A few years ago, my children and grandchildren, especially Danielle and Julia, asked me to record what I could remember about my family. Since 1948, when we had to leave our homeland after the Communist putch, there was no contact with our dear ones at first at all. Later, there was some news occasionally, but only meager news.

 

I started to write what I remembered in 1987 and finished in the summer of 1989. Like everyone else living in exile, I never could dream that the political situation would radically change and that Communism would collapse. In the autumn of 1989, the satellite countries began to gain some measure of freedom. Our people at home have great hopes that with the advent of freedom some material improvement will follow. As we have seen, those hopes have a long way to go to fulfillment. Initial enthusiasm has given place to some disillusionment. The Communists are still active at this writing (Autumn of 1989). But, hopes die hard and our people will continue to look forward to better times.

 

I am writing this on my 80th birthday. About the ancestors on both sides of the family, I know only bare data. There is no one whom I can ask for clarification. Those data will seem dry to you. I am not able to make them more interesting or closer to life. I know more about our closer relatives. When I am gone, maybe some of you will be able to add more details to this memoir.

 

I use names under which many of our members have been known. In Central Europe, we give our nearest ones something which could be called a nickname. Actually, most of them are variations on their real names given at birth. My husband, baptised Otakar, was called Otík all of his life. Names of adults were often abbreviated, whereas names of children were often "elongated" by adding another syllable. I myself was called Jary or Jára (originally Jarmila). My husband's brother, Vladimír, was called Mírek, his sister Ludmila was called Lída. My oldest brother, Josef Mikuláš, got the real nickname of Pepèa. (In imperial Austria, the name Josef was italicised to Giuseppe, then shortened to Sepp, changed to Pepp or Peppi. My brother's name has been further changed to Pepèa.)

 

The name of my brother Zdeněk has not been changed at all. My youngest brother, Jiří(George), was called Jirka. My sister Ludmila was, of course, called Lída, and my youngest and surviving sister Milada is called Milu. My son Pavel is called Pika. Since early childhood, our daughter Jiřina (Georgia) has been called Jiřinka. Daughter Hana is called Hanièka. Most of my grandchildren preserved their first names in the original form except for the two youngest: Ilya is called (by me) Iljuška and little Lída is called Liduška.

 

On my husband's side, the only immediate member surviving is his nephew, Karel Jung. He and his wife Ludmila have a son Karel, and a daughter Ludmila, who with her husband has four children. Of my siblings, only my sister Milada is living. Virginia, wife of my oldest grandson, brings the number of my grandchildren to eight. (Note: Since this writing, Virginia has had a little girl, the first great-grandchild.) May this little family chronicle give you all an inkling of how my husband and I coped with life's difficulties. Good luck to you all.

 

Endicott, New York, November 20, 1990.

 

My husband's side of the family:

the Machotkas and the Nykls

 

The Machotkas

 

As far as I know, the Machotka family comes from Humpolec in Central Bohemia where many of the members made a living as weavers. Ferdinand Machotka (1856-1932) and his wife, Otilie, are buried in Humpolec. Two of their sons, Joseph and Philip, emigrated to the USA in the 19th century. As far as I have been able to establish, Otík's father, Richard (born 1867, son of Ferdinand and Otilie) had these siblings: Jaroslav, born 1870; Albertina (married name Lojková, date of birth unknown); Karel; and Augustýn. Of these siblings, I personally met only Albertina, called "teta Týna". She was a cheerful woman whose greatest sorrow was that she never had children. She died of a liver disease. When my husband Otík died in 1970 of liver cancer, I wondered if that had also been Týna's final illness and not diagnosed as cancer in those days. Did Otík inherit it? About Karel I have no information at all. Augustýn became a physician in Nymburk and had two children. One of them, a daughter, and I met in Prague after Otík and I were married. Augustine was a very dedicated physician who did not have a long life. He died after a gruelling night with a patient. He was in his early fifties. Jaroslav had two children, Marie (married name Spáèil, born 1901, died 1988), and Jaroslav Jr., born 1911, a teacher. He is still alive as is his wife, Miloslava, born 1911. They live in Èáslav. The oldest, Richard (1867), Otík's father, married Marie Zelinka (born 1873). They had three children: Otakar (born October 29, 1899, died July 29, 1970); Vladimír (born 1901, died 1970); and Ludmila (born 1903, died 1984). Richard died of diabetes in 1944, Marie died in 1954 of old age. Otakar died of cancer of the liver, Vladimír of tuberculosis of the bones, and Ludmila after a second stroke.

