Some years ago, my children and two of my granddaughters, Danielle and Julia, asked me to put on paper what I remembered about our life at home and what our origins had been. Since the time in the Spring of 1945 when we had to flee our hometown, Prague, to save ourlives, all communications with the Old Country had been cut off. As a result I had to rely only on my memory, which had gaps in places.

 

I started to write my reminiscences in 1987 and finished them in the summer of 1989. Like almost all of the victims of Communism, after having had the hopes of defeat of the dictatorship crushed, I did not expect that the infamous way would some day, during my lifetime, crumble. No one in the West was aware of the fact that the system, which by terror and sheer deprivation, tried to create a "New Man", totally subservient to the Communist party, would suddenly and completely fold. Such had been the strength of Communist propaganda that no one dreamed how hollow the system had been.

 

I have been lucky enough to have experienced (from 1918 to 1938) the 20 years of political freedom in our country. Then came the bitter and frightful years of Nazism (dead in 1945), followed by three years (1945-1948) of comparative freedom with the final blowof the Communist putsch which drove some 65,000 people, mostly intellectuals, into exile.

 

Never did we imagine that, as a family we would some day become political refugees! After the Bolshevik revolution in 1917, thousands of Russians had to flee. Years later, after these exiles tried to adjust to completely different conditions, I have asked myself what had happened to these poeple. We did not hear about them any more, as if they had never existed. It became our own fate, too.

 

The first task of a political refugee is to make a living. Yet we all had one more hope: to be able somehow to help our oppressed country to be free again. Yes, we did want to do something about it, but we found we could not do much of any consequence. Most of what we could do was to become good citizens of our adopted country, to take care of ourselves, not to become a burden, to get a decent job, and to prepare a better future for our children. Many of our college educated people were able to contribute something to the public good. My husband, who had been a college professor at home and later also in the U.S., was able to write a long book about his subject of interest, the unconscious. He had a chance to write many articles, both scientific and political ones. He could lecture and inform about the profound changes going on in Europe to all who would like to know. However, had he been at home, had the political situation been favorable, he could have achieved even more.

 

For us, expatriate women, the situation was worse. We had to give up hope of achieving anything permanent. For us it was just a question of survival. Most of us would have liked to leave behind something to be remembered by. Lucky are the individuals who are able to leave behind a written book, a finished picture or sculpture. An expatriate woman will have no chance, energy, or opportunity, to do any of this. Any hopes or expectations the woman might have had come to nothing. Only her children can achieve it. Both expatriate men and women work under more difficult conditions, financial and time consuming, under language barriers, with feelings of not-quite belonging. Their work is harder since they start at the bottom, often at an advanced age. My husband was 49 years old, I was 38, when we had to start al lover again, from scratch. No wonder that, in the process, we both had undermined our health.

 

Many of our fellow exiles have departed since I started my reminiscences. And yet the unexpected has happened: After November 1989 our country has become free again! Our younger people are able to fulfill our dream and visit the homeland. For me it is not to be, however. My two illnesses and advanced age (80s) make it impossible. Yet I have my memories which sustain me.

 

I expect that you, my children and grandchildren, will someday add to this chronicle. Your memories should be happier and more optimistic. Good luck to you! The four words of our national anthem, Where Is My Home? faithfully reflect what has been happening to us, expatriates.

 

Chronicle

 

During World War II, our country had for six years been occupied by Nazi Germany. That regime ruled by violence and cruel intimidation. The desired (and achieved) effect was that people became more and more scared, especially since torture of prisoners became common knowledge. One of the favorite means of terrorizing the population was the condemnation of well-known and popular figures to death and their subsequent executions. After the so-called "Protector" Reinhardt Heidrich, was killed by Czech partisans, some six thousand patriots, mostly intellectuals, were executed as reprisal. Persecution of their families followed. Let us not forget that one of the first things the Nazis did after overrunning our country was to close all universities, putting todeath leaders among the students. The universities remained closed until the end of the war. What the Nazis tried to do was to destroy all higher schooling so that the people were to serve only as factory workers to support the war machine. For centuries, the Germans treated us as inferior people and tried to make sure that no new educated class came to being.

 

The Austrians, under whose rule we had to be for 300 years, treated us the same way, as inferiors. As soon as the Nazis came to power in our country, they forbade us, under penalty of death, to listen to radio from foreign lands, especially Great Britain, where some of our politicians escaped.

 

To keep the population in check, the hours of obligatory work were incredibly long, some 10-12 hours a day. Food was scarce and diseases were spreading (even scarlet fever and diptheria, which previously had almost been eradicated). Rations of food for adults were meager; people over 14 years of age received one-sixteenth of a quart of skimmed milk a day. Butter was rationed to one pat a week, and the first week no one received any butter at all. Meat could be gotten once a week in small quantity. Let us bear in mind that the German-speaking population of our country, as well as the Germans from the Reich who were sent to our country as officials and other representatives of the occupiers, received much better rations, especially where butter was concerned. Nobody but the Germans saw ham anymore (and Prague ham formerly used to be quite popular). There was some food available on the black market, butyou had to have connections in the country. If caught, it was punishable by long imprisonment. Our family did not have any connections outside the city; therefore we suffered quite a bit with lack of proper nourishment.

 

Deep moral depression was widespread. Any underground work against the regime had from the beginning been ruthlessly repressed. Manypatriots who were novices in successful underground political work had been summarily executed during the first years of the occupation. Let us not forget that World War II for us lasted six years. It was not possible to resume underground work until the Nazis began to lose heavily in the war. It is good to remember that during those six years, 246,000 people were executed or died in the forced labor camps because of ill treatment or diseases. And our country was not allowed to fight after the Munich agreement, during which our country was stripped of its surrounding fortresses and left at the mercy of the Nazis, who lost no time in taking possession of the whole country. Such was the result of the policy of the British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, who proclaimed that "we have gained peace in our time." Our "Allies", the French government under Daladier and Laval, threw us to the wolves. The aftereffects of such an agreement are now well-known. England herself paid very dearly for yielding to the aggressor. She lost most of her empire. France was suffering, too.

 

My husband, Otakar (Otík for short), was recruited for underground work early in the war. Through his connection with the lawyer, Dr.Karel Bondy, who owned a transmission radio to our government inexile in London, Otík was able to give correct statistical data about our country which were needed in order to support our rightful claims in the future. However, during one of the periodic raids on the radio transmissions to London, especially after the assassination of the "Protector" Reinhard Heidrich, Dr. Bondy was seized and imprisoned. He was tortured and interrogated daily. For him, a Jew, the Nazis "reserved" some especially gruesome treatments. He withstood them all bravely and never revealed anynames of his collaborators, of whom there was a number. In the end, he was executed.

 

During the first part of the war, the Communists were ordered by their party to lay low. Let us remember that before World War II started, Hitler and Stalin made a non-aggression pact. Hitler's invasion of Russia came as a great surprise to Stalin. At that moment, Communists were ordered by party heads to join the underground. Yet all during the underground years, the Communists followed their own goals - the eventual gaining of control and subsequent domination of the country once she regained her freedom. They got key positions in the underground and even more after the war. The rest of the members of the underground yielded to them out of mere pity for their suffering in prisons. They made good use of this position. The country was unaware of their real intentions. Whenever the Communists showed us cooperation, we were only too willing to believe that they had given up their goal of world domination. Even now that process is repeated. The Westernworld is only too willing to believe that they have changed, although that goal has been the main one in Russia since the time of the Czars and has not changed under the Soviets.

 

Underground work left a heavy toll in our family: My sister Milada's husband, Jiøí Heimrich, was executed by the Nazis for having printed and distributed anti-Nazi leaflets. My sister wasimprisoned with him, but was later released as a pregnant woman, after my father wrote to the authorities in Germany about her condition and spoke of the law that allowed pregnant women to go free under certain conditions. This law did not cover Poles, Jews, and Gypsies. Jiøí's daughter was born prematurely a week before her father's execution in Breslau, Germany. He was not even told about her birth, let alone that he had a girl. She was given his first name, Jiøina. By a strange twist of fate, she later married a young German boy whose father was executed at the end of the war by the Czech Communists. He was said to have been a very good man who did no harm to the Czechs and whose only crime was that he was German. At that time, the Communists looked for anyone of German origin on whom to vent their wrath.

