Otakar Yarosh was born on August 1, 1912 in Louny (Czech Republic) in the family of a locomotive stoker. His parents gave him a name in honor of the Czech king, who became famous for his military victories. After graduating from the Prague Electrotechnical College, Otakar decided to become a career military man. In 1937, he graduated from a higher military school in the city of Hranice, then served in the Czech troops. After the occupation of the Czech lands in 1939 by Nazi Germany, he emigrated to Poland, and then to the Soviet Union. The Munich events convinced Otakar Yarosh that the Soviet Union was the main ally and defender of the freedom of Czechoslovakia. He would have fought at home, but he could not, there was another front, an underground one, which he did not really trust and was even afraid of him ... but he was not afraid of meeting the enemy. In February 1942, Otakar Yarosh, together with Lieutenant Colonel L. Svoboda and a group of military men, arrived in Buzuluk and, as a professional military man, was appointed commander of the 1st company of a separate Czechoslovak infantry battalion. So the military telegraph operator became an infantry commander. At the first meeting with personnel company Otakar Yarosh said: “Soldiers, just as a pile of bricks is not a building, so a group of soldiers is not a combat-ready unit. I am your commander, and I will have to lead you into battle. Please be aware of who we will have to fight. These are not some frightened youths for you, but fascists who have perfectly mastered the art of killing. If we want to successfully resist them, moreover, defeat them, then we must know a lot, be able to do a lot. We must know and be able to do more and better than they do. I believe that you understand me and no task, even the most difficult one, will knock you out of the saddle. This is what I will lead you to today. Don't expect any relief from me. I will demand a lot from you."
And in any weather: in rain, in summer heat, in severe frost and in deep snow they crossed Samara, stormed the Sukhorechensky mountains, built huts in the forest, developed skills for living in the most difficult conditions. They acted according to the famous Suvorov principle: “It is hard in learning - it is easy in battle!”. Otakar Yarosh has always been an example in everything. As a commander, he was strict, demanding, firm, however, he was loved and respected by the soldiers.
In a letter home, to his homeland, he said that he was going to the front and hoped that he would return home, but it might happen that he would not return ...
January 30, 1943 Otakar Yarosh as part of a battalion, echelon 22904 went to the Soviet-German front. Many residents of Buzuluk then came to see off the allied (Czechoslovak) military unit on a long journey ...
Unloading from wagons1 at the Valuyki station. March through Alekseevka, Volchanok, Belgorod. The commander of the 1st company Otakar Yarosh, like the commander of the battalion Ludwik Svoboda, walked along with the soldiers on foot.
A short rest in Kharkov, recently recaptured from the Germans. Late in the evening on March 2, the Czechoslovak battalion received order No. 006 from the head of defense of the Kharkov city district, Lieutenant General D.T. Kozlov.
The company of lieutenant O. Yarosh was instructed to defend the village of Sokolov. He placed his observation post in the church.
B.C. Petrov, twice Hero Soviet Union, General of Artillery, recalled a meeting with Otakar Yarosh: From the side of Soklov, a man came out to meet, dressed in the same way as all the commanders of the Czechoslovak battalion: a hat with earflaps, an overcoat, equipment with shoulder straps. On the chest binoculars, a camera. He stopped a few paces away and raised his hand to his headdress in greeting. The staff officer introduced the counter lieutenant Otakar Yarosh, commander of the 1st company. After a handshake, Yarosh began to acquaint us with his defensive sector. Calmly, unhurriedly, without missing a detail, Yarosh outlined the tactical scheme of actions for platoons and squads, just as experienced front-line soldiers do. Oh, lieutenant Yarosh inspired confidence! Among his compatriots, people for the most part tall, the commander of the 1st company differed not only in appearance. In the firm gaze of serious, even gloomy eyes, as in all the features of the face of the Czechoslovak lieutenant, the nature of a warrior was visible, vulnerable, perhaps in the flesh, but not in spirit.