 

Otík and I had three children: Pavel (born 1936), Georgia (born 1938), and Hana (born 1944). Vladimír had no children of his own, but adopted his wife's daughter from her first marriage, Marcela. Ludmila Jung had one son, Karel Jr. (born 1932). Karel Jr.'s wife, also Ludmila, was born in 1936. They have two children: Ludmila (born 1961) and Karel (born 1970). The youngest Karel is unmarried and makes his living as an electrical engineer. The youngest Ludmila is married to Jiří Podlipný, who is an electrical engineer; their five children are Jiří ( George, born 1984); Jindřich (Henry, born 1986); Dagmara (born 1988); Jiřina (born 1993); and their adopted Daniel (born 1990).

 

On Otík's mother's side, the Nykls are from Hrabačov near Jilemnice. They were farmers. Of Otík's grandmother's siblings, I know this much: The oldest in the family was John (uncle Jan, born 1846, died 1937). Next was Agnes (died 1947); Pavel, Petr, and Anna, the already mentioned grandmother. Uncle Jan remained unmarried. He rented a large estate in the vicinity of Karlsbad. All of the milk products, butter and eggs needed for the famous spa of Karlovy Vary (Karlsbad) came from his estate every morning. Agnes, who also remained unmarried, kept house for him. Pavel was the one who inherited the farm in Hrabačov and worked it until his death. Petr became a brewer and a manager in a sugar refinery. He and his wife retired early to Prague where they died. Anna Nykl, the youngest (Otík's grandmother), married František Zelinka who made a living by buying livestock from farmers and using part of it in his country inn where his wife became a cook, well-known among travelers. (To his last days, Otík's brother Vladimír could remember some of the tasty sauces grandmother sometimes made.)

 

Of this marriage, there was only one daughter, Marie, Otík's mother. Grandfather František Zelinka (born March 5, 1841, in Køížlice) was a very good-looking man and passed on his good looks to his daughter, who in turn passed them on to their son, Otík. From him it was our daughter Hana who inherited them and now her son, Ilya, is the best looking child in the family.

 

Otík's grandfather Zelinka died early. On his many trips to the far-flung farms in all weahter, he caught a severe chill which developed into pneumonia and from which he did not recover. It was also assumed that he might have been suffering from TB. Grandmother Anna Zelinka and her daughter Marie lived in Jilemnice until Marie's marriage to Richard Machotka.

 

The marriage was an arranged affair. Of the original Protestants who were in the majority for 200 years, only a handful remained after the Counter-reformation. Some villages, isolated near the mountains, remained faithful to their religion. It was important that their diminishing numbers at least be preserved. For that reason, the Protestant ministers arranged marriages between families of the same faith. Both the Nykls and the Machotkas had a good record in that respect. Richard started as a bank clerk in Prague, and the newly married couple began married life there. Richard later became the bank director. They lived in Prague for many years and later retired to Hrabačov where Marie grew up.

 

Richard, Otík's father, was a rather taciturn man. When he came home from work at the bank, the children were expected to be quiet. He kept to himself. During his lifetime, he experienced two upheavals. The first one happened when he was directing his first bank in Prague. He discovered that some stockholders from Gallicia were about to defraud the bank in a scheme. He reported it to the authorities, but the stockholders had some strong backing and before a decision on the coming fraud could be made, they forced him out. That shook him badly. He secured another similar job, but his confidence was shaken.