 

Other victims of the Nazis were my sister-in-law's sister and her husband, whose "crimes" were that they gave refuge overnight to a Jewish doctor who was being sent to an extermination camp. They left behind an eight year old girl. It is hard to imagine what the families of these condemned went through.

 

The executions were meant to create such fear in the population that no one would dare to rise against the Nazis. And they were quite successful. Few people dared to work underground. Only the very brave and dedicated tried to work secretly. Openly you could not do anything. If you did, you quickly "signed your Death warrant." The fear took a great toll in people's mental and physical health. Constant worry made most people unable to sleep or eat. There was no respite from the fear, not even at night. Poor nutrition made things worse. It is hard for the outside world to imagine what life is like under constant fear. It has to be experienced in person. Most of the survivors had difficulties of adjustment even after the end of the war.

 

During the war, Otík suffered a queasy stomach and at one time could tolerate only boiled rice and water rusks. He was one of those rare people who was not so much afraid but who was deeply disgusted and outraged at the sight of what the Nazis were doing. Toward the end of the war, he developed TB without knowing about it. It healed itself soon. A physician, who after the war discovered healed scars on his lung, told him that the dark bread that we ate was full of calcium to make it heavier, and this helped the healing process.

 

It is wise to compare the losses of a small, non-fighting nation of 15 million people (again, 246,000) with that of the United States. At that time, the United States had a population of over ten times as much as we did, and the United States' losses were the same as ours. You could safely say that, relatively speaking, our total losses were ten times larger than those of the United States.

 

When the war was nearing the end in the Spring of 1945, and the Nazis were in retreat, the city of Prague liberated itself in May by a spontaneous uprising. Everyone was aware that before retreating the Nazis destroyed all they could: Lives of their captives, property, and natural treasures. This they did almost everywhere, chiefly out of spite and to prevent possible strike back. They completely destroyed Warsaw, which could be a classical example of their tactics. They were under order by Hitler to destroy Paris before they had to retreat, but the German generals did not carry out this order. When it was obvious that they would have to leave our capital, Prague, our populace did not wait until they city had been destroyed and hostages in prison summarily executed. The uprising started in the provinces and quickly spread to Prague.

 

Otík played a prominent role in this uprising. He acted as vice president of the Revolutionary National Council, which organized the street fighting. There were some dangerous moments when the population of Prague was critically short of weapons (up to now the fighting on our side had to be done by weapons captured from the heavily armed Germans). The Chairman of the Revolutionary Council was a college professor, Dr. Albert Pražák, a gentlemanly figure who, however, lacked a certain resolve. The Communists seized this opportunity and started to take more importatnt roles in the whole uprising. Most resolute among them was Josef Smrkovský, a baker by trade who did everything according to his party's dictate. The British government was asked for help in delivering badly needed arms but was prevented from doing so by a request from Stalin. This was not known at that moment but was established later. The ideas was to make believe that it was the Russian Army who liberated Prague and to denigrate the British intentions in the eyes of our people. The Russian Army stood poised in Poland and did not move. As everyone realized later, the Russians used the same tactic they had been using during the war when Warsaw rose against the Nazis. The Russian Army waited near Warsaw until the Poles were thoroughly crushed and then moved in, claiming to be the liberators. This fact is well known in the Eastern countries but has been forgotten in theWest.

 

At the time of the uprising, our fighters were unaware of this maneuver and accepted the help of the Vlasov Army, composed of Russian prisoners of war, made to work in Germany and opposed to the Soviets. The Vlasov Army was well equipped and actually helped to turn the outcome of the fight. After the Vlasovs left, in one and a half days, the German command in Prague saw the futility of further fighting and decided to retreat to Bavaria provided they were allowed to take their weapons with them. They recognized the Revolutionary Council as a legitimate temporary government and offered to capitulate to the Council. The commanding general was General Toussaint. The capitulation took place in the afternoon of May 8, 1945, with Josef Smrkovský and Dr. Josef Kotrlý taking their pledge and signing the agreement. The German Army left the same day. There were only two pockets of Gestapo members left in Prague who refused to surrender and vowed to fight until the end. As soon as the Russian generals learned that the German Army was leaving, they immediately ordered their tanks to reach Prague in time to appear as liberators. In spite of their frantic rush, they arrived in Prague a day later, on May 9, 1945. They did fight the Gestapo, and that fact made them claim that they were the real liberators. Very few people stress the fact that the German Army was already gone by the time the Russians arrived and our people did not point this out. After all, in those days, we still took the Russians as our brother Slavs and were totally unaware of their real intentions for conquest. However, the Russians were angry thatthey did not capture any Germans and that they did not get their weapons. They acted as conquerors and prevented any members of the Revolutionary Council for becoming part of the the new post-war government.

 

During those harrowing days of the uprising, Otík was gone and the children were at home with me. For Pavel and Georgia, there was no school. Everything had been suspended. Pavel's school was down in Nusle, Georgia's was in a temporary building nearby. There was a lot of actual fighting. Our house sustained some damage when a tank gunshot hit the front right in the middle. The owner's living room was exposed to the elements and even after it had been repaired, it bore the scar. Georgia's little school burned down. Because of the bombardment, we had to move from our fourth-floor apartment (American fifth) to the basement. The children and I slept in a tiny room which was used to store baby carriages. We put some mattresses on the floor and slept there. Soon there was so little oxygen in that tiny room that our candle only flickered and then died. The large cellar where most of the other tenants slept had windows to the street.

 

Some time before the days of the uprising, I thought that it was not safe to have the cellar windows opened to the street and brought some bricks and "boarded" up the windows with them. This proved to be a salvation. During the house-to-house fighting in the last days of the uprising, the German soldiers went to each house and threw hand grenades through the windows. Since the bricks would have taken a lot of time to remove, the soldiers were not able to kill the people hiding in the cellar as was their task to do. Instead, they set the first floor on fire, which was immediately extinguished by the tenants after the soldiers' hasty retreat.

 

Food was scarce but much worse was the lack of water. The pipes were not working and there were no wells in Prague. Our house was later occupied by German soldiers, but since the end was coming and they knew it, they behaved less aggressively. Some tried conversation with some of the tenants; one of them even tried to find some civilian clothes (in vain). There were soldiers stationed on the other side of the street, too, fighting our own Czech men. One young soldier was killed right in front of the house. The others told us that he was a father of four children and that he came from Austria. Most of them were SS-men and claimed that they were not volunteers as the original SS had been but that, in the last days, they were recruited because there were no more volunteers.

When the fighting was over and we were able to return to our apartments, all windows were broken and for quite some time we had to sleep in the hallways as the nights were still quite cold. Electricity had to be restored, waterworks had to be started; stores, though mostly empty, had to open. All discomfort and fear were forgotten in the general elation. Belatedly we learned that only a block north of us the Nazis had mutilated some women and children in the cellar of an occupied house. Otík learned of this while in hiding with the other members of the Council and rushed home as soon as possible to find us miraculously unharmed. It was the more surprising since our house was in Pankrác where most of the fighting took place. Our wide street led directly to a highway south where the army proceeded while attacking (and later leaving) the city. Quite a few houses on our street were destroyed. Moreover, the infamous Pankrác prison, detention of so many patriots and a house of execution, was only a block away. The Germans feared we might try to free some prisoners there. That was the reason for the intensity of the fighting.

