Good Old Czechs (2022) Movie Script
A film by Tom Bojar
and imon pidla
Produced by
Czechoslovakian airmen fought
in World War II in Poland,
France, Britain, the Soviet Union
and Slovakia.
Only a handful of them fought
on all fronts
and fewer still survived.
Two of them speak in this film:
FRANTIEK FAJTL
FRANTIEK FAJTL
FILIP JNSK
I was born in Donn, a village
in the fields.
Forests were far away
and mountains even further.
Maybe that's why
I was drawn to distances.
I loved the sea and the sky,
their endless horizons.
So, when I finished national service
and was asked to join the air force.
I realised that it was
as though my dream had come true.
I always got bad grades at school.
I wanted to become a cowboy
or run away with a circus
but then I figured out
what I wanted was to be an airman.
When we went out on the streets
in uniform,
people raised us in the air
shouting glory to the army!
We were determined to fight
no matter
how great the force against us.
But then England, France, Germany
and Italy decided in Munich for us.
By the order
of the Ministry of Defence
let all regiments know
of the president's order.
The German army
will commence the occupation
of the Republic
on 15th March at six o'clock.
This cannot be obstructed in any way
as the slightest of incidents
will have inconceivable consequences
and be punished
with the utmost brutality.
The German army will commence
the occupation of the Republic
on 15th March at six o'clock.
This cannot be obstructed in any way
as the slightest of incidents
will have inconceivable consequences
and be punished
with the utmost brutality.
Every single word offended me.
When they informed us
later at the airport,
that we had to give
all our equipment to the Germans,
I swore to leave this country.
I knew
that what I was doing was right.
That's what they taught us at school.
It's called love for your country.
When you're seventeen
you take things pretty seriously.
I declared war on Hitler.
Personally, on him.
He probably never found out
but that doesn't change a thing.
We were at war with each other
and it will be in the history books.
We set off with rucksacks
like tourists.
Our group was led by my friend,
Ota Korec.
A local teacher took us
over the border, another patriot.
We bumped into Polish border guards.
They told Ota to go
and report to a Polish major.
When Ota came back, he was furious.
He'd told the major
that we were fully trained pilots
and want to help Poland.
But the major replied:
There'll be no war
and if there is we, Poles,
will deal with Hitler by ourselves.
It was the same everywhere in Poland.
Substandard equipment
and overconfidence.
It seemed to us
that you can't win a war
just with bravery and pride.
When we got onto a steamer in Gdynia,
some Polish officers appeared
on the pier.
They asked if we didn't want to stay
in Poland after all.
We'd be immediately accepted
into the Polish Air Force,
keep our ranks,
and soon have the opportunity to fly.
Surprisingly,
none of us descended to the pier.
We were off to France.
If you wanted to join
the foreign resistance
you had to leave as soon as possible.
When I was looking
at a map of Europe,
I came to the conclusion
that the shortest way to France
is through Germany.
I thought to myself that it might not
even be that difficult.
The basic laws
of common sense dictate
that only a fool would try to escape
the Germans through Germany.
I said goodbye to the protectorate
in the pub U Man.
I had my last morning goulash soup
and left for the world.
I packed lightly.
I only had shorts,
a worn out scout shirt
and a small haversack.
I was seventeen but I looked older.
My life had never been easy.
I'd been in social care,
lived with relatives
and even had to take help
from complete strangers.
Our neighbour, Major Maek,
gave me advice such as,
"It's not hard to get somewhere,
but then it's harder
to get out once you're there."
I didn't take this particular advice
to heart.
Some flamboyant women travelled
also on the Hamburg train.
They coquettishly leaned out
of the windows in Podmokly.
German customs officers just smiled
and didn't say a word.
Prague whores were leaving
for greener pastures,
to earn some hard Reichsmark.
In Hamburg
I got temporary accommodation
in the Hitler Jugend House.
Maybe they were impressed
by my raised right hand.
I saluted in that way quite often
in the Reich.
It was the only way.
I'd been given some spy tasks
by neighbour Maek.
I was to check out their air force.
So,
I worked as a waiter in Bad Harzburg
where there were a lot of pilots
from the second bomber corps.
It was a beautiful July
and the pilots were eagerly awaited
in their rooms by their spouses
and girlfriends of various kinds.
Tango played in the bars,
magicians performed,
and the sound of Zarah Leander's
captivating voice was everywhere.
But it was obvious that preparations
for war were in full swing.
I decided to leave for France.
When a policeman asked me
during a passport check
when I would be coming back,
I cheerfully answered
that I just want to see the world.
And then I added
that I have to be back in Prague
by September for school.
He hesitated
but eventually stamped my passport.
We were finally in the country
we'd yearned for.
We were hoping they would allow us
to fight the Germans.
Our biggest fear was
that there wasn't going to be war.
Ota would always say:
"I said there'll be a war
so a war there will be!"
I tried to give my findings
from the Reich
to somebody competent in Paris.
They took them
as a teenager's fantasies.
They even threatened to lock me up.
The weather was glorious.
in the evening by the river
there was the smell of grilled meat,
people sipping wine
and young lovers dancing outside,
pressing against each other
and kissing.
Who would want to think about a war?
We were finally assigned
to Le Bourget Airport.
The captain greeted us there
quite warmly
and spoke for a long time
and with real patriotic verve.
"We will win,
because we're the biggest," he said.
I found it though strange
that they often opened
their hangars as late as 9 AM,
sometimes even later.
Or sometimes during flights
those on the ground
would leave what they were doing
and have a champagne toast.
They called it Arrosage.
Nothing against a drink
but couldn't it be after work
or when the weather was bad?
When the Wermacht commenced
their massive offensive,
we found out that France
wasn't prepared for war at all.
