Miroslav Šolc

Miroslav Šolc was born in 1918 in Řepiště near Místek. In 1937 he joined the 8th infantry regiment of the Czechoslovak army. He graduated from an officer school and afterwards was assigned to border garrisons near Jemnice as a group commander. There he experienced a couple of gun battles. After the Munich Agreement he was reassigned to garrisons near the Polish border, where soldiers were attacked by the Polish militia. After the annexation of the Těšín area by the Polish army, Miroslav was called back to Místek. By coincidence, he was in Czajanek barracks on the 14th of March, 1939 and took part in the only armed conflict between Czechoslovak units and the occupation forces. Soon after, he was released from the army and took part in the resistance by helping aviators cross the borders of Protectorate. He also established contact with a resistance group Lvice at his workplace. He took part in several train sabotages, distributed illegal print and smuggled ration coupons for the guerilla soldiers. On the 13th of January, 1943 the gestapo arrested him and after a series of brutal interrogations in Ostrava sent him to Auschwitz where he worked in a gravel-pit. He was nearly beaten to death by the German commandant. Alexej Čepička, the future communist minister of defense, helped him out after that. Later, Miroslav Šolc was assigned to a group which was to exsiccate Pin swamps in today's Belarus territory. But instead of that he was transported, in August, 1943 along with a group of prisoners to Buchenwald and three months later to Dora-Mittelbau concentration camp. He worked in a fire brigade and then in a surgery at nearby Mittelwerk factory where V-1 and V-2 rockets were produced. In May 1945, Dora was liberated by the Russians and Miroslav Šolc was transported to the Red Cross in Leipzig. During the next several months he recovered from the injuries he sustained in Auschwitz. Before Christmas of 1945 he finally made it home. After the war he received a disability pension and a tobacco shop in Nový Jičín. The work did not satisfy him, however so he became a mining directorate. At the present time, he lives in his native Řepiště and has been retired for over forty years.

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