 

How was it possible that we allowed the Russians to start dominating us and telling us what to do? Part of it was an admiration for their struggle during the war. Part was an old feeling that Russians are "our brothers." After all, they are Slavs like us. We always had great admiration for their culture, especially of the 19th century; their writers, composers, dancers. We were not aware of the influence of the many nationalities which comprise the Russian Empire. To many of us, the ruthless conquest of the territories to the East was something forgotten. We knewthe Russians as very kind and likeable people. We did not see the other side of the coin. In this we were not alone. Most of the West looked at Stalin as "good Uncle Joe." For centuries, Russia was more or less a "terra incognita." We did not realize what was going on there. People did not travel east. It was the other way. In those days we were happy that the war had ended.

 

The Russians immediately started to arrange things according to their wishes. Smrkovský, a faithful Communist, was allowed to function as president in the newly reestablished regional government of Bohemia, of which Otík was made a vice-president. Dr. Kotrlý, a lawyer and expert in the German language, was present at the surrender. He was later made Consul General in Montreal, which was to appear as a reward for services, but was actually meant to remove him from the political arena in Prague as punishment for having accepted the surrender of the German Army. Soon the Communists took firm hold of important government positions. They were put in charge of the ministry of interior, the foreign affairs, and the police. Members of the government in exile were meant to be subservient to the so-called Košice program, which was designed to take directives from Moscow. Members of theRevolutionary Council were given positions in the government of Bohemia. Separate provincial governments were established in Moravia and Slovakia. They were local institutions and were subject to the decisions of the central government in Prague. Early in May, the members of the Revolutionary Council were called to visit the Soviet Embassy in Prague. They were "welcomed" by secretary Èièajev and given a severe dressing-down for accepting the help of General Vlasov and for having accepted the German surrender. Vlasov himself was captured later and he and his soldiers were summarily executed.

 

The government in exile in London was now the legitimate government. Out of pity for the suffering of the Russian people during the war, we allowed the Communists to spread their power in the belief that they would treat us as brothers. Soon we were sadly disillusioned. The Communist party in our country acted more and more as dictators. Only members of two political parties fought against them, the Czech Socialists, of which party Otík was the idealogue (he wrote the party's program), and the Christian Democrats, who were social reformists. The opposition to the tactics of the Communists was getting stronger and soon it was evident that the party would lose in the next election in 1948. The Communist party decided that this must not happen and ordered the members to stage a putch (coup d'état). They seized an opportunity in the parliament when taxes were discussed. When the insignificant question arose about whether to place a tax on hats, the Communists staged a violent disagreement over this issue. There never had been a tax on hats before but any pretext was good for their purposes. They made a veritable row in the parliament (making rows was their specialty) and left the parliament in a huff. They ordered the factory workers, who had secretly been armed, to go into the streets, to march against the president's palace, to isolate him there, to threaten all opposed to them, and threaten to harm the president if he did not order the expulsion of their opponents. They chose their time well. The president was very weak from a recent stroke which immobilized him. After four crucial days of harrassment, he yielded. That was the end of democracy in our country. All it took was four days of threats and, of course, arming the factory workers while the rest of the nation had no weapons. It is a lesson to everyone who wonders about the tactics of those who were a day late in "liberating" us.

 

From the moment the putch succeeded, things moved rapidly for the worse. While he was a member of the government of Bohemia, Otík was very steadfast in opposing all the unjust moves the Communists made against their opponents. He was mild mannered but held his convictions firmly. He went far to help people, but in matters of principle, he would never budge. This was the type of opponent the Communists hated most. With noisy and vocal opponents they were always able to find means to defeat them. But with a quiet and dedicated "enemy", they seemed to be helpless. Threats did not work, neither did blandishments nor secret means. He was held in great esteem by most people because of this quality. The first thing they did was to throw him out of both jobs, as a member of the provincial government and as a college professor. By the coup d'état, they acquired all the "legal", or rather illegal, means to deprive him of his way of living. As a family we had no illusions what it all meant. It began to be clear that we had to leave everything behind and try to escape.

 

It might even have been harder to decide to flee if it had not been for one fact: The new Communist government decided to stage a trial of intellectuals, who in their opinion had "failed." My husband was to be the second to be tried. The first one was a professor of history, Dr. Slavík, who roused the Communists' ire by relentlessly pointing to the facts of their erratic ways and changing of policy, as it suited them and as "was good for the party." Some of Otík's students were aware of the impending trials and informed him about it. One of his pupils had been a dedicated Communist who in despair tore up his party membership card after the putch. This young man's brother, a lawyer, knew about the impending trial, told his brother who in turn told Otík. One other man, unknown to us, was to inform us about the same thing. He was a physician who also had to take care of political prisoners housed in the Pankrác prison. Through a patient, he secretly sent word to Otík, inviting him to his office "for consultation." Otík never met this doctor because by that time, in spite of his reluctance, I managed to persuade my husband that he must leave.

 

The decision to leave our home, maybe forever, was the hardest one we have ever faced. You realize that you are jumping into the unknown. You leave behind all your relatives, friends, your property, familiar objects, family letters and photographs. You will never again visit the graves of your deceased family. You leave everything that is dear to you. You have to leave surreptitiously so that you would not be prevented from leaving. You cannot take much with you, only what you can easily carry. Your money is not worth much abroad if you come from a country with a "soft" currency like ours. You do not know where you will sleep the next day and whether you will eat at all. The children are your greatest problem. We had three, aged 3, 9, and 11 years. How would they take it? Yet you want to prepare a better future for them. You do not want them to be raised as unthinking "numbers in an organization." You want them to get good schooling. You know that as "enemies of the state" you will never be allowed to send your children to college in your homeland, now in the hands of the Communists. You know that you will be forced to do only menial work and so will your children. Some may even be sent to the uranium or coal mines.

 

Above all, you wish to stop living in constant fear. You go through a long period of anxiety but when you finally decide on action, your fears diminish. At last you are doing something. In the long run, you know that leaving your cherished possessions behind is not the worst thing that can happen. You have experienced bombing raids in which people lost everything in minutes. But it is very hard to part with your family. All were frantic when we told them we were leaving, possibly forever. My father asked me very sincerely to stay and promised to take care of me and my children. He realized that because of Otík's involvement in politics he had no choice but to start a new life somewhere else. But I stood firm. I was leaving, too, and taking my children with me after Otík had to leave. As a family, we belonged together. At the time of the crisis in our lives, Otík's mother was hospitalized in Vokovice (a suburb of Prague) with lupus. She was frail and in generally poor health, but the day Otík was to leave, she took the street car and after more than an hour's ride she came to our house. She asked her son: "Are you leaving?" "Yes, mother" was what he said. They never saw each other again.

 

It was imperative that Otík disappear as soon as possible. My youngest brother, Jiøí, helped find a smuggler who, for a big fee, promised to help Otík cross the border into Germany. The amount I paid the man was 50,000 Czech crowns, which was a considerable sum of money. (editor's note: about $2,000 at the time.) The smuggler made frequent trips to Germany and took along a much sought-after commodity, artificial sweetening. From Germany he usually brought back automotive parts. He was to meet Otík near the border outside the city of Cheb (Eger). My husband was able to take along only a small suitcase with some spare underclothes and his lectures. He and one friend took the train first to Pilsen and from there to Cheb.

 

We parted soberly, promising to meet on the other side of the frontier, I promising to bring the children. Later, the memory of our flight was so painful to us that we rarely spoke about it. However, I remember some little details of his trip. On the train to Cheb, there were already thorough inspections of documents and restrictions of movements. In both cases, Otík showed the police his card as a member of the Government of Bohemia (which was then called Zemský Narodní Výbor), and that saved him. The police did not yet know that he was prominent among the "enemies of the state," and that he was actually fleeing. From the station in Cheb, he and his friend had to walk. The smuggler met them at the appointed place and they proceeded to walk through the woods. In the agreement, the smuggler promised to carry Otík's suitcase but did not do it. At that time, Otík was afflicted with phlebitis and having to carry the suitcase aggravated his condition. By the time the two friends reached Germany, Otík's phlebitis was so severe that he could not walk.

