First Lieutenant (ret.) Karel Veselý

(During the wine harvest we learnt the news about the outbreak of the war.). “The day after a French policeman came there, saying that since we were Czechs, and thus citizens of the German Reich, we ought to be sent to an internment camp. We explained to him that we were Czechs, that we wanted to join the army and fight alongside the French against the Germans (…) He was adamant at first, but then he relented. – ´You belong to Nîmes, I don’t want to have you here.´ So we went to Nîmes and reported to the prefectural office there (…) They offered us to join the Foreign Legion, but we didn’t want to; no Czechoslovak army existed in France yet. We didn’t want to go to the Legion too much, we knew how things were there.”

“How I got to the resistance, to the Czechoslovak army in France? It was a matter of coincidence, and I have to begin already in 1937. I studied a grammar school in Prague-Smíchov. (…) In the fifth grade I learnt that I could apply for a study in France. The prerequisite was to pass with honours from the first through the fifth grade, and I had this, but I was not the best one. I excelled in foreign languages, I enjoyed that, but I was not so good in science. (...) I didn’t have all A’s, I never got an A in math. I didn’t think I would be selected. There were applicants from all over Czechoslovakia, and seven students were selected.”

“In Britain I was assigned to serve as a telephone operator in the telephone switchboard in the brigade command in Leamington Spa for a certain time. I was to connect calls in the telephone exchange. There were messages like this: 22LHQ to CIABG. I had no idea what it meant. Only later, as I gained more experience, I learnt that it means 22nd Liaison Headquarters between the British army and our army. CIABG was an abbreviation for our army - Czechoslovak Independent Armoured Brigade Group.”

“The occupation and the establishment of the Protectorate came in 1939. It was a hard blow for us. We didn’t know what would happen (…) We didn’t know that there would be a war. The end of the school year 1939 came and we had to decide whether we would remain in France. I decided to stay, but it was not because I sensed that the war would break out. The reason was that we didn’t know if we would ever be able to come back to France. I loved nature very much, we were camping there, sleeping in a tent by the River Garonne (…) We will spend the summer vacation camping and then we’ll see.”