Second Lieutenant Jan Pavúk

"The march to Prague was fast. We went by tank, but the head mechanic, Beneš, said to me: 'Janko, won't we go by car? - Let's grab a car! We'll be faster like that!' So we took a car from some repair shop. I don't even know what make it was. It almost cost us our lives, because some German soldiers stopped us on the way. But luckily we had taken a car with a Protectorate number plate, and our uniforms looked very much like those of the Protectorate army. So they let us pass, and we drove all the way to Prague."

"We were the first to enter Prague Castle. It was on the fifth of May, I think, in the night, but I can't remember much of it anymore. That was my first time I was in Prague. All I can remember is that we crossed the Vltava on an iron bridge, and then straight to the Castle. We were afraid to fly the flag though, because it had been decided that the Soviets should enter Prague first. So we fell back to Dolní Měcholupy, not far from Prague."

"There wasn't a moment to spare there. For instance, we had to supply ourselves. Sometimes we didn't eat for three days - say when we hid in the shelter, during air raids. One time, by mistake, we shot a dog instead of a roe, but that was food for us aswell. The people from the surrounding villages helped us a lot, and the supported, but even they hid food from us. There were lots of partisans there and they would have eaten the villages clean. I'll tell you a funny tale. One time when we were hungry, we were saying: 'If only there was a hen somewhere...' But it was all hidden! Then it occured to me to crow at the sunrise. A cockerel replied, and so we knew where the hens were. So we took ourselves a hen."

"When I deserted, my family received a message saying that I had been captured and killed. But it was cover up, so that the Germans didn't confiscate my parents' property and didn't give them trouble. I found out somewhere near Dukla, from a friend. The whole war I hadn't written a single letter home, or even a message. Actually I don't even know if it would have been possible. During our march to Prague, I was only some two and a half kilometres away from my village, but I didn't have enough time and I didn't want to scare my parents with an abrupt homecoming. So I went there after the liberatin of Prague, when I finally got leave. I got to my parents house late at night. I knocked and called: 'It's me, Janko!' Mum thought I was a cousin, who sometimes came round at night, so they would let him through the garden, because he had it closer to home that way. Mum opened the door and went to bed. I stood in the doorway, amazed. Then mum started to worry that I was a gendarme, as I had an officer's uniform on me. So she switched the lights on, recognised me, and fainted. I thought she was dead. That her heart hadn't survived the shock."