 

In the first camp, he met some of his college students who fled before him. He was always much liked by his students. This time they helped him by making a "sedan chair" by joining hands and carrying him around. Later a physician was found who was able to help by getting some medicine. I do not know the name of the camp where he was, nor do I remember where he went from there. Eventually the CIC (Counter Intelligence Corps) in charge of refugee screening in U.S.-occupied Germany, transferred him to a suburb of Frankfurt to a place called Oberursell, where a former home for women schoolteachers (called Alaska House) was used first by the Nazis and later by the Americans as a place for interrogation. Later it was learned that some war criminals had been housed there during the war trials. Some listening devices were still in place. When our refugees started coming, the CIC used the Alaska House to shelter politicians coming from our country, people who might otherwise be in danger.

 

At that time, Germany was teeming with all sorts of refugees, some of them of dubious background. It was estimated that at least ten to fifteen per cent of the refugees were actually Communist spies sent there by the new Communist regime to gain information on who was helping escapees and who was "not reliable." Such information was easily obtained because in the camps, where people had time on their hands, not much besides talking was going on. Much information was gathered in just the camps and it was useful to the new regime. I well remember talking to a young student at the camp. He was a patriot who decided to go back to Prague to perform a certain mission. I asked him to drop the idea, stressing the serious danger. He was firm, however. His end was tragic. He was caught and after a short trial, he was hanged.

 

Alaska House then served as protection to the fleeing politicians, but at the same time, the people held there could not leave the house freely; many felt it to be a "golden prison." Food in the house was plentiful, which in the days immediately after the war was almost a miracle. Yet food in the Displaced Persons' camps, which were run by the Sudeten Germans, was miserable and scarce. The house also served as a gathering place of information about what was going on in our country. Every newcomer brought some new information which the CIC could use. Because of his correct attitudes, mild manners, and understanding not only of problems of the Americans (Otík and I knew what life was like in the USA afterhaving spent a year there in 1934-35), but also because of his good command of the language, Otík was designated the speaker for the whole group. Ivan Herben dubbed Otík's work as that of a"sheriff." One day an interrogator came to him and asked him: "Do you have a son by the name of Paul?" "Yes," said he. "He is in Germany alone," he was told. Otík said: "That is impossible, he is a mere boy!" The very next day, the "little boy," Paul, our Pavel, was brought to Alaska House to join his father. Part of our family had been reunited.

 

My children and I were to find a way to follow my husband. It was harder now. The noose around those willing to flee was tightening. One day the police came to our apartment looking for my husband. By a piece of luck, I happened to be visiting a neighbor upstairs and heard them knock a long time until they finally left. Miss Hrabì, Otík's secretary, came soon afterwards and strongly advised me to call the police back and talk to them. I took her advice. I told them my husband was in the province looking for a job. I tried to make it sound unimportant and managed to persuade them. Nobody knew he was already gone. Yet it was imperative that the rest of us leave soon. Our closest friends were asked to keep a few of our dearest possessions, which they did. In the long run, it was useless since we never went back.

 

I took the train to my father in Jihlava, to take leave of my family. My father tried again to persuade me to stay, promising totake care of me. Giving goodbys to them was very hard. Except for my two sisters, I never saw my family again. My father and my three brothers died later after we were firmly established here. Up to now, 1988, my two sisters have visited me here three times, but my older sister died on July 14, 1987. Only my younger sister and I are still alive from a formerly large family. Otík never saw his mother again, neither did he see his brother or sister. They are all deceased.

 

Some young students of my husband's tried to help me flee, as did other friends. Most active among them was Dr. Olga Bradáè, a devoted student of Otík's. She tried to find some underground group to plan our way of escape. The children, Pavel and Georgia, had to stop going to school. I had to pretend that they were ill with a contagious disease. Georgia's schoolteacher came to our house to find out why my daughter continued to be absent. After I told her Georgia was seriously ill, the teacher left wishing her a speedy recovery. Pavel was visited by some fellow Boy Scouts who asked him cordially to visit their group again. I do not remember the excuse we used then.

 

We could not be conspicuous in going out of the house with a suitcase. The children were given knapsacks, one of which had to be dyed dark (it was originally white and would have been easil ydetected at night in the woods). The knapsacks could contain only a few necessities, not too heavy for them. I had to carry Hana. She was too young to be able to walk through the woods at night. I made a small package of necessities for her and me to be carried by hand. We could not take any food, but I did take some documents and an English-Czech dictionary. Miss Bradáè found three different ways for us to follow, all of them planned too hastily and unsuccessfully. The first one was for us to take a train to Bratislava where a man was willing to help us to cross to Vienna. When we arrived at a designated hotel lobby, the children fell asleep. When we met the man, Hana started crying out of fatigue. The man then became afraid that she might cry during the trip and expose our presence. He refused to take us. We had to return to Prague. Another friend of Olga's, Mr. Herman, a member of the same underground group, was waiting for us at the train station when we returned. He strongly advised against our returning to our home.He said: "Once you have tried to flee, you are suspect and in danger." He took us all to the home of his mother in Nusle, not too far from our home, but down in the valley. We had to wait for another opportunity.

 

Olga Bradáè figured out that the safest way would be to go through East Germany beginning at the north of Bohemia. My sister Milada lived at that time in Liberec which was close to the border. We took a train there and spent the night with her and her husband. We were supposed to take a boat north, on the Elbe river, reach East Germany and from there proceed by using our wits. We were to walk first through the countryside of Bohemia at night to reach the boat. Unfortunately, on that night new snow fell (it was March or April). That made the trip impossible because we would have left a trail in the snow and so would have been easily caught. We had to return to Prague again.

 

This time, the young man, Herman, decided he needed the help of someone who would accept money and as a consequence would try harder for us to succeed. He found such a man in Miloš Hanák, son of a diplomat, who claimed that he was doing it in order to support the underground movement. That later proved to be false. He did it only for his own financial benefit. My brother Jiøí, who as a successful businessman knew about further obligations, strongly advised me from the beginning to pay for any help I might need. He said that no matter how idealistic people are and how much they might be willing to help, no matter how much they would be willing to do for you for free, it is always safter to pay for the service. It has the advantage of being "square" with the helper and not being in any way obligated later on. I took his advice and decided to pay for the help. It cost us the equivalent of one thousand dollars per person. For Otík I paid much more, approximately two and a half thousand dollars. It was all in Czech currency, which was a soft one and could not be easily exchanged into a hard one by a person like me. Only smugglers and other "experts" in exchange knew the ways to do it. We had some money in the bank which Otík received as royalties for his latest book on America. While still at home, it took a lot of courage for me to go to the bank and withdraw the large sum. I was afraid to arouse suspicion, but was lucky. Having the money on hand made it easier to deal with the "helpers." What was left after the deals I sent to my father for safekeeping (it actually came to nothing when the new government ordered all monies in banks to be exchanged for a new currency). I had been planning all this in the hope that "some day we shall come back." Some even thought that they would be back by St.Wenceslas's day in September. We were all certain that the Western democracies would pressure the new government to retreat. What foolishness that was! Pavel and Georgia were behaving very well, although it must have been very hard for such young children. Hana, who was only three years old, could not understand and kept asking why she could not sleep in her own bed? Why do we have to move around?

 

Miloš Hanák found a temporary refuge for us in Vinohrady, a residential part of Prague, with a woman who did not receive any remuneration out of the funds I paid Hanák. She may have helped us out of some feeling of duty but did not do it graciously. Her teenage daughter was more helpful. She made a trip to my now abandoned home on the pretext that she had to return a borrowed book. She found out that the police had already been there several times and came periodically to check. They knew that I must still be around since all my clothes were in the wardrobe. In their absence the concierge, who was a dedicated Communist, was in charge of reporting on my possible moves. The young man, Herman, was right: once you have tried to flee, you do not return to your home! You would certainly be apprehended.