Neither militarily,
nor from a morale perspective.
We were though delighted.
We finally could pay the Germans back
and cause as much damage as possible.
They sent us to the front
the next day.
Luftwaffe fighter pilots
often used first shot tactics.
They descended really fast
from a high altitude
with the sun behind them
and shoot the first target they saw,
then disappear.
One day a Dewoitine plane
didn't come back.
Ota was the pilot.
He crashed in flames
with a photo of his Czech sweetheart
in his pocket.
When I was finally accepted
into the Czechoslovak army,
I was still only seventeen.
The commander of the Second Regiment
introduced me to a general
as our youngest soldier in France.
The general remarked fatherly
that France knew all about me.
Of course it bloody didn't.
The atmosphere there was terrible.
And the results went accordingly.
Sometimes it seemed
that our small Czechoslovak group
was the only unit
that wanted to fight.
The resistance was shortlived.
The Wehrmacht and Luftwaffe
had tried out
their blitzkrieg in Poland
and now just repeated it in France.
"C'est triste, trs triste,"
our French colleagues exclaimed.
We were no longer
sleeping in beds
but in abandoned houses
by the airport,
on the benches or even on the ground
with just our leather jackets
over us.
Then the retreat began.
It was horrendous.
Even more horrendous things
came from the skies.
The so called
"Knights of the Luftwaffe"
turned their sights on civilians
and were remorselessly
mowing them down
with machine guns,
canons and bombs.
It would have made even the hardest
gangsters ashamed of themselves.
Nobody trusted
the ceasefire conditions.
And nobody wanted to get captured.
The cruelty of Hitler's troops scared
even the toughest soldiers.
It was the start of a massive
and headless retreat
to all the possible ports
of the Atlantic and Mediterrean sea.
Every retreat is bitter
and ours was awful.
When Ptain offered a ceasefire
to the Nazis,
the only thing
we had left was England.
We managed to get on one trade ship,
but we had to give up all our weapons
The men were angry but obeyed
but I remembered Munich.
Back then
I promised to do no such thing.
So I smuggled a heavy machine gun
on board
and set off for good old England.
They welcomed us like victors
weren't they a bit confused?
The locals asked us
if we're from Belgium,
France or where.
"We are from Czechoslovakia,"
we told them.
And one of the Englishmen cried out:
"Good old Czechs."
It spread through the crowd.
Everybody was shouting:
"Good old Czechs, Good old Czechs!"
Even though they hardly knew
where Czechoslovakia even is.
Everything is tidy and calm.
There are no refugees on the streets,
no bombs falling from the skies
and people even laugh.
Nobody complains here.
Politicians tell people
unpleasant truths;
everybody listens
and does what is necessary.
Thank God
they have Churchill over here.
He refuses to even talk
with the Nazis.
When I learnt to swim as a boy
my mum used to tell me:
"If you drown,
don't you dare come back home,
my rascal."
Later, when I started flying,
she used to say:
"Be careful, my boy."
And I used to reply:
"I will always fly as you want,
low and slow.
And slow down before a turn."
The basis of each aerial fight
is a vertical turn.
And you always have to be able
to clearly see your enemy.
One after another we shoot
long bursts of ammunition at them.
It's almost like an execution.
We're flying over Cambridge.
The university district
is just 400 metres below us.
Venerable professors of philosophy
and their students
are probably looking up at us.
Will their brief lesson confirm
their theory on the futility of war?
I don't know.
The three of us in the hurricanes
are already solving it
in our own way.
As England is going through
its darkest hour,
we are just starting our schooling.
As an absolute beginner
I have some tough training
ahead of me.
I'm sure it's pretty similar
to the German drill.
We swore our obedience
to the King of England
and were given English uniforms.
I realised that it's the first
serious suit in my life.
The most important thing for bombers
is complete harmony amongst the crew,
only then will we be able to fight.
I, as the gunner,
can't ever leave my rear tower.
There's no armour
or bulletproof glass.
Our bombing squadron motto is
"Never regard their numbers!"
I kind of like that.
We can't wait to fight.
The boys are merry,
making friends with the English
and teaching them Czech words
such as pikumpr or Vrovice.
Both nationalities swear a lot
in both languages.
It is considered a sign of friendship
amongst soldiers.
Many of us found girlfriends in town.
We get invited to meet their families
and have to tell them
about Czechoslovakia.
Sometimes
I get tired of all these niceties
and start to tell them
my memories of Munich.
Makes some of them a bit ill at ease
They gave us new fighter planes
and we're delighted.
The Spitfire is like a ballet dancer
compared to the heavy Hurricanes.
We got a deliveryof knitted
sweaters, scarves and gloves
from a girls' school in Bristol.
We have enough of everything.
But don't really want to hurt
their feelings
so we send our thanks.
The guys said they should have sent
the girls instead.
Their beer doesn't froth at all,
bartenders back home
would be furious.
It's strong though.
Pubs here have romantic names
such as The King's Arms,
The Dog and Partridge
or The White Heart.
We fight the language
as well as the Krauts.
Like Standa said:
"Everybody here talks
like they have a plum in their mouth
but I don't need a How do you do?
to shoot down a Messerschmitt."
Here I finally understood
what it means to fly over the Reich.
The plane has to be absolutely still
in the last phase.
Until the navigator drops the bombs
the plane can't move at all.
Which under heavy artillery fire
basically means
planning your own death.
We age months in those few minutes,
sometimes even years.
We leave only horror on the ground.
Should I stop doing it?
I know our job isn't pretty.
But someone has to do it.
They gave me a Medal for Bravery
for shooting down two planes
in the Battle of Britain.
They wrote that I'm a very good,
brave fighter pilot.
I don't know about that.
I just know that it's an honour
to serve England.