And on March 8, 1943, at 13:00, about 60 tanks and 15-20 armored personnel carriers attacked Sokolovo. There is smoke over the village. The roar and rumble was indescribable. Tank guns were loudly beaten, machine guns were scribbling. The single combat of the Germans and the Czechoslovak infantry began. The last conversation of the commander of the Svoboda battalion with O. Yarosh: “You can’t leave. Do you hear, brother Yarosh?” "Let's not retreat, my brother Colonel." O. Yarosh had already been wounded twice during the battle. Blood flooded his face, broken fingers stuck to the trigger of an anti-tank rifle ...
Reserve Colonel Yaroslav Perny (participant in the battle) talks about the last minutes of his life: “Yarosh, on the run, unhooked a bunch of grenades from his belt, obviously intending to throw it at the tank. But he fell dead, struck by a burst of tank machine guns. The tank ran over him, Yarosh's grenades exploded, and the tank turned over on its side. Yarosh, even dead, managed to destroy a fascist tank ... During the explosion, I was covered with earth, the Nazis considered me dead, and this saved my life.
It was about five in the evening. So Otakar Yarosh stepped into immortality. On April 17, 1943, a decree was signed by the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR on awarding Lieutenant Otakar Yarosh the title of Hero of the Soviet Union (posthumously). This was the first foreign citizen who, during the Great Patriotic War received such an honorary title. He was posthumously awarded military rank— captain.
The name of Yarosh is carried by the streets in Buzuluk, Kharkov, secondary school in the village of Sokolovo. In the city of Melnik, in the homeland of Yarosh, a monument was erected with the inscription: “Captain Otakar Yarosh”, a bust of the hero was erected in the regional museum.
Apparently the theme of the Great Patriotic War is inexhaustible (and the Second World War). The question of the very existence, first of all, of the Russian people, and the Slavs of Europe, in particular, was too serious. Our homegrown liberals and the media controlled by the "world behind the scenes" very often recall the "Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact" (as they call it, although such a "pact" never existed, but there was a diplomatic agreement between the USSR and Germany, which existed and exist in practice of all states), a normal document in its essence, aimed at protecting the borders of its state and people. But the media NEVER REMEMBER AND WRITE about the agreement between the heads of governments of Great Britain, France, Italy and Germany, which went down in history as the "Munich Pact", which sanctioned Hitler's seizure of Czechoslovakia. This was the beginning of the world massacre, which claimed the lives of more than 50 million people. But in this post I want to talk about something else, perhaps little known to young people. About the Czech Otakar Yarosh, who lived in the city of Buzuluk, and on January 30, 1943, as part of 1 separate Czechoslovak battalion under the command of Ludwik Svoboda, went to the front, and already on March 8 he accomplished a feat. He was the commander of the 1st company. In the Czechoslovak army, the 1st company is considered the best and is entrusted to the best officer. Lieutenant Otkar Yarosh was the best... This story is about him.
Do you know what kind of guy he was!?...
(In memory of the Hero of the Soviet Union Otakar Yarosh)
The first Hero of the Soviet Union among foreigners, Otakar Yarosh, I type on the keyboard, and for some reason my consciousness protests against the formally correct, but in fact unacceptable in this case words - "foreigner". Not! Not a foreigner, but a native! brother of my people - Otakar Frantsevich Yarosh! Here, in Buzuluk, he lived, breathed, walked the streets of the then military city, together with the senior commander Ludwig Svoboda, prepared the soldiers of the first Czechoslovak infantry battalion to fight the fascist hordes that enslaved his native Czechoslovakia, and were going to pour blood and enslave the Soviet Union.
Then our peoples curbed the “brown plague” of fascism and, thanks to this, the peoples of the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Russia in the 21st century have independence and decide for themselves how to live. This is exactly what Lieutenant (senior lieutenant) Otakar Yarosh dreamed about, for this he, like a soldier honestly, without flinching in a difficult battle, gave his life near the small Ukrainian village of Sokolovo on March 8, 1943. What was Otakar Yarosh like, in what environment did he grow up and be brought up, what helped him become a giant of the human spirit?
