Otakar Jaroš

Significance

Otakar Jaroš (1912–1943) was a Czechoslovak officer who fell on 8 March 1943 defending the village of Sokolovo. [JAR01; JAR02] Jaroš was posthumously made a Hero of the Soviet Union. [JAR01]

Life

Jaroš was born on 1 August 1912 in Louny; the family moved to Mělník, where he grew up. He did not finish gymnasium and in 1934 graduated from the Higher Electrotechnical School in Prague. He began conscript service on 1 October 1934 with a telegraph battalion in Trnava and on 29 August 1937 was commissioned as a lieutenant of the telegraph troops. [JAR01] After the occupation of Czechoslovakia, according to JAR01, he briefly worked as a post-office clerk in Náchod, reached Poland on his third attempt and from there the USSR, where he was interned. [JAR01] In the USSR he was a signals platoon commander, a commander of an officer school and in 1942 commanded the 1st training company at Buzuluk. [JAR01; JAR02]

Sokolovo and commemoration

According to JAR01, in March 1943 Jaroš commanded the defence of Sokolovo and was killed in the battle on 8 March 1943 with the rank of first lieutenant. [JAR01] Valka.cz describes how in early March he volunteered to lead his 1st infantry company in defending the village on the river Mzha against German forces, promised Svoboda that he would not retreat, and was killed in front of the village church, reportedly by machine-gun fire from a German tank. [JAR02]

According to JAR01, Jaroš posthumously received the Order of Lenin and the title Hero of the Soviet Union (both on 17.4.1943) and, in Czechoslovakia, the Czechoslovak War Cross 1939 (13.3.1943) and other honours; the article calls him the first foreigner in the Second World War to receive this title. [JAR01] His burial place is given at the level of the Zmiiv district, with no specific location; in Sokolovo there is a war grave of those who fell in the battle, and in Kharkiv a street named after him and a memorial plaque. There are also memorials in Buzuluk, Svidník, Mělník and Louny. [JAR01]

Disagreements in the sources

Rank: JAR01 calls him a first lieutenant at his death and a captain in memoriam; both variants occur in the same article. Unit names are unclear in the article: JAR01 names the Czechoslovak unit differently in different places (independent field battalion or corps), and JAR02 does not name the battalion at Sokolovo directly. [JAR01; JAR02]

Political views: JAR02 portrays Jaroš as a man who detested communists and relies on later witness recollections and on the work of the historian Jaroslav Hrbek; it says that in 1942 Jaroš protested against political agitation in the unit. These testimonies are given in this dossier only as the article's claims and were not checked. Soviet and communist propaganda used him as a hero, which JAR02 regards as at odds with his actual views. [JAR02] JAR01 does not write about Jaroš's political views. JAR01 gives no details of the course of the battle at Sokolovo. [JAR01]