The breakfasts are larger
than lunches,
they drink tea with milk,
you open the throttle forward
rather than backwards
and they don't add lard
to the spinach,
but England is still our second home.
The Nazis somehow figured out
that there was very little water
in the Thames.
And they even found out
the length of the fire hoses.
They had a field day that night.
They started dropping heavy Hermann
and Satan bombs on the city.
And then the swarm
of incendiary bombs.
People just sat there calmly
reading their newspapers.
Not caring about
what's going on above them.
If something has a tradition
in England,
then they stick to it no matter what.
Take that tea of theirs for example.
Take it away and they'd riot.
I bet that if a bomb
tore through an Englishman's leg,
he would calmly finish his tea
and only then call the ambulance.
We decided to go
and take a look at the catastrophe.
We were lost for words
when we got to the Thames.
It was terrible and beautiful
at the same time.
We didn't have the courage
to go further up stream.
We couldn't really,
the heat would have fried us.
There was an air-raid warden
in every street,
whose job it was to get
all the people to the bomb shelters.
My one seemed a bit down
that morning.
He told me that his street
was burnt to the ground.
Only thing he had left from his house
was a key
that was hanging on his neck
for good luck.
Some bloody luck
People patiently wait in queues
for food and say nothing.
The traffic barely works
and they just stand there and wait.
Posters appeared outside:
"Are you taking a bath?
Five inches in a bath is patriotic!"
Before the week's end
people bought rulers
so they could measure five inches
of warm water.
The English are a strange nation,
but I'm starting to understand them.
Everyone who came to our squadron
had about half a year of life left.
Tommy did the maths
for us the other day.
"Gentlemen," he said
"the likelihood that you return
from thirty five raids is 0.17%."
I feel sick
when the full moon comes around.
Its a natural reaction.
We become an easy target
for the Krauts
in the cold light of the moon.
Have you ever seen death?
You can't touch it,
can't describe it,
but you know it's there.
Standing in front of you,
watching,
waiting.
It has time,
plenty of time,
no need to rush.
If only I could shout,
leave,
hide somewhere.
I don't want to fly over Essen,
I don't want to die!
I wonder
what people back home are doing.
Are the Germans leaving them alone?
They often write in novels
that people have bizarre thoughts,
forebodings
and see bad omens before death.
They say people feel their end
and desperately fight it.
It's completely different in reality.
A pilot concentrates on caring
for his machine,
never thinks about being shot down.
Someone else
is going to get it today,
not him.
What's all this fighting
compared to this?
War only lasts a second
but the clouds are eternal.
In nature things have an order
and everything happens for a reason.
It only takes one shot
and it's all over for you.
The last man not to come back
was Standa.
Just last week
I asked him
if he had any commitments
of a romantic nature back home.
He just smiled and said:
"I wouldn't say so."
We are sentenced to glory.
You get a Medal for Bravery
for three raids
and a Military Cross from
the president for twelve.
When I was standing there
at attention,
I remembered how much I was scared
and prayed to a god
I didn't believe in.
Then it just occured to me,
that I must say it out loud.
"Staff captain,
I refuse to take this medal!"
He wanted to know the reason.
"Reason, sir?
I'm not brave, I'm afraid."
Needless to say I got into
some serious shit for it.
To stop being afraid I started
flying when I wasn't supposed to.
When a gunner couldn't fly,
when he had a cold,
which isn't a laughing
matter up there,
I'd sneak on the plane
just before take-off
and voluntarily fly over the Reich.
Also I started to get into fights
in the pubs.
Some English soldiers,
mostly infantry,
have a really stupid habit.
When there are a few of them,
they start to provoke
and offend foreigners.
I can tolerate "bloody",
when they say "bastard"
I get to my feet,
but when I hear "fucking Czech"
a lightning punch follows.
The boys are getting nervous,
melancholic, indifferent to anything.
They write their wills even
though they don't own anything.
There's bad news from home as well.
Whole families are disappearing
into concentration camps.
It's going downhill with me as well.
I barely eat or sleep,
I just wander in the woods.
I take my gun with me even there.
I just want to live so much
I was thinking that after all
the trouble I was getting into,
it wouldn't be a bad idea
to change the scenery.
Then I heard about an offer
of voluntary transfers
to the Eastern front.
When I was assigned to be commander
of our fighter squadron
to be sent to Russia,
I didn't hesitate for a moment.
Dolly Doleal patted my back
and said:
"Do it just like you've been doing it
here and it'll be alright.
We'll go from the west,
you from the east
and we'll meet in Prague."
Why are the Germans still fighting?
The Japanese are too far
and Italians are more of a burden
than anything else.
Their navy is a prime candidate
for the Nobel Peace Prize.
Some of us are even worried
that we won't get to shoot
any more Germans.
Gibraltar.
I've been here before.
Two years ago I got shot down
during a big battle over France
and I fell right
into the Germans' lap.
They surrounded me
but I luckily escaped.
It was a long and hard journey.
I passed through occupied
France to Ptain's France
and from there
across the Pyrenees to Spain,
where I was almost extradited
to the Germans.
Thanks to the hard work of English
diplomats, I got to Gibraltar
and back to my squadron.
There are unbelievable
class differences here.
Market vendors try to get
hold of oranges
somewhere over night.
And when they don't sell quickly,
they eat a whole lot of them
out of absolute hunger.
I feel most sorry
for the pretty little kids.
Their mothers only have
dirty rags to dress them in
and many you can see are sick.
When they found out in London
that I wasn't even a sergeant,
they told me that
I have to travel
the whole thirteen thousand
kilometres to Russia third class
Traveling through the Middle East
as a lone white man isn't easy.
I had to defend myself
a couple of times
and on some parts of the journey
I couldn't even sleep.