 

The second blow came when he made an investment with his wife's dowry. This investment proved to be a bad one. The dowry was almost all lost. He was able to make better investments later on and gain about the same amount as he lost, but again, he was discouraged. All in all, he always provided very well for his family, but from then on, he was very cautious.

 

Richard was occasionally hasty, which was in contrast to his wife who was deliberate. When he was elderly, he thought that he would like to learn to play the violin. He bought one and started practicing. Since listening to it bothered the others, he confined his practicing to his bedroom, until his wife told him to stop entirely. There must have been differences of opinion between him and his wife but he never mentioned them. Before Otík and I got married, he gave Otík this advice: "Remember that peace in the family sometimes depends on being able to give in in little matters." He died of diabetes in his 77th year.

 

Otík's mother was quite different. In a quiet way, she liked to discuss everything that was happening, whether in the family or outside. She always had plans ready for any event. She liked to do "the right thing." In an unobtrusive way, she ran her household in the best way, supported by her mother's presence and advice. With two such efficient women, father may not always have had an easy time. The children were kept clean, ate the proper food, went to school on time, did their homework, took music lessons, etc. And yet, in spite of all her rationality, she spoiled her younger son Vladimír. He did not like discipline and got his way by constantly making jokes. Mother made allowances for him. Much later she confided in me: "When he made some of his funny comments, I had to laugh and could not pressure him to do what was expected." She probably did not realize what a fatal mistake she had been making. Mírek knew how to get around her and made full use of her weakness. The results were bad indeed.

 

On another occasion I heard her make a tragic comment. Her daughter Lída made a bad marriage decision although she had quite a few other possibilities. Mother said then: "I sometimes wonder whether it would not have been better had Lída died while she had the scarlet fever." Lída was then only eight and the illness was a grave one. She would have died had it not been for mother's wonderful care at home. No effort had been spared to keep her alive then. Hearing this I felt that wondering about what would have been better to happen many years ago was a very sad thing to do.

 

When the three children, Otakar, Vladimír, and Ludmila, were growing up, the task of taking care of them was divided this way: Otík was given in charge to grandmother, mother herself took care of Mírek and Lída was the maid's charge. This was the way everything concerning the children was put in perfect order. Moreover, grandmother did all the cooking, mother did the sewing, and the maid did the cleaning. The Machotka household was functioning as well as was humanly possible. The Protestant families were always run efficiently and rationally. As a religious minority in the sea of Catholics, the Protestants had to be rational, economical, and orderly. It was the only way a minority could survive. There was no room for impulsive acts, for chance decisions, or disorderly behavior. Stress was on reason, not emotions. That was the main difference between Otík and me. I was more impulsive, he was deliberate. I did not plan ahead, he knew from the very first what he wanted to do. Strange as it may seem, these differences made for a happy union. We complemented each other. The differences were in the form, not the content. In our ideals we were alike.

 

The name Machotka is not a very unusual one, and in the USA, there are a few families by that name. I do not know how closely related they are to us. There are also some Nykls in the USA, but I do not have their particulars. Years ago (in 1959) my husband, our daughter Hana, and I were invited to a picnic in Madison, Wisconsin, for a reunion of the Machotkas living nearby. I remember meeting Granny Machotka, then about 90 years old (mother of John), August, Frank, William and Esther Kratochwill. Both John and August are alive; the others have passed away. I am in contact with the two and with Frank's only daughter, Joanne Gillings. Frank and the others were all my husband's second cousins since their grandfathers were brothers. Frank kept a genealogy of all who emigrated to the USA and his daughter continues the tradition.

