He crept for water behind the backs of the border guards

On their attempt to escape to Austria, Robert Ospald and his friend Zdeněk Pohl hid for three days in the fields at the border. Camouflaged by the bushy growth, the two fugitives slept under a canvas for three days and nights while they waited for the right time to cross. Soon enough, they ran out of canned meat and drinking water. The stream was muddy and so the water from it was not ingestable. “It was no fun at that point. We ran out of everything we had. A few cans and some lemonade quickly disappeared and then we had to get water. Zdeněk was morose and said that he’d prefer to stay without water, so I had to go for it myself. In order to reach it, I had to traverse the trail where it is crossed by the high-voltage line," he recalled. Each trip for water turned into an adventurous undertaking due to the ubiquitous patrols: “I would lie down on the ground, look around and when I saw that the border guard was looking the other way, I ran to the other side. There was an alley with trees and next to it were lining rings and some irrigation. That’s where I was took the water from. It was very risky because there was nothing but a meadow where you had no cover at all there was one watchtower of the border guards on that meadow. So we had to wait till they were facing in the other direction. I collected some water and quickly disappeared.”