But on the other hand,
I crossed the Jordan
and saw tiger tracks.
I almost saw Babylon too,
but unfortunately,
they issued an arrest warrant for me.
Finally I got all the way
through Baghdad, Tehran
and Baku by train
to Przemysl, Poland,
where the Soviets were operating.
The enslaved nations of Europe,
suffering under the yoke
of German tyrants,
regard you as liberators.
This huge task lies
on your shoulders.
Carry out your responsibility.
The war you lead is a war for freedom
a righteous war.
The whole of Russia
is completely devastated.
Only here did I really see
the full horror of war.
I joined my division
with a reputation.
All of us there were troublemakers.
Partisans, paratroopers,
we even had a former sniper
from Karelian Isthmus.
One guy didn't like getting up,
one would come back home
with a black eye
and another swapped his shirt
for a bottle of spirits.
I guess only such people would
voluntarily get
into the unarmoured cabin
of a Shturmovik
and fly every day
facing a storm of bullets.
There are fireworks every night
over Moscow
in celebration of captured cities.
But the boys are grumpy, jealous
of the victories of Soviet pilots
and asking
if we're here as tourists.
We even wrote a letter to Stalin
asking him
to send us to the front immediately.
But the Russians keep calm,
telling us:
"Don't you worry,
the war is not over yet.
The Germans are still strong
and you'll have
plenty of work with them."
People look very serious here.
They often have
very gloomy expressions.
It's obvious that there's still
a cruel war going on.
Instead of fighting
we must attend various meetings.
I found it odd to see a speaker
applaud himself, it seemed so smug.
They explained
that he wasn't applauding himself
but the contents of his speech.
They also warned us in advance
that we will probably see things
we won't like here
but we're not
to criticise the Russians.
They've been through a lot.
Their mentality is completely
different to ours
and we might never
really understand it.
I wish the awful,
bloody war was over already.
Right now.
Even if we don't get to shoot again.
We flew over Auschwitz today.
It seemed to me
that the undergrowth downwind
was slightly higher.
I figured it was because of the ash
blown down from the incinerators.
I want to see some unreformed Nazi
try to convince me
there are no concentration camps
in Poland!
As soon as we heard
the news on the radio
that an uprising
had broken out in Slovakia,
we ran to check it out
at headquarters.
It was completely upside down there.
There were a lot of young Slovaks
who had disobeyed the Nazis
and run to us
at the earliest opportunity.
I was tasked with going to monitor
the situation at Tri Duby Airport.
I had been waiting
five long years for this.
I'm flying home!
My name is Captain Fajtl
and we flew over to help you.
I introduced myself
and trembling
descended onto home soil.
Chbera went to town
for reconnaisence.
He said, that the Slovak women
are elegantly dressed
and it's a joy to look at them.
Also that there is enough meat
and plenty of wine.
When I told him that we won't have
much time to enjoy life,
he just gave me a playful grin
and waved his hand.
To our surprise
we met American planes.
When we approached them in the air,
slightly closer
than is the prescribed distance,
they started firing at us.
And we were there to protect them!
We asked
why the hell they shot at us.
"Have you ever been to America?"
one of them asked.
"Never."
"Shame. Then you'd understand
that back home
we shoot at everything.
Even friends."
The very next day we attacked
the German airbase in Pieany.
We wanted the Nazis to feel
the heavy fist of justice
right between their eyes.
When I was little,
mice plagued our fields
and destroyed our crops.
We were merciless exterminators.
We poured urine into their holes
because they hated it.
They immediately ran out
and we finished them off
with broom handles.
We were swallowed up
by the god of war.
The mere word peace
seems to be utterly unreal.
When do I finally get home?
What am I going to do after the war?
I didn't finish school,
I have no qualifications
and I can't really do anything...
...apart from flying around
with a machine gun.
My commander asked me
if I believed in life after death
since I've looked death
in the eyes so often.
I told him: "It's eyes?
I've seen its arsehole, major!
There is nothing more.
The light goes out and that's it!"
I don't want life after death,
I'm fine with this one.
I like it.
I don't want eternal youth or wealth.
I'll always earn enough after the war
to have a couple of pairs
of trousers and a jug of wine.
When we were marching down
Old Town Square,
smiling girls were waving at us.
"Long live our pilots," they yelled.
And we replied right back:
"Long live our girls!"
I was surprised
how many men were wearing
their uniforms
from the First Republic.
Most of them were in a queue
before Kinsky Palace.
In my naivety I thought
that it was perhaps some petition,
maybe a thank you to the Soviet army.
One bystander
then brought me back to reality.
He explained that there's
where they're redistributing flats
after the Germans.
Frantiek Fajtl was released
from the military
after the communists took power.
Later he was arrested
as an enemy of the proletariat
and without due process,
sent to a forced labour camp
for one and a half years.
Filip Jnsk started to study law
but was forced to leave
and permitted
to take only a manual job.
Frantiek Fajtl and Filip Jnsk
did not meet
until long after the war.
They became good friends.
Music
Editor
Sound design
Voices of the airmen
Research
Writer and Director
Written in co-operation with
Script Editor
Graphic Design
Producer
Producers
Co-Producers
Special Thanks
to the Airmen's Families
Special Thanks from the Producer
Archive Material
Music used
Literature used
Grading and Mastering
In co-operation with
Production Team esk Televize
Production Rozhlas a televize Slovenska
Distributor
Czech Republic and Slovakia
PR Services Sales
Agent Legal Services
The director thanks
The producers thank
This film is dedicated
to my grandfather, Karel Zelen,
who served in the RAF during the war.
