Born 1 January 1925 to a Czech family in Volhynia. In 1944 he joined the Czechoslovak Army Corps in the USSR, serving as a tank commander in the Dukla operation and then – in the spring of 1945 – in the operation to liberate Ostrava. He remained in the army after the war, but following the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968 he was dismissed for his political views. He is an honorary citizen of Ostrava and a holder of the Order of the White Lion – the highest honour awarded by the Czech Republic.
