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Commemoration service at Cholmondeley Castle

On Saturday 6th July 2019, the Association of Czechoslovak Legionaries Abroad organised a commemoration service at the Czechoslovak Memorial in the Park at Cholmondeley Castle, about 44 miles South East from Liverpool, where in July 1940 3274 Czechoslovak volunteers arrived on the board of UK Navy or Commonwealth’s ships to go on in the fight for freedom and defeat of Nazism.

The day of 7th July 1940, when the first rear units of the Czechoslovak Brigade were moved to the military camp in  the Park at Cholmondeley Castle, is reminded by the text on the sandstone Memorial that was carved by nineteen year old private Franta Belsky, who later became an internationally recognised sculptor (for example the author of the remembrance plaque of parachutists and priests at the Church of Saints Cyril and Methodius in Prague, the bust of Winston Churchill at the Embassy of  the UK in Prague, the Triga in Knightsbridge in London, the Torsion Fountain at the Shell Centre in London). The Czechoslovak military camp was used till 16th October 1940 when the Czechoslovak Brigade Headquarters and its units were moved to the spa town Leamington Spa (Warwickshire) and localities in the vicinity (Kineton, Marston, Moreton Padox, Moreton Morrel, Warwick, and Stratford on Avon).

At the commemoration service there were representatives of the Czechoslovak veterans associations in the United Kingdom, the Royal British Legion and cadets of the RAF Air Training Corps. The Czech Republic and the Czech Embassy in London were represented by the First Secretary Markéta Štěrbová and the Defence Attaché Colonel Jiří Niedoba. The future met the past and the message about determination and bravery of people was passed to the further. It was moving to watch the first meeting and the talk between two descendants of the 311th Czechoslovak Bomber Squadron members: Arnost Pollak and Josef Hradil.

The act of remembrance was introduced by reading of the original English text of the part of the poem For the Fallen (author is Robert Laurence Binyon) in the Czech language to emphasize the time of Czechoslovak being in the United Kingdom:

‘They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old.  Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.  In the morning and at the going down of the sun, we will remember them.’

‘Nezestárnou jako my, kteří jsme ponecháni stárnutí.

Věk je neunavuje, ani neničí.
Ráno i při západu slunce 
si je budeme pamatovat.‘ Čest jejich památce!

After playing the Last Post and the Reveille by the bugler Mr Ted Fowles, the text of Kohima Epitaph was read again in the Czech language:

‘When you go home, tell them of us and say, for your tomorrow, we gave our today.’

'Když se vrátíš domů,
 Řekni jim o nás a pověz:
 Pro Váš zítřek
 jsme dali náš dnešek.'

Colonel Jiří Niedoba used in his speech memories of Jaroslav Němec, the member of the Czechoslovak Brigade, about time of arrival to the military camp in the Park at Cholmondeley Castle by reading a part of the book On All Fronts (Czechoslovaks in World War II).