"There were six of us, we agreed to cross through Poland. But Mum... I was her only son. The thing was that the parents of those who went West were placed in camps. So, to be honest, she talked me out of going. But the others all went, and none of them returned."
"We were in our barracks when the Germans arrived at the airport and occupied it. They assembled us. The Germans weren't acquainted with the machines, so they wanted us to show them the ropes. But no one was willing to. That's the first time I heard the whistling of bullets. There was a gunpowder magazine attached to the airport and it was guarded. The Germans occupied it as soon as they arrived. And we had left our things there and they wouldn't let us into the hangar. So they didn't let us in and we went round from the back. We were passing by the powder magazine, and the Germans saw us and started firing at us. The magazine was like this, the forest here, trench here. So we escaped through the trench and got back to the barracks. They had everyone assemble and so on. 'Who was there?' - 'No one was there.' The guards looked to see if they would recognise anyone. But they didn't, so it all worked out very well."
"After the bombing in Dresden, they put us to clearing the rubble, the dead and so on. The Marian Station was similar to how it is in Olomouc. Subway crossings all over. And so on. And people, nothing wrong at first glance, and they were dead. Some people, not me, set themselves to defusing unexploded bombs. They offered to strike off ten years, and goodness knows what. I had a feeling the war was nearing its end, so I didn't go in for that. Some did. They defused three or four, but a lot of them died in the process."
"We made a stop in Prague to guard the cargo station at Smíchov. We were on duty when this youngster came along. He was eighteen or sixteen, fifteen. He was hiding in between the wagons, so they caught him. There was an iron railing there. They bent him over it and thrashed him with the straps. So I got into a row with them and left. I went away. Things like that. If I told you they caught a German woman, she was carrying pails, like how they used for milk, and with those pails they beat her to death in Prague."
"I got a secret letter. My wife had written to me and sent me a photograph of herself with our little boy, Zbyněk. I've still got that photograph, I took that with me. It helped me keep going on. Sometimes, you just couldn't manage any more. And the one who fell behind got a load from the warden's sub-machine gun by the trenches. So those who withstood this, survived. So you see, when the others noticed someone in depression, they took him in amongst themselves and pulled him along until it passed."
Zbyněk Pišťák was born on the 20th of December 1915 in the village of Kupina in Volhynia. His parents had moved to Kupina during World War I. His father was head woodsman for the Potocký counts. During the Polish-Soviet war in 1920, they returned home to Konicko. Ten years later they moved once more, this time to Mukačevo in Subcarpathian Rus. Zbyněk Pišťák studied at the local grammar school and graduated from the teachers‘ institute. After completing his studies he taught at a Czech elementary school. He joined the army in 1936, where he was assigned to the air force at his own request. As a pilot he mostly flew reconnaissance flights with the Letov Š-328 biplane. He remained in the air force throughout both of the mobilisations, the annexation of the border regions and even the occupation of what was left of the Republic on the 15th of March 1939. He wanted to go West with his friends to fight for liberation. But fear for his family and his mother‘s persuasions kept him at home. All his friends died on the Western front. On leaving the army he became headmaster of a school in the Bouzov district, and he was active in the Sokol society. He was arrested during a Gestapo raid in October 1940, and sent through Auschwitz to the Treblinka camp. As a a prisoner, he worked on the construction of a future concentration camp. After a year of deprivation he weighed a meagre 48 kilogrammes. His father Josef bribed the deputy mayor of Olomouc, who put in a good word for Zbyněk, causing his release. Soon after his return, Zbyněk Pišťák married Olga Šermanovová of half-Jewish descent. People started avoiding him, and in December 1944 he was arrested a second time and sent to the labour camp in Dresden with a note in his file: „Return undesirable“. In February 1945, a large bombing raid was called down on Dresden. By mere chance the bombs did not hit the part of the jail where Zbyněk Pišťák‘s cell was. As a prisoner he was forced to clear up after the bombing, and so he was able to see with his own eyes the catastrophic result. Due to non-existent supplying, and thus lack of food, he and other prisoners decided to break out. With good fortune, and chased by the Gestapo, they reached Czechoslovakia. After the liberation of Prague he was witness to the horrific vengefulness that some Czech inhabitants brought to bear on German civilians. He chose rather to go to Lipiny near Šternberk, where he functioned for some time as commissar. But even there he could not stomach the way in which the Germans were being expelled. He returned to the teaching profession. He taught in Lipiny, Horní Sukolom and in Oskava, where he became headmaster in 1967. He had been living in Oskava until his death in august 2014.
Wife Olga with son Zbyněk - this photograph was sent secretly to the witness when he was imprisoned in Dresden; he kept it safe the whole time - 11th March 1945
Wife Olga with son Zbyněk - this photograph was sent secretly to the witness when he was imprisoned in Dresden; he kept it safe the whole time - 11th March 1945
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