“(...) They were offering me another job. But I got used to the work in the factory. They were watching me all the time and they kept threatening to dismiss me. They exerted pressure upon me. But I didn’t collaborate with them. Several other guys who had been in the western army were working there, and they were afraid of me, because they did not know whether I was planted among them by the communists or not. Nobody talked to me except one guy, who was all right. Those who worked in the office were afraid to speak to me.”
“There was one adjutant, a Frenchman, who served there, and who was in charge of Vietnamese solders. Some of them sided with Ho Chi Minh and some with the French. He was selling ammunition to them. When they had enough ammunition, they needed a cannon. They staged an attack, and he ordered those siding with the French to be shot, and those who were on their side were left alive. We were ordered to capture that cannon. They disassembled it and carried it away using elephants or buffaloes.”
“I spent a lot of time among the officers as a waiter. Before I left for Indochina, there was certain captain Darmuset. He was of Belarusian origin, but he was born in France. He called me and told me that we were going to Indochina and that he would like me to run a restaurant for the officers and NCOs there. And like an idiot, I told him that I didn’t want this, but that I wanted to get to know Indochina properly as a soldier. Later I regretted it. If somebody thinks that it was easy, it was not. We were digging trenches there every night.”
“Just imagine that in the jungle, when you are sent just two or three hundred meters away, you can be shot by the enemy or by your own comrades. This happened to one NCO. He needed to shit, and one Vietnamese was on duty at that time. The guards changed and the Vietnamese didn’t inform the other soldier about the NCO. When the NCO was returning, he shot him. Things like that happen. This is war...”
Interviewer: “Did they interrogate you when you returned in 1955?” – “They did, it was in Bohdaneč, and we were there for interrogation for about three weeks. All of a sudden I noticed that a friend of mine was there. He knew my girlfriend, he knew me. He knew that I had a son with her. They knew everything about me. But they didn’t help me... Well, perhaps somebody did help me, because I didn’t have to do the two-year military service here. Otherwise all returnees had to go to the army. He must have been a good man. I didn’t care if he was a communist or not. What mattered was what kind of man he was.”
Vladimír Musílek was born January 19, 1926 in the Sudetenland in the now extinct village, Ervěnice, in the Most district. During the war he moved to Prague, where he learnt the waiter‘s trade and where he also met his wife. Their son was born in 1944. However, after a disagreement with his wife, he emigrated in May 1948 and in December 1948 he joined the Foreign Legion. Most of the time he served in the officers‘ mess hall. Altogether he has served in the Legion for five years. He spent the years 1951- 1953 in Indochina where he also took part in combat operations. For two years he worked in a factory in Paris, and then made use of the offered amnesty and in November 1955 he returned to Czechoslovakia to his wife and son. In 1961 he signed a cooperation agreement with the Secret Police, but he actually did not collaborate with them at all, and in autumn 1962 the StB annulled the agreement. At present he lives in Prague-Strašnice.
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!
