Ivan Petrovich Stěpanov was an aviation engineer and served with the 73rd Squadron. After its destruction, he enlisted in the infantry. He took part in grueling retreating battles and was wounded and taken prisoner. He spent years in various camps until he got to Jablonce nad Nisou (Gablonz an der Neiße), where Ivan gets to know the former naval officer Lieutenant RA Peter Vasiljevic Moskalenko and another Red Army officer with the rank of Second Lieutenant Alexander Trofimovich Kotljarov. This trio planned their escape. Stěpanov worked in repair shops as an instructor and thus had to work for the Germans against his will. According to Moskalenko's post-war narrative, he once asked Stepanov, "So, how long will we serve the Nazis?" and Kotljarov was also there. Thus was born a group of conspirators who decided to escape from the camp at any cost. Moskalenko had been an agitator since 1943, when he worked in laboratories as a cleaner and got hold of paper on which he managed to write texts that called on fellow prisoners to sabotage work for the Germans and called for attempts to escape. From the newly arrived Soviet soldiers, they learned how Stalin treated the prisoners, even though they were captured in the first phase of the war, when the Red Army was still in shock and without a competent command. They had two options to ensure at least some chance of a decent life after the war. Either join the Germans and break through to the west with Vlasov's ROA, at that time no one believed in the defeat of Stalin anymore, it was 1944, or escape from captivity and join the Red Army or the partisans.
The trio of our heroes chose to run away, but took with them two more species about which. On June 10, 1944, they got to the prison yard through the toilet window, on which they cut the lattice with a saw from the workshop. The camp was well guarded and around the camp was a wall with barbed wire, which they also cut through, being lucky that it was not live.
They climbed over the wall and were free. The direction was clearly east, so they set off across the Czech land through Jičín, Hradec Králové, Pardubice, Kostelec, Litomyšl, Kyšperk, Olomouc, Prostějov, Hranice na Moravě, Holešov. One of the five refugees drowned while crossing the Morava River, and the other four stopped to rest near Přílep in a stack of straw after eighteen night marches. There they were found by the owner, who understood everything and helped them without saying a word and took them to rest, his name was Halašta. On the fourth day after the friendly reception, this citizen of Holeš came with a warning that the Germans were doing house searches, but this good man did not lose his presence of mind, he loaded the ladder with straw, the refugees climbed into it, and Mr. Halašta, whose first name we would like to know, drove them all the way to Přílep.
There he directed them to Hostýnské vrchy, and perhaps Saint Kryštof, the patron saint of pilgrims, led them to Horní Bečva, where they met the resistance fighters of Haš's group and they helped them cross the Slovak border, which they crossed at Velké Karlovice.
So this is another part of the book we are preparing. The adventure story of four escaped Soviet prisoners of war still has many question marks and we would be happy if someone could provide us with information about Mr. Halašt from Holešov - what could his name be? Or who the fourth one could be. It is said that Genadij Grečin, but it is not verified.