 

The woman with whom we stayed got nervous after three days and asked us to move. Things were getting worse. I had a first cousin nearby. He was a college instructor in medicine, in skin diseases. He was married to another physician. Dr. Karel Procházka was at that time about 40 years old. He had nothing to lose. But when I arrived at his home and honestly put my problem in front of him, he refused to help me. His wife would have been more amenable, but it was no use. At last he hit upon a solution: his sister, MaryKabelka, a woman with three young children, was contacted and promised to help. This offer was the more valuable because she had lost her husband during the war. He, as a good patriot and a member of the Sokol gymnastic union, had been placed in a concentration camp by the Nazis who tried to get rid of potential enemies (to have been a Sokol was a sure card to death). He was executed by the Nazis without any guilt being found. Mary, a widow of scarce means, was willing to house me and my children. In the long run it was not to be like that. Hanák found another idealist, a lawyer, Dr. Antonín Klouda, who had spent the war years fighting against the Nazis with the British, who married a British girl, later returned to Prague with her and now was going to flee again but not until he had helped some others to do the same! His British wife and children who also had British citizenship had already been allowed to return legally to England, and he only stayed behind to help some others! In his hospitable home in Vokovice we stayed until we were ready to leave for good.

 

A friend of my husband's and co-worker, František Haloun, came to visit me and to help Dr. Klouda in any way he could. Haloun was very fond of Otík's, although he was quite a bit older. He had fought during WWI with the Czech Legions in Russia where he was attracted to the Communist movement in the hope that it would bring real help to poor people. He became a member of the party but soon he left it in disgust. After returning home with the legionnaires, he found work at the State Bureau of Statistics where Otík also worked (before becoming a university professor). Haloun admired Otík's honesty and kindness which, he believed, was unusual in our life.

 

After Otík fled, Haloun came to visit in order to persuade Otík about the gravity of the situation (Otík was known to be an optimist) and about the necessity of leaving. I told him that Otík had already gone. He said he would help if he could. When I found temporary lodgings at Dr. Klouda's, Haloun came again and together with my host planned what to do next. It was not easy to find someone who would escort a woman with three small children. At the end it was decided that two of my children would have to go without me and ahead of me in time. Hanák found a group of people who were planning to go soon and asked one of the men, a Slovak schoolteacher, to take care of Pavel, which the man did. I had to ask Pavel first whether he would have the courage to go without me. He simply said yes. The night before his departure, he could not sleep. He kept waking up and occassionally asked me whether I thought he would make it. I said I was sure he would, although I was not sure at all. The next morning he took leave of me. He looked so small in the short pants that European boys wore! He had a cap which seemed too large for a boy so small. On his back he had the knapsack. We took leave quickly. He and a male friend went to the Wilson station and from there they rode to Pilsen. I did not hear about him until a day and a half later when, according to an arrangement, I received a telegram with the simple sentence: the books have arrived. I knew then that he had made it, but I had no knowledge of where he was or how he would find his father.

 

Georgia was to go next without me. It was planned to send her with three airmen who flew in the British Airforce during WWII. By that time I was so emotionally drained that I could not see sending a nine-year old little girl without me. My friends saw my worry and decided to risk it and let me take both my little ones with me. We took only the barest necessities. My only luxury was the English-Czech dictionary. It was not a safe thing to do. You had to count on the possibility of being apprehended and with such a dictionary in your possession, it was clear what you intended to do.

 

We followed the similar route that Pavel did. The girls and I were joined by a group of three college students consisting of one young woman trying to follow her husband already abroad, one young engineering student, and a socialist-party functionary. They were good company. We all hoped to make it. First we took the train to Pilsen and from there to Klatovy. In that city we were met by a young lawyer, a member of the local Social Democratic party, an idealist who was willing, as long as he could, to help others flee. In his home we were given dinner and good beds. We were told to take a good rest because the next day we were to start. No sooner did we get to bed than we were awakened and told to dress quickly. It appeared that the next day would not have been a safe one since it was the weekend on which the border was expected to be patrolled more heavily than usual. I had to wake the girls up. Hana was crying a little.

 

Our host and a friend of his drove an ancient car with poor tires. My host gave me an identification card and said: "This is you (it did not look like me at all). If anyone stops us, let me do the talking." It was very dark and cloudy. We drove quite a distance in the direction of the Šumava mountain called Ostrý (i.e. "sharp"). The name expressed the type well. It was the steepest mountain in the range and it was chosen just because of this steepness. Nobody had yet tried to use this as a way of escape. As soon as the car arrived fairly close to the foot of the mountain, we had a flat tire. Our host said: "Now we all run as fast as we can. When we reach the woods we shall be safer." Poor Hana was hardly able to walk so I had to carry her. Georgia behaved very well. She was brave all through the ordeal and never complained. Hana cried softly. When we reached the woods, I told my daughters: "Girls, remember this night. I hope we shall never be obliged to repeat this."

 

The night was misty. Occassionally, the moon came out a little through the clouds, but in the mist it had an eerie look. Our hostand the six of us started walking up the hill as fast as our strength permitted. The young engineering student saw my struggle with Hana's weight and he took her on his shoulders. She traveled this way all the way to the top. Branches of evergreens struck her in the face as she was placed higher than we were, and she could not stop crying. Nobody could blame her. She was supposed to behaving a good night's sleep. Instead we were all groping our way up hill following one after another in a line. I was always the last one. Our host was in the front. It took us about 2-3 hoursuntil we reached the middle of the mountain where we stopped at the hut of a woodcutter. There we were already expected. Two border-crossing guards were there, too. They were the ones to lead us to the German side. In this hut we were given warm food, milk, and boiled eggs. We ate and rested. Later, our host took leave of us to return home. Needless to say, he did everything out of kindness. He did not get any monetary reward. Men like Hanák always find some idealists to do the real job free of charge for them. We left all our money with the woodcutter and we also gave him and his wife our ration cards (food was still being rationed). The two border-crossing guards then took over.

 

We had a few more hours to go to reach the top of the mountain along which lay the German-Czech border. Walking was not easy. We walked in a goose file. First was one guard with his police dog. Then followed the rest of us with the woodcutter in the middle. Hana, on the shoulders, was in front of me, who was again at the end. The second guard with his dog made the rear. We walked incomplete darkness and only occasionally did the woodcutter dare to use his flashlight for just a brief moment. We could hear more police dogs barking some distance away. They belonged to the new Communist patrol whom we tried to avoid. The guards knew approximately where we were going, but the top of Ostrý was not their regular trip and twice they lost their way. We went around in circles. We just had to follow the person ahead. We had to rest twice as the climb was steep. Once, when we were told to rest, I sat down right into a shallow creek. Snow still lay in places.

 

About four o'clock in the morning we reached the top. Our guards told us to proceed further down into German territory to rest. We all sat on a milder slope. My two girls leaned against me and promptly fell asleep. The woodcutter and the guards talked to us for awhile and told us to wait for the sunrise. Then they took leave of us. Let me say here that one of the guards later escaped himself after having helped more people. He finally got to England. I was able to recommend him for a job to a former member of our parliament. He wrote to me later that of the many people whom he helped, I was the only one who lent a helping hand. The others very likely could not help because they had no connections and could not find jobs even for themselves.

 

When it began to be lighter, and we could see where we were going, we went downhill. We reached the first German village at the moment when people were just getting up. They looked at us curiously. No one had yet come from that side. We stopped at the police station and I did the talking, having known the language since my childhood. The police were sympathetic. One of them had been a refugee himself having escaped a while ago from East Germany. They wrote a report and, as was their duty, they telephoned of our arrival to the nearest American military camp. While waiting for them, we had a sort of breakfast in the village restaurant. It consisted of ersatz "coffee", made probably of acorns, and with it we had bread that was almost black. Saccharin was served instead of sugar.