He was born on August 1, 1912 in the small town of Luneh (sometimes they write Louny) in the north-west of the Czech Republic in the family of a locomotive driver. The family had many children, Otakar was the second of five sons. In 1923, the family moved to the town of Melnik, located 40 km. south of Prague, at the confluence of the Vltava and Laba rivers. (Much later, a small town in the Orenburg region at the confluence of the Buzuluk and Samara rivers, from where Otakar will take a step into immortality, will vividly remind him of his native places and become his second homeland). For 5 years Otakar studied at a real gymnasium and became a passionate book reader. This was influenced by his mother Anna, who instilled in her son a love for the book. Otakar read a lot of patriotic, historical, adventure literature. He was well acquainted with the works of Russian classics: A.S. Pushkin, L.N. Tolstoy, A.P. Chekhov.
Free from studying and reading books, the young boy devoted time to sports, he was especially fascinated by chess and boxing, although he was a good football goalkeeper, did gymnastics, and swam well. Sports skills gradually helped to forge from young man steadfast warrior.
In 1928, Otakar entered, and in 1934 he successfully graduated from the Prague Electrotechnical College and was drafted into the Czechoslovak army. Then he entered and in 1937, after graduating from a military school in Granik (Moravia), he received the rank of lieutenant and served in one of the military units in Slovakia. A true patriot of the Motherland, Otakar Yarosh was very upset by the events that went down in history as the "Munich conspiracy": when in September 1938, as a result of a criminal agreement between the heads of government of Great Britain, France, Italy and Germany, the capture of Czechoslovakia by fascist Germany was sanctioned. “Without a shot, the Czech Republic was given to the Nazis, without a single shot,” Otakar said bitterly to his comrades. (The help of the Soviet government was rejected by the Czechoslovak bourgeois government of those years).
Not wanting to live under the dictates of the Nazis, Otakar illegally crossed the border with Poland, where he joined the Czechoslovak unit called the "Polish Legion", which participated in military clashes with the Nazis. However, when Poland was occupied by Germany in September 1939, this unit, under the leadership of Lieutenant Colonel Ludwig Svoboda, crossed into the territory of the USSR. On July 18, 1941, by agreement between the government of the Soviet Union and the Czechoslovak Republic, the formation of the Czechoslovak military unit began on Soviet soil. Otakar Yarosh became one of its first officers.
The future soldiers of the First Separate Czechoslovak Battalion arrived in the city of Buzuluk, Chkalovsky Region, on February 5, 1942. There were only 88 of them, and after 2 months there were already 600! Otakar Yarosh lived in Buzuluk on Chapaev Street in house number 69, the owner of which was Maria Makarovna Maslova.
On May 27, 1942, in the Buzuluk cinema, then called "Proletary", and now "Victory", Klement Gottwald, the foreign leader of the communist Czechoslovak resistance, spoke to the fellow countrymen, who said: "I am convinced that you will prove worthy of your Hussite ancestors, that you will be worthy to fight together with the Red Army.” The soldiers of the Czechoslovak battalion stubbornly prepared for battles with the Nazi invaders throughout 1942.
Otkar's company was the best in combat training, the soldiers respected their seasoned, intelligent, fair commander and tried not to let down their "Otu", as they affectionately called him. In any weather: hot summer, rainy autumn, in the cold of winter - the soldiers of the 1st company, according to the Suvorov principle, "hard in training - easy in battle" learned to wield their weapons, overcome obstacles: they went to force the Samara River, storm the steep slopes of the Ataman mountains. It was especially difficult in winter, and Otakar himself once froze his toes so that he could hardly move. And when one day the murmur of individual fighters was heard for the hardships of military service, Otakar Yarosh brought his 1st company to the Kuibyshev plant, where Buzuluk youngsters, aged 13-15 years, were in the shops, standing on stands made of wooden boxes or bricks, for 11-12 hours worked on machine tools, manufacturing products for the needs of the front. This “excursion” turned out to be enough for the company’s soldiers to burn with the desire to get to the front as soon as possible in order to grapple with the hated fascists in battle.
And, finally, on January 30, 1943, the soldiers of the Czechoslovak battalion with echelon No. 22904 left for the West, and already on March 8, the 1st company of Lieutenant Otakar Yarosh took an unequal battle with the Nazis near the Ukrainian village of Sokolovo, near the river with the short name Mzha.
It was a fundamentally important battle. The Nazis knew that they were opposed by an unfired Czechoslovak battalion, and hoped to quickly put an end to it. They believed that the destruction of a foreign unit on the Soviet-German front would prevent the appearance of other foreign units here, so they initially provided a significant numerical superiority in the attack. In total, more than 80 tanks were thrown against the company of Otakar Yarosh, reinforced by two battalions of submachine gunners on 14 armored personnel carriers.