Tom Bojar
In memory of my family members: Ely,
Emelie and Viktor Schwarz
who were murdered in Auschwitz.
imon pidla
The film was made under the auspices
of the following institutions
The film was made
with the financial support of:
Corporate Partners
Copyright
and imon pidla
Produced by
Czechoslovakian airmen fought
in World War II in Poland,
France, Britain, the Soviet Union
and Slovakia.
Only a handful of them fought
on all fronts
and fewer still survived.
Two of them speak in this film:
FRANTIEK FAJTL
FRANTIEK FAJTL
FILIP JNSK
I was born in Donn, a village
in the fields.
Forests were far away
and mountains even further.
Maybe that's why
I was drawn to distances.
I loved the sea and the sky,
their endless horizons.
So, when I finished national service
and was asked to join the air force.
I realised that it was
as though my dream had come true.
I always got bad grades at school.
I wanted to become a cowboy
or run away with a circus
but then I figured out
what I wanted was to be an airman.
When we went out on the streets
in uniform,
people raised us in the air
shouting glory to the army!
We were determined to fight
no matter
how great the force against us.
But then England, France, Germany
and Italy decided in Munich for us.
By the order
of the Ministry of Defence
let all regiments know
of the president's order.
The German army
will commence the occupation
of the Republic
on 15th March at six o'clock.
This cannot be obstructed in any way
as the slightest of incidents
will have inconceivable consequences
and be punished
with the utmost brutality.
The German army will commence
the occupation of the Republic
on 15th March at six o'clock.
This cannot be obstructed in any way
as the slightest of incidents
will have inconceivable consequences
and be punished
with the utmost brutality.
Every single word offended me.
When they informed us
later at the airport,
that we had to give
all our equipment to the Germans,
I swore to leave this country.
I knew
that what I was doing was right.
That's what they taught us at school.
It's called love for your country.
When you're seventeen
you take things pretty seriously.
I declared war on Hitler.
Personally, on him.
He probably never found out
but that doesn't change a thing.
We were at war with each other
and it will be in the history books.
We set off with rucksacks
like tourists.
Our group was led by my friend,
Ota Korec.
A local teacher took us
over the border, another patriot.
We bumped into Polish border guards.
They told Ota to go
and report to a Polish major.
When Ota came back, he was furious.
He'd told the major
that we were fully trained pilots
and want to help Poland.
But the major replied:
There'll be no war
and if there is we, Poles,
will deal with Hitler by ourselves.
It was the same everywhere in Poland.
Substandard equipment
and overconfidence.
It seemed to us
that you can't win a war
just with bravery and pride.
When we got onto a steamer in Gdynia,
some Polish officers appeared
on the pier.
They asked if we didn't want to stay
in Poland after all.
We'd be immediately accepted
into the Polish Air Force,
keep our ranks,
and soon have the opportunity to fly.
Surprisingly,
none of us descended to the pier.
We were off to France.
If you wanted to join
the foreign resistance
you had to leave as soon as possible.
When I was looking
at a map of Europe,
I came to the conclusion
that the shortest way to France
is through Germany.
I thought to myself that it might not
even be that difficult.
The basic laws
of common sense dictate
that only a fool would try to escape
the Germans through Germany.
I said goodbye to the protectorate
in the pub U Man.
I had my last morning goulash soup
and left for the world.
I packed lightly.
I only had shorts,
a worn out scout shirt
and a small haversack.
I was seventeen but I looked older.
My life had never been easy.
I'd been in social care,
lived with relatives
and even had to take help
from complete strangers.
Our neighbour, Major Maek,
gave me advice such as,
"It's not hard to get somewhere,
but then it's harder
to get out once you're there."
I didn't take this particular advice
to heart.
Some flamboyant women travelled
also on the Hamburg train.
They coquettishly leaned out
of the windows in Podmokly.
German customs officers just smiled
and didn't say a word.
Prague whores were leaving
for greener pastures,
to earn some hard Reichsmark.
In Hamburg
I got temporary accommodation
in the Hitler Jugend House.
Maybe they were impressed
by my raised right hand.
I saluted in that way quite often
in the Reich.
It was the only way.
I'd been given some spy tasks
by neighbour Maek.
I was to check out their air force.
So,
I worked as a waiter in Bad Harzburg
where there were a lot of pilots
from the second bomber corps.
It was a beautiful July
and the pilots were eagerly awaited
in their rooms by their spouses
and girlfriends of various kinds.
Tango played in the bars,
magicians performed,
and the sound of Zarah Leander's
captivating voice was everywhere.
But it was obvious that preparations
for war were in full swing.
I decided to leave for France.
When a policeman asked me
during a passport check
when I would be coming back,
I cheerfully answered
that I just want to see the world.
And then I added
that I have to be back in Prague
by September for school.
He hesitated
but eventually stamped my passport.
We were finally in the country
we'd yearned for.
We were hoping they would allow us
to fight the Germans.
Our biggest fear was
that there wasn't going to be war.
Ota would always say:
"I said there'll be a war
so a war there will be!"
I tried to give my findings
from the Reich
to somebody competent in Paris.
They took them
as a teenager's fantasies.
They even threatened to lock me up.
The weather was glorious.
in the evening by the river
there was the smell of grilled meat,
people sipping wine
and young lovers dancing outside,
pressing against each other
and kissing.
Who would want to think about a war?
We were finally assigned
to Le Bourget Airport.
The captain greeted us there
quite warmly
and spoke for a long time
and with real patriotic verve.
"We will win,
because we're the biggest," he said.
I found it though strange
that they often opened
their hangars as late as 9 AM,
sometimes even later.
Or sometimes during flights
those on the ground
would leave what they were doing
and have a champagne toast.
They called it Arrosage.
Nothing against a drink
but couldn't it be after work
or when the weather was bad?
When the Wermacht commenced
their massive offensive,
we found out that France
wasn't prepared for war at all.
