“I still wonder how I could survive all that.”
Boleslav Štěpánek was born on 15th November 1920 in Staré Teremno in Volhynia. His parents were farmers, his father fought in the Russian Army in WWI. Boleslav went to school in Teremno and to a Polish school in Lutsk. During the Soviet occupation, his uncle Alexandr Pyšl and his cousin Elizabeth Golková were interned in a labor camp in Kazakhstan. In spring 1944 Boleslav joined the Czechoslovak army in Lutsk formed by gen. Ludvík Svoboda. He passed through an army training in Bessarabia, he served as in the medical forces. In fall 1944, took part in the fights at the Dukla Mountain pass but in December he had to be hospitalized in Krosno with pneumonia. He fought at Liptovský Mikuláš, Vrútky and Žilina. He advanced with the army to Moravia where he heard the news that Germany had surrendered. On 17th May 1945 he participated in the parade at Wenceslas square in Prague. After the war, he served at the 24th regiment in Česká Lípa and Žatec, he left the army in December 1945. He settled at a farm in v Soběnice, North Bohemia, and since 1960 he worked in a chemical factory in Lovosice.
