We decided not to give up and try to run

On October 17th the four members of the Mašín brothers’ resistance group set out to West Berlin, after spending a few days in a hayloft of a farmstead. Near the village of Waldow they lay in a gutter --it was getting dark. They were disturbed by the sound of motors. Trucks and buses arrived to the edge of the forest where they were lying, and men in black Volkspolizei uniforms got out. Mašín recalls: “They encircled us in this forest, there must have been around twelve hundred of them.” They decided not to shoot or run until it got completely dark. “They started to shoot into thin air because they didn't know where we were. But while they were firing they managed to shoot Vašek Švéda. He was bleeding and on top of that they sent their dogs to search for us. There was a whole cordon of policemen there. My brother was lucky to hit two policemen. He shot them dead and they didn't even know where it came from.” The policemen didn't want to advance when two of their fellows were shot. They refused to listen to their commander. The policemen were called off in the end, which is what had probably saved the escapees. “We waited until about ten o’clock," Mašín remembers, "and decided not to give up and try to run.” They convinced Švéda to come with them, but it was obvious he wasn't able to go. They parted with him and set out. Mašín stated: “We all chose a target which we would shoot at. We ran across the forest clearing to the other side and Vašek was already there.” Josef Mašín and Milan Paumer held Švéda under his arms, but it soon became obvious it was not possible to carry on like that. Švéda was well aware of the situation and he was sending his companions away. Mašín comments: “It was quite sad. So we parted with him once again there.”