 

It took a while before the Americans arrived. In the meantime, we exchanged reminiscences with the guards and with the woman who ran the local pub. All of them had sad stories to tell. Most of them lost men in the war. Some of them lost their homes, so they understood us. An American sergeant came with a truck to pick us up sometime later. We had to report to the commandant who had a thorough report to forward further. We had documents and spoke English. That made things easier. At lunch time we were given an American meal, very generous and tasty. That lifted our spirits. We thought that if exile was going to be like this, it would be easy to bear. Actually, it was the first and last good meal for along time.

 

After lunch we were driven to our first Displaced People's camp near the border. I do not remember its name. We were deposited on the street near where the camp was supposed to be but were not told which way to go. We were tired by that time and it was evening. We did not know what to do so we sat on the sidewalk, sad and not knowing which way to turn. A man passed by and asked us who we were. We told him. He happenend to be a refugee himself, luckily, knowing all about camps. He had already fled twice, first from the Nazis in Latvia and then again from the Communists in his former homeland. He told us that we could not sit on the sidewalk and took us to a camp. It was mostly empty at that time. There were bunk beds which we could use. He also brought us a loaf of dark bread and some tea. In the morning, he told us which way to go to find the rest of the Czech refugees who were housed in a school in Regensburg. As a parting gift, he told us: "The first thing is behind you but the worst is yet to come." And he was right. He meant finding a country to take you and finding a job.

 

Before our flight, I was given some German marks which Miloš Hanák had bought at black market prices. Hanák seemed to have everything one needed. The three young people, my daughters, and I took a trolley and arrived at the camp designated for refugees from Czechoslovakia. It was located in a deserted school which was still standing. Regensburg is an old city on the river Danube, full of history. At that time we could not possibly show interest in it. The school was so full that we were given spaces only on the floor of the otherwise empty building. Immediately after our arrival, several of Otík's students from Charles University presented themselves to me and tried to find some comfort for us. One of them secured a mattress for my family and for the young woman who came with us. The mattress was only large enough to be put under our heads and the upper part of our bodies if spread to the wide side. The young woman had the foresight to bring along with her to exile one bedsheet, which served the four of us. We had to sleep on the floor and for cover we had to use our coats. Food was miserable. I gave one of the men who was with us some money to buy some bread for us. When he saw the food we were given at the camp, he got so disgusted with it that without my knowledge he used my money to buy himself a better lunch in a restaurant. It showed me, on a small scale, what exile does to you. You begin to abandon the rules by which you normally behave. One of the kinds of food we were given came out of a large can made in the United States. It had some potatoes and some kind of meat in it. Some time later, when we were living in Endicott, I bought some catfood for our two kittens. Georgia was curious to taste it. After she did, she said that it tasted just like the canned food we were given in the camp, only the former one had some potatoes in it.

 

We did not stay in the camp long. After a few days all of us were to be moved to another camp, closer to Frankfurt. We traveled at night in a crowded train. We saw some eerie sights at night. Most of the cities we passed were in ruins. Worst of all was the sight of Darmstadt, which was completely destroyed. There was no light anywhere and it was dead. In the early morning, our train stopped somewhere in the country. The only thing around was another engine, which was in full steam. We felt dirty. When we saw that the engine was dripping hot water, we went to it and washed our hands and faces in that steaming water.

 

Our next stop was another camp. It was overcrowded. More of my husband's students came to greet us. One of them, a cousin of Olga Bradáè, Jan B., was so overjoyed to see me that he invited us to lunch in a restaurant. He had already met my husband who gave him some American money which the young man decided to partly spend on a fairly tasty lunch for us. He had previously exchanged some of the dollars for German currency, but he had been cruelly cheated. His exchange was given to him in expired marks of which he was naturally unaware. In those days, the country was full of crooks who tried to cheat the innocent refugees by any means, like the one young Bradáè experienced, or similar ones to whom the fugitives tried to sell some valuables. Jan Bradáè also told me he knew where my husband was and offered to take me to him as soon as we got the permit.

 

Lodgings at the camp were better this time. My girls and I were given two adjoining beds on the second floor reserved for women with children. Since we had only two beds for the three of us, we had to arrange it so that the one in the middle slept with her head next to our feet. On the next bed to us was a woman with a baby. She came from Carpato-Russia. That was formerly the easternmost part of our country where the inhabitants were poor country folk. I also met her husband, a farm hand who with the other men was housed on the first floor. Their baby was quite small, about a year old. Both husband and wife talked to me. They were some of those oppressed people who did not dare to express a different opinion. Their country had been annexed by the Soviets into the USSR before the end of the war. Both told me how bad the situation was in their country after the Soviets took it. They spoke in dialect, but what they had to say was unmistakable. It occurred to me that those who find any excuses for the Soviet's taking over countries under the pretext of "helping the poorest oppressed people and creating a workers' paradise" should have seen those poor people and heard their story. As poor as they were, they risked everything, with a tiny baby and left even what little they had behind.

 

I went to the commandant of the camp to ask for permission to leave. I told him I had some funds and could take care of myself and my girls. He was only too glad to let us go since he was sorely pressed for space. Every day, new arrivals were to be housed and fed at the time when both space and food were very scarce. Jan Bradáè, the girls, and I took a local trolley to Oberursell, where the young man said my husband was. It was a Saturday and the trolley was crowded not only with the local people, but also with various refugees from Poland. There was a great animosity shown between the two nationalities. The Poles were angry, the Germans amused. Our ride took a couple of hours. When we finally arrived, we found that the "house" was a heavily guarded villa, surrounded by double barbed wire which was covered by heavysacking for more protection from possible curious onlookers.

 

Bradáè talked to the sentry at the gate and gave him my name. This was familiar to the sentry as my husband was the "sheriff" there. Soon Pavel appeared at the gate but he was not allowed to open it for us. We might have been anyone who tried to get in under an assumed name. Otík appeared on the balcony and waved to us. He also was not allowed to meet us. We were downcast. We sat in the ditch wondering what to do. Pavel reappeared with a bag full of chocolate candy which he was allowed to give us. The girls enjoyed that but we would have liked to join my husband! The problem was later explained. It was the weekend and the man in charge of the camp was on holiday. The others did not dare to make a decision without him, so they tried to find some lodgings for us for the weekend. There were none to be found. When it had lasted for quite some time, a sergeant took it upon himself to let us in without permission, hoping that by Monday it would straighten itself out, which it did, favorably for us. Meeting Otík after such a long time and finally being safe was a memorable thing for us. Rarely did we ever feel happier.

 

Most of the people at "Alaska House" were former political figures, members of the parliament, prominent members of their political parties and so on. This "camp" was set up by the CIC (Counter Intelligence Corps) and had a dual purpose. It was to provide security for those refugees and to gather information about the recent political happenings behind the Iron Curtain. People were not allowed to leave the camp. Food was plentiful, flown in from Holland. We even had butter and fresh milk, something we badly missed during the war and afterwards. We met old friends: the Ivan Herbens, the Jaroslav Drábeks, and later the man who helped me, Dr. Klouda. We met a lot of officers of our army, most of whom had also served as fliers in the British Air Force, a former ambassador to the US, Veverka, and Colonel of the Air Force Alexander Hess, and others. There was Karel Vrdlovec, who had received the highest award for heroism, the OBE (Order of the British Empire). He lost one eye in one of the battles. Among the airmen were Zatopek, Vilem Buršík, and others whose last names escape me. There were many politicians from Slovakia and a general from Moravia. Pavel became friends with the two Drábek boys, Jšaa and Janek. Janek was a strong boy who sometimes challenged the much smaller Pavel. On one occasion, Janek tried to show off and boxed Pavel on his chest. In his youth, my husband did some boxing in the lightweight category and taught Pavel some tricks. When Janek boxed the little boy, Pavel did not hesitate to strike back, and since he was "trained" by his father, he floored Janek with justone stroke. That aroused great glee among the airmen who witnessed it and who praised Pavel for not being afraid.

