Thursday, October 11

Leaving Cesky Krumlov early this morning we headed to Prague via a couple of our last World War II stops.   The first stop was in the town of Volary where the last soldier in World War II was killed.  Outside town, a road side memorial for Charles Havlet, 803rd Tank Destroyer Bn. had been placed on the exact location of his death by the Military Club of Plzen.  Charles Havlet from Nebraska was the son of Czech immigrants and his brother was also serving in the 803rd.

Charles Havlet Memorial

Inside the town limits of Volary is a very sad and tragic place--a cemetery where over one hundred Jewish young women were buried in 1945.  They were found in a warehouse building by the 5th Division on May 5 after having been marched from Poland on a 90+ day "death march."  Many died and were murdered along the way.  The survivors had been abandoned in the warehouse by their SS guards near the end of the war.  Those buried in the cemetery included those found in a mass grave by American troops and those that died after being liberated.

Jewish Cemetery

Sculpture at Jewish Girls Cemetery

I had previously read a very moving account of this march by a survivor, Gerda Weissmann Klein who married the American Lieutenant that first found her.  The Nazis began this forced march with 4000 women to avoid the advance of the Allies and fewer than 120 survived.

A link to the Memorial 5th Division Website for this Cemetery:  http://www.gjt.cz/includes/military/DMUS/dmus.htm

We traveled on 28 km to Vimperk (called Winterberg under German rule) where Dad was at the end of the war.  We have a dollar bill that he had carried folded up in his wallet on which he had written "Winterberry, 6 May 1945".  The 803rd Bn. Headquarters was in Vimperk at the war's end.

We had an interesting dining experience in Vimperk--stopped for lunch and couldn't read a thing on the menu and no one spoke any English!   The Czech language is radically different from German, French and English.  We just pointed and took pot luck, it was good!