Neither militarily,
nor from a morale perspective.
We were though delighted.
We finally could pay the Germans back
and cause as much damage as possible.
They sent us to the front
the next day.
Luftwaffe fighter pilots
often used first shot tactics.
They descended really fast
from a high altitude
with the sun behind them
and shoot the first target they saw,
then disappear.
One day a Dewoitine plane
didn't come back.
Ota was the pilot.
He crashed in flames
with a photo of his Czech sweetheart
in his pocket.
When I was finally accepted
into the Czechoslovak army,
I was still only seventeen.
The commander of the Second Regiment
introduced me to a general
as our youngest soldier in France.
The general remarked fatherly
that France knew all about me.
Of course it bloody didn't.
The atmosphere there was terrible.
And the results went accordingly.
Sometimes it seemed
that our small Czechoslovak group
was the only unit
that wanted to fight.
The resistance was shortlived.
The Wehrmacht and Luftwaffe
had tried out
their blitzkrieg in Poland
and now just repeated it in France.
"C'est triste, trs triste,"
our French colleagues exclaimed.
We were no longer
sleeping in beds
but in abandoned houses
by the airport,
on the benches or even on the ground
with just our leather jackets
over us.
Then the retreat began.
It was horrendous.
Even more horrendous things
came from the skies.
The so called
"Knights of the Luftwaffe"
turned their sights on civilians
and were remorselessly
mowing them down
with machine guns,
canons and bombs.
It would have made even the hardest
gangsters ashamed of themselves.
Nobody trusted
the ceasefire conditions.
And nobody wanted to get captured.
The cruelty of Hitler's troops scared
even the toughest soldiers.
It was the start of a massive
and headless retreat
to all the possible ports
of the Atlantic and Mediterrean sea.
Every retreat is bitter
and ours was awful.
When Ptain offered a ceasefire
to the Nazis,
the only thing
we had left was England.
We managed to get on one trade ship,
but we had to give up all our weapons
The men were angry but obeyed
but I remembered Munich.
Back then
I promised to do no such thing.
So I smuggled a heavy machine gun
on board
and set off for good old England.
They welcomed us like victors
weren't they a bit confused?
The locals asked us
if we're from Belgium,
France or where.
"We are from Czechoslovakia,"
we told them.
And one of the Englishmen cried out:
"Good old Czechs."
It spread through the crowd.
Everybody was shouting:
"Good old Czechs, Good old Czechs!"
Even though they hardly knew
where Czechoslovakia even is.
Everything is tidy and calm.
There are no refugees on the streets,
no bombs falling from the skies
and people even laugh.
Nobody complains here.
Politicians tell people
unpleasant truths;
everybody listens
and does what is necessary.
Thank God
they have Churchill over here.
He refuses to even talk
with the Nazis.
When I learnt to swim as a boy
my mum used to tell me:
"If you drown,
don't you dare come back home,
my rascal."
Later, when I started flying,
she used to say:
"Be careful, my boy."
And I used to reply:
"I will always fly as you want,
low and slow.
And slow down before a turn."
The basis of each aerial fight
is a vertical turn.
And you always have to be able
to clearly see your enemy.
One after another we shoot
long bursts of ammunition at them.
It's almost like an execution.
We're flying over Cambridge.
The university district
is just 400 metres below us.
Venerable professors of philosophy
and their students
are probably looking up at us.
Will their brief lesson confirm
their theory on the futility of war?
I don't know.
The three of us in the hurricanes
are already solving it
in our own way.
As England is going through
its darkest hour,
we are just starting our schooling.
As an absolute beginner
I have some tough training
ahead of me.
I'm sure it's pretty similar
to the German drill.
We swore our obedience
to the King of England
and were given English uniforms.
I realised that it's the first
serious suit in my life.
The most important thing for bombers
is complete harmony amongst the crew,
only then will we be able to fight.
I, as the gunner,
can't ever leave my rear tower.
There's no armour
or bulletproof glass.
Our bombing squadron motto is
"Never regard their numbers!"
I kind of like that.
We can't wait to fight.
The boys are merry,
making friends with the English
and teaching them Czech words
such as pikumpr or Vrovice.
Both nationalities swear a lot
in both languages.
It is considered a sign of friendship
amongst soldiers.
Many of us found girlfriends in town.
We get invited to meet their families
and have to tell them
about Czechoslovakia.
Sometimes
I get tired of all these niceties
and start to tell them
my memories of Munich.
Makes some of them a bit ill at ease
They gave us new fighter planes
and we're delighted.
The Spitfire is like a ballet dancer
compared to the heavy Hurricanes.
We got a deliveryof knitted
sweaters, scarves and gloves
from a girls' school in Bristol.
We have enough of everything.
But don't really want to hurt
their feelings
so we send our thanks.
The guys said they should have sent
the girls instead.
Their beer doesn't froth at all,
bartenders back home
would be furious.
It's strong though.
Pubs here have romantic names
such as The King's Arms,
The Dog and Partridge
or The White Heart.
We fight the language
as well as the Krauts.
Like Standa said:
"Everybody here talks
like they have a plum in their mouth
but I don't need a How do you do?
to shoot down a Messerschmitt."
Here I finally understood
what it means to fly over the Reich.
The plane has to be absolutely still
in the last phase.
Until the navigator drops the bombs
the plane can't move at all.
Which under heavy artillery fire
basically means
planning your own death.
We age months in those few minutes,
sometimes even years.
We leave only horror on the ground.
Should I stop doing it?
I know our job isn't pretty.
But someone has to do it.
They gave me a Medal for Bravery
for shooting down two planes
in the Battle of Britain.
They wrote that I'm a very good,
brave fighter pilot.
I don't know about that.
I just know that it's an honour
to serve England.