Ludwig Svoboda, by telephone, asked Otar Yarosh to hold out, not to retreat: - “You can’t leave. Do you hear, brother Yarosh? “We will not retreat, brother colonel,” Otakar promised and kept his word.
The fight was hot and furious. An armored tank armada, spewing deadly volleys from guns and machine guns, advanced, in addition, using flamethrower installations, and a handful of brave men, located next to Orthodox Church, repelled these attacks using four anti-tank guns, three 76-mm. cannons, 8 anti-tank rifles, 3 mortars and 6 heavy machine guns.
Ukrainian huts set on fire from flamethrowers were on fire, smoke covered the sky, people fell in battle, the company held on! But now, having destroyed up to 60 fascist submachine gunners, the machine gunner Ignaz Spiegl died a heroic death, having destroyed three tanks, the platoon commander Jiří Frank was killed, comrades P. Gyeri, G. Schwartz were killed, Lieutenant S. Lom was killed from the fire of an enemy tank, Redisch was killed ... Fascist the tanks were approaching the church. By this time, Otakar Yarosh had already been wounded twice, his lung had been shot, blood was coming from his mouth and nose, but, having gathered all his will into a fist, the brave son of the fraternal Czech people, fired from an anti-tank rifle, personally destroying two tanks. Bleeding, grabbing a bunch of grenades, he stepped towards the third tank, but pierced by a machine-gun burst, he fell before reaching a few steps ... Eyewitnesses of these last minutes of Otakar Yarosh's life said that the tank ran into the hero, but exploded and caught fire. It seemed that the dead Otakar continued to fight ... After the battle, the hero's body was identified by the crowns on his teeth ... In this battle, the Czechoslovak soldiers lost 86 people killed and 56 were wounded. Enemy losses amounted to 19 tanks, 6 armored personnel carriers, about 400 people were killed. This is how the "unfired" Czechoslovak soldiers fought with the Nazis! They did not know that messengers were sent to them twice, with an order to retreat to the main forces behind Mzhu, but both messengers died ... 10 tanks sent to help by L. Svoboda could not get through to them, since the loose March river ice could not withstand this mass metal, one of them failed ...
On April 17, 1943, the Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR was signed, conferring the title of Hero of the Soviet Union to Lieutenant Otakar Yarosh. The first among foreign citizens. He was also given the military rank of captain. And only 87 soldiers of the Czechoslovak battalion then received orders and medals of the Soviet Union.
67 years have passed since the end of the war. But Captain Otakar Yarosh is alive! Lives in the memory of grateful people! One of the central streets in the city of Buzuluk is named after him, on the house where he once lived, a memorial plaque, citizens come here to pay tribute to the memory of his bright name, in local history museum The city has an exposition dedicated to the Czechoslovak heroes. And he looks at the visitors young, handsome, courageous man, whom the Buzuluchans, like the soldiers of his heroic 1st company, warmly and fraternally call Ota. Our Ota!
01.08.1912 - 08.03.1943
The hero of the USSR
I Rosh (Jaros) Otakar - commander of the 1st company of the 1st separate Czechoslovak infantry battalion as part of the 25th Guards rifle division 3rd Tank Army of the Voronezh Front, lieutenant (captain, posthumously); the first of the foreign soldiers awarded the title of "Hero of the Soviet Union".
Born August 1, 1912 in the city of Louny (Austria-Hungary, now part of the Czech Republic). Czech. He graduated from the electrical engineering school in Prague in 1934.
Since 1934 - in the service of the Czechoslovak army, served in the 17th infantry regiment. In 1937 he graduated from the Higher Military School in the city of Granice (Czech Republic, North Moravia), then served in the 4th communications battalion. After the occupation of the Czech lands by troops Nazi Germany emigrated in 1939 to Poland and then to the USSR.
In February 1942, he joined the 1st separate Czechoslovak battalion, formed from Czech and Slovak volunteers under the command of Colonel Ludwik Svoboda in the city of Buzuluk (Orenburg Region). On January 27, 1943, the battalion was presented with a combat banner, under the shadow of which the Czechoslovak patriotic soldiers took the military oath.
