An overcrowded field hospital

In January 1945, after having completed her medical training in Kiev, Olga Lugertová was assigned to a Soviet field hospital together with a group of three other young Czech women where they served until the end of the war. The hospital followed the movement of the front lines and gradually moved through all of Poland. In March, the hospital was deployed in Liptovský Hrádek in the Slovak Republic, where some of the toughest fights took place. "German missiles were exploding dangerously close to the hospital and the wounded were lying everywhere. We had far too many patients to take care of and we didn't know where to put them anymore. The wounded would roar in pain scream at us "here am I, take me, take me! Don't let me bleed to death!" It was really horrible. This was perhaps the toughest area of the whole war. We didn't know where to turn to first," she recalled. One day, a severely burned man was taken to the field hospital in Liptovský Hradek from the battlefield. None of the hospital staff believed he could be saved but the young soldier survived and eventually fell in love and after the war married a colleague of Olga Lugertová, the nurse Jiřinka.