The breakfasts are larger
than lunches,
they drink tea with milk,
you open the throttle forward
rather than backwards
and they don't add lard
to the spinach,
but England is still our second home.
The Nazis somehow figured out
that there was very little water
in the Thames.
And they even found out
the length of the fire hoses.
They had a field day that night.
They started dropping heavy Hermann
and Satan bombs on the city.
And then the swarm
of incendiary bombs.
People just sat there calmly
reading their newspapers.
Not caring about
what's going on above them.
If something has a tradition
in England,
then they stick to it no matter what.
Take that tea of theirs for example.
Take it away and they'd riot.
I bet that if a bomb
tore through an Englishman's leg,
he would calmly finish his tea
and only then call the ambulance.
We decided to go
and take a look at the catastrophe.
We were lost for words
when we got to the Thames.
It was terrible and beautiful
at the same time.
We didn't have the courage
to go further up stream.
We couldn't really,
the heat would have fried us.
There was an air-raid warden
in every street,
whose job it was to get
all the people to the bomb shelters.
My one seemed a bit down
that morning.
He told me that his street
was burnt to the ground.
Only thing he had left from his house
was a key
that was hanging on his neck
for good luck.
Some bloody luck
People patiently wait in queues
for food and say nothing.
The traffic barely works
and they just stand there and wait.
Posters appeared outside:
"Are you taking a bath?
Five inches in a bath is patriotic!"
Before the week's end
people bought rulers
so they could measure five inches
of warm water.
The English are a strange nation,
but I'm starting to understand them.
Everyone who came to our squadron
had about half a year of life left.
Tommy did the maths
for us the other day.
"Gentlemen," he said
"the likelihood that you return
from thirty five raids is 0.17%."
I feel sick
when the full moon comes around.
Its a natural reaction.
We become an easy target
for the Krauts
in the cold light of the moon.
Have you ever seen death?
You can't touch it,
can't describe it,
but you know it's there.
Standing in front of you,
watching,
waiting.
It has time,
plenty of time,
no need to rush.
If only I could shout,
leave,
hide somewhere.
I don't want to fly over Essen,
I don't want to die!
I wonder
what people back home are doing.
Are the Germans leaving them alone?
They often write in novels
that people have bizarre thoughts,
forebodings
and see bad omens before death.
They say people feel their end
and desperately fight it.
It's completely different in reality.
A pilot concentrates on caring
for his machine,
never thinks about being shot down.
Someone else
is going to get it today,
not him.
What's all this fighting
compared to this?
War only lasts a second
but the clouds are eternal.
In nature things have an order
and everything happens for a reason.
It only takes one shot
and it's all over for you.
The last man not to come back
was Standa.
Just last week
I asked him
if he had any commitments
of a romantic nature back home.
He just smiled and said:
"I wouldn't say so."
We are sentenced to glory.
You get a Medal for Bravery
for three raids
and a Military Cross from
the president for twelve.
When I was standing there
at attention,
I remembered how much I was scared
and prayed to a god
I didn't believe in.
Then it just occured to me,
that I must say it out loud.
"Staff captain,
I refuse to take this medal!"
He wanted to know the reason.
"Reason, sir?
I'm not brave, I'm afraid."
Needless to say I got into
some serious shit for it.
To stop being afraid I started
flying when I wasn't supposed to.
When a gunner couldn't fly,
when he had a cold,
which isn't a laughing
matter up there,
I'd sneak on the plane
just before take-off
and voluntarily fly over the Reich.
Also I started to get into fights
in the pubs.
Some English soldiers,
mostly infantry,
have a really stupid habit.
When there are a few of them,
they start to provoke
and offend foreigners.
I can tolerate "bloody",
when they say "bastard"
I get to my feet,
but when I hear "fucking Czech"
a lightning punch follows.
The boys are getting nervous,
melancholic, indifferent to anything.
They write their wills even
though they don't own anything.
There's bad news from home as well.
Whole families are disappearing
into concentration camps.
It's going downhill with me as well.
I barely eat or sleep,
I just wander in the woods.
I take my gun with me even there.
I just want to live so much
I was thinking that after all
the trouble I was getting into,
it wouldn't be a bad idea
to change the scenery.
Then I heard about an offer
of voluntary transfers
to the Eastern front.
When I was assigned to be commander
of our fighter squadron
to be sent to Russia,
I didn't hesitate for a moment.
Dolly Doleal patted my back
and said:
"Do it just like you've been doing it
here and it'll be alright.
We'll go from the west,
you from the east
and we'll meet in Prague."
Why are the Germans still fighting?
The Japanese are too far
and Italians are more of a burden
than anything else.
Their navy is a prime candidate
for the Nobel Peace Prize.
Some of us are even worried
that we won't get to shoot
any more Germans.
Gibraltar.
I've been here before.
Two years ago I got shot down
during a big battle over France
and I fell right
into the Germans' lap.
They surrounded me
but I luckily escaped.
It was a long and hard journey.
I passed through occupied
France to Ptain's France
and from there
across the Pyrenees to Spain,
where I was almost extradited
to the Germans.
Thanks to the hard work of English
diplomats, I got to Gibraltar
and back to my squadron.
There are unbelievable
class differences here.
Market vendors try to get
hold of oranges
somewhere over night.
And when they don't sell quickly,
they eat a whole lot of them
out of absolute hunger.
I feel most sorry
for the pretty little kids.
Their mothers only have
dirty rags to dress them in
and many you can see are sick.
When they found out in London
that I wasn't even a sergeant,
they told me that
I have to travel
the whole thirteen thousand
kilometres to Russia third class
Traveling through the Middle East
as a lone white man isn't easy.
I had to defend myself
a couple of times
and on some parts of the journey
I couldn't even sleep.