The 1st company of the Czechoslovak battalion under the command of Lieutenant Otakar Yarosh in the first days of March 1943 received a baptism of fire as part of the 25th Guards Rifle Division of the Voronezh Front. Particularly fierce battles unfolded on March 8, 1943 near the village of Sokolovo, Zmiyovsky district, Kharkov region (Ukrainian SSR).
Against the company of lieutenant Yarosh, who defended Sokolovo, the Nazis threw up to 60 tanks and motorized infantry. During the offensive, the enemy managed to bypass the village, but its defenders continued to fight surrounded and did not give him the opportunity to cross the Mzhu River. The enemy suffered significant losses: 19 tanks, 6 armored personnel carriers with machine gunners were hit and burned, about 300 soldiers and officers were killed. But many Czechoslovak soldiers also died the death of the brave. Among them is the fearless officer Otakar Yarosh. Buried in mass grave in the village of Sokolovo.
At order of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of April 17, 1943 for the skillful management of the unit and the heroism and selflessness shown to the lieutenant Yarosh Otakar awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union posthumously. He became the first foreigner to be awarded the highest degree distinctions of the USSR.
Military ranks in the Czechoslovak army:
lieutenant (29.08.1937),
lieutenant (10/25/1941),
captain (05/05/1945, posthumously).He was awarded the Soviet Order of Lenin (04/17/1943; posthumously), Czechoslovak awards - the Order of the White Lion "For Victory", 1st degree (1948, posthumously), the Military Cross of 1939 (03/13/1943, posthumously), the medal "For Merit" ( 1944, posthumously), Sokolovskaya commemorative medal (03/18/1948, posthumously).
The name of the Hero is given to streets in Buzuluk and Kharkov, a secondary school in the village of Sokolovo. In the Czech city of Melnik, a monument was erected to Otakar Yarosh.
, Ukrainian SSR, USSR
Czechoslovakia Czechoslovakia USSR USSR
Biography
Otakar Frantisek Jarosh was born in the city of Louny in Austria-Hungary (now in the Ustetsky region of the Czech Republic) in the family of a locomotive stoker. Czech by nationality.
Awards
- On April 17, 1943, by the Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, Otakar Yarosh, the first foreign citizen, was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union;
- Order of the White Lion "For Victory", 1st class.
Memory
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She's on the other side.
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Notes
Links
. Site "Heroes of the Country".
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An excerpt characterizing Yarosh, Otakar
Behind, from the place where Karataev was sitting, a shot was heard. Pierre clearly heard this shot, but at the same moment he heard it, Pierre remembered that he had not finished the calculation he had begun before the marshal's passage about how many crossings were left to Smolensk. And he began to count. Two French soldiers, one of whom held a shot, smoking gun in his hand, ran past Pierre. They were both pale, and in the expression of their faces - one of them looked timidly at Pierre - there was something similar to what he saw in young soldier to execution. Pierre looked at the soldier and remembered how this soldier of the third day burned his shirt while drying at the stake and how they laughed at him.The dog howled from behind, from the place where Karataev was sitting. “What a fool, what is she howling about?” thought Pierre.
The comrade soldiers, walking next to Pierre, did not look back, just like he did, at the place from which a shot was heard and then the howling of a dog; but a stern expression lay on all faces.
The depot, and the prisoners, and the convoy of the marshal stopped in the village of Shamshev. Everything was huddled around the fires. Pierre went up to the fire, ate roasted horse meat, lay down with his back to the fire and immediately fell asleep. He slept again in the same dream as he slept in Mozhaisk after Borodino.
Again the events of reality were combined with dreams, and again someone, whether he himself or someone else, spoke to him thoughts, and even the same thoughts that were spoken to him in Mozhaisk.
“Life is everything. Life is God. Everything moves and moves, and this movement is God. And as long as there is life, there is the enjoyment of the self-consciousness of the deity. Love life, love God. It is most difficult and most blessed to love this life in one's suffering, in the innocence of suffering.
"Karataev" - Pierre remembered.
