Jiří Pavel

Mr. Pavel worked in the fur-processing factory, Kara. One day a group of people came to the factory, trying to recruit some of the workers for labor in the Jáchymov uranium mines. “Director Franz was speaking about how important it was for peace and similar stuff. About 12 people were supposed to go to Radvanice and I was supposed to enlist as well. The director said: ‘What about you comrade, don´t you want to go’? I replied: ‘Mr. Director I have done enough for this country, but you could go’. I though he was going to have a stroke. But I also added: ‘Just so you know, if you and these other people who came to do the recruitment will come, I will join you’. And the director said: ‘So put me on that list’. And they did, but later on he was cleared for medical reasons, of course. It was a blast to tell him in front of 400 people to go himself as an example to the others. Of course he later fired me.”

"I wanted to operate a machine gun. As a boy, I wanted to shoot. But the order came that I was supposed to go to the NCO school. However, we had nothing to do at the school. They gave me a magnificent horse to ride, but I had no idea how to sit on it. It had no brakes. We were doing circles, but that horse started to trot. The commander yelled at me: 'Pavel, what are you doing'? I was clinging to the saddle as well as I could so I wouldn't fall down, but in the process I was kicking it in the belly and that made it ride even faster and faster. In the end they stopped it somehow. Everyone was finished but I was still training."

The Germans were good soldiers. Pavel's unit faced some Hauptmann Türke, who had trained a raid unit and was ambushing mostly Frenchmen. "When our boys went on an attack, they were supposed to take no prisoners...but when you stand in front of a guy on the battlefield and you are supposed to shoot him.... well, it's more about being human then being a hero. This was towards the end of the war when we were in a section that had been mapped and mined by the Germans. We had laid only a few mines near the road. We were shelling their water purification plant. One morning we woke up and the Germans started to shell us with their 88s guns, which were manufactured in Pilsen and were greatly feared. Our 75s guns were no match for them. I was sitting when suddenly I saw an explosion somewhere on the road. We went to look there and found our soldier, Karul, who had a head wound. They sent him to the hospital screaming 'Mom, mom'. The next day, a message came saying he had died. They took his belongings and the war was over."

"There were more of us at the school in Dvůr Králové who wanted to enlist in the Czechoslovak army in France, but only two of us had the resolve to do it in the end. That was on Monday, November 20, 1939. Instead of going to school, we went by train straight to Hradec Králové and from there to Hranice na Moravě. My friend Jiří Sochor and I were going to join our army, to do something. During one debate with my father we were discussing the creation of the Czech army in France. He said to me: 'If I was single with no commitments, I'd go as well'. That strengthened my resolve to get in."

"I wasn't wounded in combat, but in France we trained rookies in shooting and I was their instructor. I was standing on the right side and one of the trainees' stenguns jammed, so I told him to give it back. But suddenly, it exploded and I got hit to the head. The tiny piece of metal got stuck in the bone, only centimeters next to my eye. It's weird how easily you can die. I was covered in blood but the medic told me it wasn't serious, he patched me up and that was it. But I still felt a pressure in that place. One day, after the war ended, I came home and asked my mother to grab a needle and take it out. So we pulled out a little piece of bent metal – a shrapnel – about 3 millimeters and I threw it away. My father went to pick it up straight away and said: 'You had it in you all this time and you want to throw it away just like that'? Except for this, I was not wounded."