But on the other hand,
I crossed the Jordan
and saw tiger tracks.
I almost saw Babylon too,
but unfortunately,
they issued an arrest warrant for me.
Finally I got all the way
through Baghdad, Tehran
and Baku by train
to Przemysl, Poland,
where the Soviets were operating.
The enslaved nations of Europe,
suffering under the yoke
of German tyrants,
regard you as liberators.
This huge task lies
on your shoulders.
Carry out your responsibility.
The war you lead is a war for freedom
a righteous war.
The whole of Russia
is completely devastated.
Only here did I really see
the full horror of war.
I joined my division
with a reputation.
All of us there were troublemakers.
Partisans, paratroopers,
we even had a former sniper
from Karelian Isthmus.
One guy didn't like getting up,
one would come back home
with a black eye
and another swapped his shirt
for a bottle of spirits.
I guess only such people would
voluntarily get
into the unarmoured cabin
of a Shturmovik
and fly every day
facing a storm of bullets.
There are fireworks every night
over Moscow
in celebration of captured cities.
But the boys are grumpy, jealous
of the victories of Soviet pilots
and asking
if we're here as tourists.
We even wrote a letter to Stalin
asking him
to send us to the front immediately.
But the Russians keep calm,
telling us:
"Don't you worry,
the war is not over yet.
The Germans are still strong
and you'll have
plenty of work with them."
People look very serious here.
They often have
very gloomy expressions.
It's obvious that there's still
a cruel war going on.
Instead of fighting
we must attend various meetings.
I found it odd to see a speaker
applaud himself, it seemed so smug.
They explained
that he wasn't applauding himself
but the contents of his speech.
They also warned us in advance
that we will probably see things
we won't like here
but we're not
to criticise the Russians.
They've been through a lot.
Their mentality is completely
different to ours
and we might never
really understand it.
I wish the awful,
bloody war was over already.
Right now.
Even if we don't get to shoot again.
We flew over Auschwitz today.
It seemed to me
that the undergrowth downwind
was slightly higher.
I figured it was because of the ash
blown down from the incinerators.
I want to see some unreformed Nazi
try to convince me
there are no concentration camps
in Poland!
As soon as we heard
the news on the radio
that an uprising
had broken out in Slovakia,
we ran to check it out
at headquarters.
It was completely upside down there.
There were a lot of young Slovaks
who had disobeyed the Nazis
and run to us
at the earliest opportunity.
I was tasked with going to monitor
the situation at Tri Duby Airport.
I had been waiting
five long years for this.
I'm flying home!
My name is Captain Fajtl
and we flew over to help you.
I introduced myself
and trembling
descended onto home soil.
Chbera went to town
for reconnaisence.
He said, that the Slovak women
are elegantly dressed
and it's a joy to look at them.
Also that there is enough meat
and plenty of wine.
When I told him that we won't have
much time to enjoy life,
he just gave me a playful grin
and waved his hand.
To our surprise
we met American planes.
When we approached them in the air,
slightly closer
than is the prescribed distance,
they started firing at us.
And we were there to protect them!
We asked
why the hell they shot at us.
"Have you ever been to America?"
one of them asked.
"Never."
"Shame. Then you'd understand
that back home
we shoot at everything.
Even friends."
The very next day we attacked
the German airbase in Pieany.
We wanted the Nazis to feel
the heavy fist of justice
right between their eyes.
When I was little,
mice plagued our fields
and destroyed our crops.
We were merciless exterminators.
We poured urine into their holes
because they hated it.
They immediately ran out
and we finished them off
with broom handles.
We were swallowed up
by the god of war.
The mere word peace
seems to be utterly unreal.
When do I finally get home?
What am I going to do after the war?
I didn't finish school,
I have no qualifications
and I can't really do anything...
...apart from flying around
with a machine gun.
My commander asked me
if I believed in life after death
since I've looked death
in the eyes so often.
I told him: "It's eyes?
I've seen its arsehole, major!
There is nothing more.
The light goes out and that's it!"
I don't want life after death,
I'm fine with this one.
I like it.
I don't want eternal youth or wealth.
I'll always earn enough after the war
to have a couple of pairs
of trousers and a jug of wine.
When we were marching down
Old Town Square,
smiling girls were waving at us.
"Long live our pilots," they yelled.
And we replied right back:
"Long live our girls!"
I was surprised
how many men were wearing
their uniforms
from the First Republic.
Most of them were in a queue
before Kinsky Palace.
In my naivety I thought
that it was perhaps some petition,
maybe a thank you to the Soviet army.
One bystander
then brought me back to reality.
He explained that there's
where they're redistributing flats
after the Germans.
Frantiek Fajtl was released
from the military
after the communists took power.
Later he was arrested
as an enemy of the proletariat
and without due process,
sent to a forced labour camp
for one and a half years.
Filip Jnsk started to study law
but was forced to leave
and permitted
to take only a manual job.
Frantiek Fajtl and Filip Jnsk
did not meet
until long after the war.
They became good friends.
Music
Editor
Sound design
Voices of the airmen
Research
Writer and Director
Written in co-operation with
Script Editor
Graphic Design
Producer
Producers
Co-Producers
Special Thanks
to the Airmen's Families
Special Thanks from the Producer
Archive Material
Music used
Literature used
Grading and Mastering
In co-operation with
Production Team esk Televize
Production Rozhlas a televize Slovenska
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Czech Republic and Slovakia
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The director thanks
The producers thank
This film is dedicated
to my grandfather, Karel Zelen,
who served in the RAF during the war.
Tom Bojar
In memory of my family members: Ely,
Emelie and Viktor Schwarz
who were murdered in Auschwitz.
imon pidla
The film was made under the auspices
of the following institutions
The film was made
with the financial support of:
Corporate Partners
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