And suddenly Pierre introduced himself as a living, long-forgotten, meek old man who taught geography to Pierre in Switzerland. "Wait," said the old man. And he showed Pierre the globe. This globe was a living, oscillating ball, without dimensions. The entire surface of the sphere consisted of drops tightly compressed together. And these drops all moved, moved, and then merged from several into one, then from one they were divided into many. Each drop strove to spill out, to capture the greatest space, but others, striving for the same, squeezed it, sometimes destroyed it, sometimes merged with it.
“This is life,” said the old teacher.
“How simple and clear it is,” thought Pierre. How could I not have known this before?
- God is in the middle, and each drop seeks to expand in order to largest sizes reflect it. And it grows, merges, and shrinks, and is destroyed on the surface, goes into the depths and emerges again. Here he is, Karataev, here he spilled and disappeared. - Vous avez compris, mon enfant, [You understand.] - said the teacher.
- Vous avez compris, sacre nom, [You understand, damn you.] - shouted a voice, and Pierre woke up.
He got up and sat down. By the fire, squatting on his haunches, sat a Frenchman, who had just pushed a Russian soldier away, and fried the meat put on the ramrod. Wiry, tucked up, overgrown with hair, red hands with short fingers deftly turned the ramrod. A brown, gloomy face with furrowed brows was clearly visible in the glow of the coals.
“Ca lui est bien egal,” he grumbled, quickly addressing the soldier behind him. - ... brigand. Va! [He doesn't care... Rogue, right!]
And the soldier, turning the ramrod, looked gloomily at Pierre. Pierre turned away, peering into the shadows. One Russian soldier, a prisoner, the one who was pushed away by the Frenchman, sat by the fire and ruffled something with his hand. Peering closer, Pierre recognized a purple dog, which, wagging its tail, was sitting next to the soldier.
- Did you come? Pierre said. “Ah, Pla…” he began and did not finish. In his imagination, suddenly, at the same time, connecting with each other, there arose a memory of the look with which Plato looked at him, sitting under a tree, of a shot heard in that place, of a dog howling, of the criminal faces of two Frenchmen who ran past him, of smoking gun, about the absence of Karataev at this halt, and he was ready to understand that Karataev had been killed, but at the same moment in his soul, taking from God knows where, there arose a memory of the evening he had spent with the beautiful Polish woman, in the summer, on balcony of his Kyiv house. And yet, without connecting the memories of the current day and not drawing a conclusion about them, Pierre closed his eyes, and the picture of summer nature mingled with the memory of bathing, of a liquid oscillating ball, and he sank somewhere into the water, so that the water converged over his head.
Before sunrise, he was awakened by loud, frequent shots and screams. The French ran past Pierre.
- Les cosaques! [Cossacks!] - shouted one of them, and a minute later a crowd of Russian faces surrounded Pierre.
For a long time Pierre could not understand what happened to him. From all sides he heard the cries of joy of his comrades.
- Brothers! My darlings, doves! - crying, shouted the old soldiers, hugging the Cossacks and hussars. Hussars and Cossacks surrounded the prisoners and hurriedly offered some dresses, some boots, some bread. Pierre sobbed, sitting in the middle of them, and could not utter a word; he embraced the first soldier who approached him and, weeping, kissed him.
Otakar was born in 1912 in the city of Louny in the Czech Republic, which in those years was part of Austro-Hungarian Empire, in the family of a railway depot stoker. The family was large - five ...
Otakar was born in 1912 in the city of Louny in the Czech Republic, which in those years was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, in the family of a railway depot fireman. The family was large - five sons. After seven years of school, he studied at an electrical engineering college, and being drafted into the army, he ended up in a non-commissioned officer school in Trnava. After serving for several years as a non-commissioned officer in infantry troops, in 1937 he was sent to a military school in the city of Granice-na-Morava, from where he graduated with an excellent diploma and officer rank.
Otakar's hometown
Two passions determined all the interests and the whole inner world of Otakar Yarosh. Above all else in life, he loved books and sports. The house had a small but tastefully selected library. He loved the history of his native and long-suffering country, the history of the Czech Republic. Therefore, for the most part, I read books about that heroic time when Jan Hus, as a heretic, was burned at the stake in Constanta by the cruel, self-satisfied and hypocritical German Catholics of the Pope. And straightforward and responsive to the suffering of his people, national hero Czech Republic, the fearless Jan Zizka raised a flag against the German oppressors, on which the call to fight was printed in large letters - “Pravda vitezi!” - "Truth wins!" Especially liked to read Otakar historical novels classic czech literature XIX century Alois Irasek.