 

Not all was as carefree as this little incident. Most of us were worried about the future. Where would we be able to go? How soon? How to get proper documents since now there was a new, though illegal, government?

 

While we were students at the University of Chicago in 1934, we met a young instructor by the name of Edward Shils. We later corresponded. Shortly before the putch, Shils brought us a friend of his while visiting Prague. This friend was the first secretary at the American Embassy in Prague, Thomas Donovan. We had a good conversation at that time. Very soon after that, the Communists overthrew our government. We had one more contact with Donovan who could do nothing for us but was later able to be of great help. He learned that we all escaped to Germany. He tried to visit us there. He was not allowed to come into the camp! (Such were the rules of the CIC!). What he later did was to write to Dr. Ernest Burgess, chairman of the Department of Sociology at the University of Chicago, who was a good friend and was very fond of my husband. Dr. Burgess tried to get monies for our transportation to the U.S. from the Rockefeller Foundation, and he succeeded. He also gave my husband an invitation to come to Chicago to teach in the summer semester of 1948. Our successful emigration to the U.S. then began.

 

Altogether we spent about two and a half months at Alaska House. During this time much information had been exchanged. Otík was also asked one day to deliver a lecture on the German surrender agreement to the Revolutionary Council in Prague. Since Otík was well informed, he could supply many details up to then unknown to the general public. The greatest impact was his description of the final statement of General Toussaint to the council. After Gen. Toussaint described what was in store for most of the fighting men when they returned, he said that all they could expect was to sit in the ditch and wait. And then he added: "Aber es ist uns rechts geschehen!" (It is what we deserve.) Otík had a strong moral sense and he never forgot these words. At last someone admitted their guilt!

 

On another occasion, Otík, representing the political refugees, met General Lucis Clay, who was then in charge of the occupation forces in Germany. He explained to him all that had happened, how the Displaced Persons camps were organized, and asked him to use his power to replace the commandants of these camps, who were Sudeten Germans (our traditional enemies), by Germans from Germany. General Clark saw the value of this request and arranged for the change. Conditions afterwards were greatly improved. By his mild manners and by being strictly factual, Otík gained from the General more than anyone else would have.

 

Otík was quite familiar with the conditions in the DP camps. It was one of his duties as a "sheriff" to visit them and see the needs of those living there and make suggestions for possible improvements. When the very first refugees started to appear in Germany, they were promptly returned home to certain long-term prison. As soon as Americans became aware of this, General Clay ordered an immediate end to this practice. He gave the order that every legitimate refugee must be accepted and that camps be set up for them, in spite of the fact that about 10-15 percent of those refugees were Communists sent there to spy on the others and get information about those at home who helped.

 

On one of his visits, he learned that two refugees from the Eastern part of our country fought each other with knives over the possession of a teaspoon. It showed not only how deeply disturbed some people were over a loss of everything, but also made clear how vital it is for people to own something, even such a trifle. Both the Nazis and the Communists held their people in bondage by, among other deprivations, the claim that no one had a right to private property. Here was a striking example that for the sake of one's self-esteeem, one needs to have possessions of some kind.

 

In the same camp Otík came across the smuggler who had taken him, for a lot of money, across the border and who failed to carry hissuitcase, as he promised, thereby causing the return of phlebitis. The man wanted Otík to help him emigrate, but Otík could do nothing.

 

As soon as Dr. Burgess managed to get enough funds from the Rockefeller Foundation for the transportation of the whole family to the U.S., he sent to the authorities funds for five airplane tickets plus fare to Paris. At that time the man in charge was a good but scatterbrained man who kept the tickets and did not notify us. Not without good cause he was dubbed "Šušna" by Ivan Herben (who had an acid tongue). We sat at Alaska House not knowing we could have been on our way by then. When Šušna finally realized what he had done, he tried to speed things up. He sent us on a train to Paris where we were to apply for visitors visa to the U.S. My husband was very familiar with Paris, having been a student at the Sorbonne and at the Ecole Libre des Sciences Politiques for two years. We stayed in a hotel briefly while applying for the visas. Otík had a legitimate passport and my photo was added to it in Frankfurt. One of the American sergeants took snapshots of us, the children and me, and because he had only an inexpensive camera, the pictures were not too good. Yet in those days when everything was scarce, the authorities did not mind the poor quality of the photos. While living in the hotel we were able to buy some milk for the children, but only for two days. We had no French ration cards. After that we ate corn flakes dipped in red wine, which was freely available.

 

At the American consulate we were informed that the visa that myhusband used on his visit to the U.S. in the fall of 1947 could not very well be used again. Pavel had a bright idea. He saw that the visa said: Valid for a trip to the United States. He told his Dad to see if it could really be used again because of that one word. Otík went to the consul general in person. When the consul learned that Otík was a sociologist, he immediately discussed current problems with him and even showed him his own library of scientific books. Then he said: "Who knows, next time I may be in your position and trying to find where I could settle." He gave Otík the visa. (The consul reasoned this way: had the former visa, issued in 1947 said: Valid for one trip, it would have not been possible to use it again. Since it said Valid for a trip, it could be considered still good.) Then it was the question of visas for the chidren and me. I went to visit another functionary at the consulate and because I could speak English, the man took pity and gave it to the children and me. Let it be said here that one thing was in our favor: Otík was a bona fide university professor, and as such, in those days, he could be admitted as a non-quota visitor (that meant we did not have to wait). That privilege was later abused by many who claimed they were college professors while they had a different occupation and that law was subsequently changed. No more non-quota visas for professors!

 

From then on things were smoother. From Paris we flew to London on a plane of the Languedoc type that shook so much we were all airsick. Unfortunately we were late in catching our connection to New York and had to spend the night in a hotel. The next day had a pleasant surprise for us: one of the passengers on the same plane as ours was an old friend of Otík's from the Chicago days, Dr. Everett C. Hughes. He tried to make us as welcome as was in his power. We still had the feeling that we were to meet old friends under different conditions. We had a feeling we were not equal tothem any more. We should not have had to have this feeling, but that is what happens to all refugees. Even the little children felt it. I remember one day when Hana was angry at us and wanted to call us names, she cried: "Oh, you refugees!"

 

In New York City we spent only two days. A plane took us to our first destination, Chicago. Because of the unnecessary delay in Oberursell, Otík had to condense his classes, which originally were scheduled to take six weeks, into three weeks. Dr. Burgess and the students were understanding. By chance he was given as his office the same room that President Beneš had during his time as visiting professor at the beginning of WWII. Otík had quite a success with his students at the University of Chicago. He lectured with great enthusiasm. Dr. Burgess' sister, Roberta, was our old friend from the years 1934-35 and proved to be as faithful as ever. Old friends from those years, Dr. Matthew Spinka and his wife, welcomed us to the U.S. sincerely and wished us all success. Dr. Spinka, who as a young man had emigrated to the U.S. from our country, became a professor of divinity. He came from an old Protestant family and had in his possession a large collection of old Czech bibles printed in Kraslice. He bought them from immigrant families afterthe original owners were deceased.

 

While in Chicago, we also met our cousins, the Machotkas. Frank's and Otík's grandfathers were brothers. Frank's wife, Anne, was of Danish descent. The couple had one daughter, Joanne. Anne died and Frank remarried. The whole family later moved to Madison, Wisconsin, where we met them again as well as the rest of the Machotka clan. Frank kept careful notes on the genealogy of the family and after his second wife's death, his daughter Joanne, now Mrs. Gillings, keeps the genealogy alive herself.

 

At the end of the summer semester, Dr. Burgess managed to find a new appointment as a visiting professor for Otík at Syracuse University for the academic year 1948-49. In Syracuse we found an apartment on Ackerman Ave. That winter was a particularly harsh one, and for our children it was a new experience. Slowly we began to save some money from Otík's pay (he made four thousand dollars a year, which was a good sum in those days). We were able to buy new clothes for the children and ourselves. By mistake, too much of his pay had been held back for taxes during the year so that when April 15 came, the refunded sum amounted to one thousand dollars. By then we were Americanized to the extent that we used the money to buy a good secondhand car, a Plymouth.

