“Those were colonies, there were Italians there. The houses were built by a Miners' Society because it was the only one in the South of France that was large enough and that it reached as far as Marseilles. And Marseilles is the second city of France. At least it used to be, it is not any more these days because I know that there are about three million inhabitants in Lyon. So on the route Lyon – Marseilles. Well, they simply lived there, they got a large flat of about three-room size with a little garden. My father lived well in there. But there were many Poles and Yugoslavs there and we were regarded as Yugoslavs or 'sale Polonaise, 'dirty Poles. They had a bad reputation there. When you got somewhere, even as a small child to the cinema and when you did something, then you were a 'sale Polonaise,' a Polish swine. They weren't loved by the French very much but we were quite visible there. I have no idea why. Because there were fewer of us, so that was probably why. And we actually started growing up there.”
“I told myself that I didn't wish anything like that (the war) came back again. Not for myself. You are growing old, you are retiring. But so that the young didn't get to know it, that's what matters. You come to the conclusion that war is useless. Why is it being done, though? Can it not be solved in another way? Why should you waste lives of innocent people? No matter which aspect you consider, you have wasted your life. No soldier, no matter a Russian one, an English or a German one, none has got any profit from war.”
“There was an awful confusion everywhere after the war. People were coming back from concentration camps. I came to Paris in June 1945 – many women's hairs were cut close. And I said to myself: 'Is it some kind of a new fashion?' Every woman dating a German had her hair immediately cut close. They shaved their heads with razors. There was no possibility to imprison people because prisons were full of Germans. It was... you cannot say mess... such glory, happiness and a disgrace of some people at the same time.”
“Regina is a name there, it is a town. We waited there for arranging the last bits and pieces for being let to Svoboda's Army to the Eastern Front. There was a change that there would be no Eastern Front. We should go to England. So we left for England and we came as soldiers already. We had to take off our French uniforms in Regina. And there had already been a group of Czechoslovaks who partially served in the Slovak Army. The second part served in the Protectorate Military, the Czech Military during the Protectorate times (the National Military). But they were Czechs. We had such kind of funny feelings. They fought against us and those in that with us. So we had simply those funny feelings. So they explained that to us. Those were people who surrendered, so to say, who deserted and surrendered to the Allies, to the Americans. Then he came (Mayor Brůha), they recruited them and they got British uniforms like we had. And we went by ship to Liverpool.”
“We were two Czechs in an action once. Two unarmed Germans went against us. The person who led us was shouting at us to mishit. We used to wear such blue overalls as boiler suit. We used to wear a tricolor as a sign that we were neither civilians nor soldiers: bleu, blanc, rouge – blue, red, white, to know that we belonged to guerrilla. The Germans were already surrendering at that time, they tried not to maltreat us so much. It was always the way with the SS-men - either them or us. There were no captives, they were uncompromising. Then the two came and said: 'We are from Czechoslovakia.' One of them was from Ostrava, the second one from Prague. He said he got to the German Army by mistake and such... The one who led us: ' Stand there at the tree!' The other one begged them not to shoot us, that it was a stupid thing to do. One of the soldiers cried that he came from Moravian Ostrava. They spoke both Czech and German. Eventually we out-talked him, our commander: 'Let them alone, let them go wherever they want!' And we gave them a piece of advice where to surrender. They should go to the village hall and say that they were Czechs, that they were no volunteers, that they were conscripted. The interviewer: 'What did they end up like? Did they manage to get to the Army then?' Roman Rentka: 'Yes, they did. I met one of them at the airport in Prague-Ruzyně in 1945, he was a two-meter-mountain of a man. He came just from England in an English uniform. We arrived at Prague in September 1945 and I met him in a uniform at the airport. I recognized him. I don't know what his name is anymore but I used to know.'”
“We knew that Heydrich was shot dead in Prague. Czechoslovakia gained a great popularity in the West because we liquidated a Nazi protector. It was such a kind of feeling that we did something, that we didn't surrender. There remained forces that still fought against the Germans. I remember that there was a burial when I was in the cinema – it was shown on the news in 1942, it was when we were in the Army – and there was: 'Half a million French people accompanied the hero Heydrich who was assassinated.' But when there were no Germans in the cinema, people clapped their hands. And people rose in England, the English rose and clapped their hands that there was some kind of resistance in Czechoslovakia.”
“I was introduced to their servant: 'This is our servant.' He greeted in German, a group captain. He said hello and reported in German. I told him: 'I don't understand fucking German.' I told him in Czech that I didn't understand. He replied: 'You can speak English.' His English was perfect, well, better than mine. ... They had such blue uniforms – boiler suits and they had a yellow square on their backs because they were captives. He left the camp in the morning, he knew where to go. He served there till five o'clock in the evening. He was on his way back to the camp at six. He didn't escape, why he would. I spoke to him: 'Hitler kaput. Hitler ist Schweine.' ('Hitler is dead, Hitler is a swine.') He knew the war was basically over.”
“Everyone says that he is not scared. Everyone is scared. Once you get on board a plane and start taking off, you never know what is going to happen next. You get used to it, but still, you are scared.”
Roman Rentka was born in a Czech-Slovak family in Slovakian Orava on August 7th, 1924. His father was Slovak and his mother was Czech. His father left for France in order to work there and his mother followed. Roman Rentka and his siblings were brought up by both their grandmothers in turns in Bohemia and Slovakia. In 1931, at the age of seven, he went at his parents to France, to the town Gardanne at Aix-en-Provence in the South of France. He gained French citizenship and he served his time of apprenticeship as a shop assistant. In order to avoid work for the Hitler Germany as a displaced person in the Third Reich after the French occupation, he started working in French mines starting in 1941. Nevertheless, he eventually worked as a displaced person when clearing up the wreckage after the Allies‘ air raid. In 1943, he started cooperating with the French guerrilla ‚maquis.‘ In June 1944, after the Normandy Invasion, he left for the North of France. He went through military training and joined the French Army. Then he left for England where he was interrogated in connection with his double citizenship because of his qualification to fight with the Czechoslovaks. After his pilot training in Wolverhampton he started as an aerial gunner in the 311 Squadron RAF where he helped to sink German submarines. He got to Czechoslovakia on September 15th, 1945 and he left back for France in 1946 where he lost his background. He returned to Czechoslovakia and left the Army at the end of 1946. Due to his language knowledge, he got a job in a porcelain factory and at State National Security in Karlovy Vary. He also taught Criminal Science in the French colonies Mali and Guinea and he translated professional literature from French for the Ministry of Interior.
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!
