kilometers away from the coastline. I lay down and watched the airplanes. One of the Spitfires must have spotted me as I ran away. He turned around and went after me. So I hid behind a stone and prayed for the stone to withhold the fire. I was thinking to myself that if the stone broke, I’d die. But the bullets missed their target so I thought it was alright. He turned around and flew to me again. So I lay down again and prayed. I even didn’t check whether there’s a scorpion or a poisonous snake on the ground. I crossed myself and took a look at my watch. It was Easter Monday, three o’clock in the afternoon. I said to myself: ‘that’s it, you’re finished’. I looked above and saw that he just dropped two bombs. I heard the whizz. The bombs dropped about 150 meters behind me and killed two German brothers. They were allowed to serve with the same unit, with one platoon, one company, they had always been together. They were laying and one bomb fell between them, the other next to them. It blew them to pieces. It was just bits. We then had to put them together.”

“The Germans were retreating, the English were chasing them and Rommel had a hard time to associate himself with the situation. So he called some carpenters and ordered 300 off-road Volkswagens. The carpenters made plywood bodyworks for the off-roaders that resembled tanks, installed machine guns in them and they set out. There’s a lot of dust there and the engines were whirling it up. When the Brits saw it they chose to retreat. But then they staged an air attack on them and when they saw them burning after a while, they realized that it can’t be tanks.”

“We staged the first attack on October 28. The idea was that the Germans wouldn’t expect an attack on that day because it’s a national holiday. The plan worked out and they were really surprised by the attack. The attack began at 5 o’clock in the morning and we caught them by surprise. The German soldiers were running out of the fortifications in their underpants. We captured about 300 soldiers and 6 officers. We could have occupied all of Dunkirk if the attack had been well prepared and taken seriously. After we had captured the enemy soldiers we returned to our original positions. The command liked it and General Liška planned another attack for November 5. But somehow, the Germans learned about it. How? Well, some soldiers must have talked about it or something. When we attacked on November 5, they were well prepared. The second and third battalion was engaged in that battle. As soon as we attacked the German cannons and tanks started shooting at us. Right at the outset of battle, we lost eight tanks and so it was called off. It was a terrible massacre. Our brigade lost some 18 tanks. The Germans lost a lot of troops as well. In the end, we retreated.”

“I have one story from Leopoldov. My mother and my sister came to visit me. My wife couldn’t come with them because they wouldn’t let all three of them visit me. Just one, two at the most, at a time was permitted. My mother had somehow found out that a certain Pejhrzimek from Nová Kolonie was supposedly imprisoned in Leopoldov. He was there, I knew him. My mom asked me: ‘Otmar, is Pejhrzimek imprisoned here? He’s supposed to be here somewhere’. I told her: ‘I can’t tell you mother. It’s not permitted’. But she said: ‘So is he here or not?’ You know, a mother from a village. So I turned to the commander and reassured myself that I really wasn’t allowed to say that. He said: ‘No, don’t say it’. My sister had this grin on her face, but my mom just didn’t get it. After I came back home from the prison, my sister told me that she had explained it to her when they got outside.”

“I was arrested by the secret state police on July 4, 1955. They took me to Olomouc, where they interrogated me and finally they put me in front of the higher military court in Trenčín in Slovakia. Till today I don’t understand why the trial was held there as our military court was in Tábor. The trial took place on February 5 and 6, 1956. They sentenced me to twenty years in prison and the state took all of my possessions. The reason was that I was found guilty on the grounds of the law on treason, § 78 and the law on sabotage, § 85. When I was given the word at the trial before the court, I said that I’d like to know what findings the court is basing his rulings on. I said that I wasn’t involved in any espionage. That it was just friendly letters that the court has certainly read and translated. The president of the court, an air force Colonel, said that he came to the conclusion that I might become a spy.”

“It already began in 1938. These ruffians were people who came from Poland and made a mess here. Once, there was a grenade lying on the rail tracks. A trackman found it and reported it. They halted the trains and removed it and that was all. When the Poles came it was a catastrophe. Here, in Dětmarovice, the Poles broke into the houses of the Czechs that lived here and thrashed their Christmas trees. They beat them up so badly that they had to be taken illegally into a hospital in Fifejdy in Ostrava. They also immediately closed down the Czech schools. Everything had to be in Polish, the authorities, the public notices, nothing in Czech.”