But the Czech Republic, which broke away from the Empire after the First World War, was not independent for long. In 1939, the Germans came ... The patriotic young commander refused to serve the Nazis and secretly left for Poland. He worked as a simple electrician ... But a few months later, German troops, breaking the border, flowed across the Polish land - the Second World War began.
Lieutenant Otakar Yarosh
For a young man with strong anti-fascist convictions, there were two ways - to stay in the occupied country and join the partisans, or to leave for Russia. Otakar preferred the second - he already had a family ... But the war - that's why the World War, so that there are no safe places and safe statuses left in the world. In 1941, Germany treacherously attacked the Soviet Union.
Czechoslovak patriots living on Soviet territory sent a letter to the Headquarters of the Supreme Commander. The letter contained a request: to find a use for their forces on the front of the struggle against the Nazi invaders. In February 1942, the 1st combined Czechoslovak battalion began to form from Czech immigrants in Buzuluk. Otakar Yarosh was among his first volunteers.
Parade before leaving for the front line
The young commander led the first company of this battalion. Since January 30, 1943 - at the forefront, as part of the 25th Guards Rifle Division of the Voronezh Front.
The Czechs fought bravely and desperately, like those whose homeland has been groaning under the fascist boot for years. On March 8, 1943, the battalion took the battle with the Nazi troops near the village of Sokolovo, Zmievsky district, Kharkov region. At noon, about 60 enemy tanks and several armored personnel carriers attacked the village, on the outskirts of which, on the rural churchyard near the old church, the Czech infantry settled in the trenches.
The fighters of Otakar Yarosh's company knocked out 19 tanks and 6 armored personnel carriers with machine gunners. About 300 enemy soldiers and officers were destroyed. During the battle, Yarosh himself was wounded twice - in the head and in the chest, but did not go to the medical battalion for dressing - he continued to command a company and fire from an anti-tank rifle at the advancing enemy. The cartridges came to an end, the orderly, sent with a cart for ammunition to the second line of defense, died along the way. And the enemy tanks crawled and crawled along the melted March snow mixed with mud ... The battalion suffered losses.
One of the tanks broke through to the gates of the churchyard for a dozen meters. Doubt now!
Nádrže hlavy - horí! (on the head - fire!) - Lieutenant Yarosh waved his mitten for the umpteenth time during this battle. But the armor-piercers were silent ... Some were killed, some clung to the parapet in anticipation of replenishment of ammunition. Retreat? .. Yes, how much can you retreat - something ...
The commander unfastened a bunch of grenades from his belt. One grenade is not enough here - the German colossus is healthy! He rose to his height, dashed forward along the crunchy lacquer crust - in front of the enemy ...
A burst of machine-gun fire rang out. She cut off the lieutenant: comrades-in-arms saw from the trench how the uniform on the back was torn by hot bullets passing right through. Staining the dirty snow with blood, Yarosh managed to take five more steps - only five, but they were enough! The officer fell right under the tracks of the iron monster.
Feat. From a painting by a contemporary artist
A deafening explosion interrupted the caterpillar, and the wrecked tank, due to inertia, helplessly turned sideways towards the fighters, collapsed on its side. Tankers climbed out of the burning car, drugged by shell shock, in the smoke and flames, who were immediately laid down by the Czech machine gunner. The rest of the Germans did not dare to tempt fate anymore and retreated ...
After the battle, 120 Czechoslovak fighters who gave their lives "for our and your victory" were buried together with Soviet soldiers in a mass grave in the village of Sokolovo. Among the buried was the lieutenant of the Czechoslovak army Otakar Frantisek Yarosh. The officer was identified only by a silver patch on the surviving sleeve.
Award list of Otakar Yarosh
Posthumously lieutenant Otakar Yarosh was awarded the rank of captain. And on April 17, 1943, by the Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, Otakar Yarosh, the first of the foreign citizens, was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union.