 

Otík had been asked to talk to various groups about the putch in our country. He did not meet with unalloyed consent. There were very many leftists in his audience who tried to "set him straight, "sometimes quite vocally. At that time we were blissfully ignorant of the fact of how much pro-Marxist sentiment existed at Syracuse University, especially among the professors. After one of the meetings, a sympathetic lawyer, very much impressed, came to Otík and offered him services of any kind free of charge should he need them. When we went into exile, we naively thought that every thinking man would be opposed to what had been happening. We did not realize to what an extent the students and the professors were dedicated to Marx's teaching. To them it was as sacred as religion, a teaching that could never be wrong. As Raymond Aron once said: "Marximus is the opium of the intellectuals." In our country many intellectuals were Marxists, too, but the fact that our Marxists started fleeing soon after they got the real taste of it did not seem to register with the Syracuse group. One young instructor said to us once: "Here are two evidently honest people who have fled." That statement did not strike us then it its real significance until later. The general feeling had been that only dishonest people who lost property were fleeing! We should have been aware by then that by some we were not welcome, only tolerated. Much the same was true about the professors at Cornell and Binghamton.

 

In Syracuse the children started to attend school. Pavel was enrolled in junior high, Georgia in fifth grade. Both had some knowledge of English. On one occasion Pavel's teacher read to the class a paper as an example of some serious mistakes in answers. This caused the pupils to snicker at the "culprit." After the papers were returned, to his great embarrassment, Pavel found out that it was his paper. However, by the end of the school year, he worked himself into being the best pupil in his class.

 

Georgia, too, had an embarrassing experience at school. One noon she rushed home, lay on the bed and cried. She did not understand how the long division was being done in the U.S. schools. I immediately went to the teacher, Miss Sullivan, and asked her for help since long division in our country had been done differently. She was a very kind woman and started helping Georgia. She provedto be so sympathetic that Georgia became very devoted to her, and even after we left Syracuse, she wrote to this unforgettable woman. Hana's experiences were of a different kind. When we came to the U.S., both Pavel and Georgia already had a workable knowledge of English, having been pupils at an English school in Prague. Hana, on the other hand, did not know a word. Yet about a month after we came to Syracuse, she started correcting my pronunciation! Like all children, she was able to detect the differences in my speaking from the real American way. By now she was four years old. She spent most of the time with me and was not very challenged. Luckily for her, the school authorities kept track of all newcomers and their ages. When she reached the age of four and a half, she was "eligible" to start school according to Syracuse laws. Since she was shy and because of her lack of knowledge of Enligh, I was allowed to stay with her in kindergarten for the first month. That helped her to overcome her fear of the others and adjust. At the same time I was helping the teacher in her various duties and, luckily for me, learned how teaching was done. Later on, when I started teaching, this knowledge came in handy.

 

My children were very happy at school. Pavel sometimes commented on the fact that American schools were happy places. The opinion of other professors about this was that they were too happy and not strict enough.

 

At Cornell University in Ithaca, Otík's next place of work, things were a little different. The level of teaching was much higher both at the University and the childrens' schools. Otík very much enjoyed the higher standard of teaching. We made many friends, among them was a professor of chemistry, Dr. Vladimir Krukovský, who originally fled from Odessa to Prague, and his wife Jožka, a Czech painter. Their very talented son, Nicky, became Pavel's good friend. Pavel himself scored an immediate success at school. He was elected president of the student body on the strength of the fact that among all the pupils in the eighth grade, he alone could correctly spell "psychology." (All the others omitted the initial "p".) He did very well in his subjects at Boynton Junior High, which had the policy of dividing pupils according to their intellectual abilities. Besides Nicky, his best friend was Bruce Harrington with whom he maintained contact for years.

 

Georgia's teacher in sixth grade was Mr. Bull, who had many innovative ideas about the method of teaching from which the pupils profited greatly. After a half year of kindergarten, on my request, Hana was accepted in first grade in the Ithaca school and started to learn to read. My reasons for sending her to first grade were that with only another half day of daily kindergarten and with only me around, she would not have enough to do. She, too, made many friends, one of whom was a Japanese girl. Georgia's friend, Joanne Smith, remained close to her even after many years.

 

Pavel joined the Boy Scouts group in Syracuse and continued in Ithaca. On one of the occasions, when he was to become a Star Scout, and we were attending the late evening ceremony outside the town, our house was burglarized and all our property stolen. It included all of Otík's clothing and two suitcases in which the burglars put all our valuables which we had managed to save from the Communists, i.e. all jewelry, gold coins, and documents. Some of the documents were later found in Gillette, Pennsylvania, strewn on the ground near a gasoline station. Missing from these were the copy of my Ph.D. diploma and two identification cards from the time of the Nazi occupation with photographs. Nothing of the rest has ever been found. This was a tremendous blow to us. We did not expect to be burglarized in this country! We came here hoping for protection! Not after the Communists had taken everything! For years afterwards, I could not get over it.

 

When the school year ended, my husband again had to start looking for another teaching position. In spite of all the bad setbacks, luck was with us. A new college was being set up in Endicott. With many GIs returning from the war, the government was trying to give them the promised college schooling. From 1948-50, Syracuse University had offered three years of their extension courses in Endicott, which were now to be taken over by the State of New York. Dr. Glenn Bartle, a professor of geology and Provost of that school, was looking for new professors for this reorganized school. Some students from Cornell learned about it and advised Otík to apply. He came to Endicott in person and was pleased to see what he thought was the campus of the new school. What he actually saw were the buildings of the local high school. The future university was temporarily housed in prefabricated sheds, left over from the war years. However, the financial conditions were good (fivethousand dollars a year) and Otík was hired. The level of students' achievements was not too high and the rooms in which the professors had to teach were deplorable. During the warm months they were too hot and in bad weather the rain and snow seeped right through the roof. But, the spirit was very friendly and the small group of professors felt like pioneers. It became a tight group of friends and remained as such for years. To this day, after the school has grown to huge proportions and after its character has greatly changed, there is an affinity among the members of the original group. Part of our life and endeavor had ended and the new one begun. We had finally arrived.

 

Let me briefly remember those who helped: Olga Bradáè lives in Paris and is retired from work with the well-known firm of Péchiney-St.Gobin (editor's note: she died in 1992). Her mother who fled with her is deceased. Jan Bradáè did not stand the rigors of exile and is now in a mental institution. Mrs. Herman died in Brazil, as did her husband and later even her young son (who died of a heart ailment). Miloš Hanák tried to emigrate to the U.S., but I have a feeling that he did not succeed. An F.B.I. agent came one day to our home to inquire about the man and I had to tell what I knew. Otík was able to add some amusing details of how Hanák made a living. At one time, Hanák was selling bibles which he signed in his hand as the "Patriarch of Jerusalem." He seemed to be the black sheep of his family. Dr. Antonín Klouda lived in London as did the rest of our airmen, Vrdlovec, Zátopek and Buršík. Many of those with whom we spent days in the Alaska House have since died. Dead are Mrs. Drábek, Miloš Vanìk, Ivan Herben, Alexander Hess, and others. My husband died on July 29, 1970, of cancer. Memories of those days are fading. It is hard to remember exactly how things happened. There are some gaps in them. When we were fleeing, we all thought not only that one day we would be back but also that we should be able to somehow work toward changes in our country. It seemed so at first, but as time went by, people and governments were less and less interested in the fate of a small country, the last real democracy before the two dictatorships overran everything. We cannot very well blame other nations for not being able to understand precisely what was going on. We were well aware of Hitler's intentions, but the goals of the Soviets, in spite of our proximity to them, were unknown to us. We cannot expect those who live a great distance from them to understand, either.

 

What did we then achieve? Not as much as we expected. We did save our lives and prepared a better future for our children. It is the best we could have done, no more.