Translated material
"Loosing freedom."
Nelly Pavlaskova: In the documents about this time, the unique, only memories of Smerchist himself, who participated in the arrests of Ukrainian and Russian emigrants in Prague, have been preserved. It was a resident of Transcarpathian Ukraine, Rusin Nikolai Synevir, who studied in the Polytechnic Institute in Prague in the 30s, and in 1944, mobilized in the territory of liberated sub-Carpathian Rus to the Red Army, as an translator of military counterintelligence Smersh. Immediately after the war, Synevir fled to the west. This is what he writes in his book under the name “SMERSH. A year in the camp of the enemy”, published in the publishing house “City” in 1948. Here are excerpts from this book written in the form of a diary:
“May 6. Moravskaya Ostrava.
Major Greek, my closest boss, met me amiably: “Well done! They got! They heard, in Prague, an uprising?” The sentries in the Ostrava stopped me and asked the password. Work was in full swing in all houses - the Smerashevites were preparing for a large raid. Still! They have long sharpened their teeth on Prague - there are a lot of anti -communist element: Russian emigration, Ukrainian separatists, Czech politicians of different shades, from General Gaida to the very left, like social democrats. It is necessary to destroy everyone who interferes with communism, so the management has such hard work. A huge anthill is not sleeping, raids work, ciphers are knocking, secret and strict -second telegrams fly from management to Moscow and Moscow to management, and thousands of people who will be arrested in a few days are calmly sleeping. In truth, I am surprised by one fact. The Smerashevites have recently been more interested in the Czech Republics and anti -Soviet emigration than the Germans. ”