 

 

Otík's Mother's Side of the Family - More About the Nykls

 

Very little is known by me about Otík grandfather Zelinka's family. I know more about the side of grandmother Zelinka, whose maiden name was Nykl. She was born April 3, 1848 in Hrabačov and died in 1927. Her oldest brother was John (strýc Jan) whose long life had been almost idyllic. I did have a chance to meet him and his sister Agnes (teta Aněžka) who kept house for him. There was a strong family coherence among the members, who supported each other morally and financially. On occasion I was told some things about how the family stuck together, how they loaned each other funds when necessary (preferring this to borrowing from the bank), how they visited each other and kept faith. Uncle Jan was of a placid disposition. He was deliberate in his movements, he seldom got angry, and he and teta Aněžka had a daily routine which never changed. Aněžka, who had a slight streak of mischief-making, would occasionally try to change the routine to see whether it would make him angry, but except for a mild rebuff, she did not get what she wanted - i.e., to see him upset. Physically he was a rather portly man of middle height who walked slowly. Every morning he saddled his horse and, after breakfast, rode leisurely around the large farm estate which he rented from the municipality of Karlovy Vary (Karlsbad). He wanted to make sure that all work had been done properly so that he could continue to supply the spa visitors with the best victuals, especialy milk, cream, eggs, and some fresh meat. Contrary to him, Aněžka was a slight person, quick and wiry. She had a sense of humor which he lacked, although he was constantly in a good mood. He died at the age of 91 in 1937, in a hospital bed. The night before he died he got dresed "to take a train to Karlovy Vary," but the nurse asked him to wait until morning. He died peacefully. Aněžka survived him by ten years. I sometimes think that part of his good disposition was inherited by my husband, who also did not get easily upset and whose optimism was his most noticeable asset. Aněžka's bent toward mischief-making found itself multiplied several times in Vladimír, my husband's younger brother.

 

I have never met uncle Pavel, Jan's younger brother. He was the one who continued tilling the small family farm in Hrabačov. Otík's parents eventually bought it from the remaining relatives and rebuilt the house. It belonged to Otík's sister Ludmila, but after the Communist putch, she had to sell it for a pittance.

 

Next in line was uncle Peter (strýc Petr). He was different from his brother Jan in that he did not have his sunny disposition. It might have been due to the fact that his life took a sharp turn after WW1 ended. Uncle Peter was at one time a brewer and later a manager of a sugar refinery. He was prosperous, made some money, and at an early age, he retired to Prague to live with his wife on his savings. However, what he did not anticipate was that after the war the value of money would be greatly reduced. He found himself in very reduced circumstances. I met uncle Peter and his wife Rùžena (Rose) on several occasions. They appeared to be subdued. It was easy to see how hard it must have been to suddenly abandon their life of comparative ease and to have to count every penny. They had no children, neither did Jan or Agnes. If I am correct, the only youngster in that family was Marie, the daughter of Anna Nykl who marrried František Zelinka.

 

I never met Otík's grandmother. She had died several years before we made our acquaintance. I am told she was an excellent cook who later joined her married daughter (Otík's mother) and cooked for the family. She was said to be quite good-looking. In her old age she lost her good looks which worried her greatly. On one occasion, when she saw her own photograph taken in her youth, she got so angry at the change that she tore the photograph to pieces. She was probably a very efficient person. She had to cope with her early widowhood and had to live with her married daughter. And yet by careful management, she had saved enough money to give her daughter a nice dowry, 40.000 crowns, a large sum of money in those days. That sum was later lost in a bad investment by Richard. Another, better investment restored the family fortune, but over the years, our country experienced so many changes that all the saving and hard work seemed to have been in vain.

 

Otík's younger sister, Ludmila Jungová (1903-1984)

 

The youngest of the three Machotka children, Ludmila, called Lída, proved to be the most practical of them all, but her marriage was a disaster. She did only average work at school, but from her early years she showed a remarkable ability in piano playing, which later proved to be the activity that sustained her and enabled her to make a living. As to her looks, she had apple-red cheeks and a pert, upturned nose which many young men found attractive. If it were not sad, it could be called ironic that with quite a few choices she had at her disposal, she made a poor choice of a husband. It was not entirely her fault. For one thing, she was not really interested in finding a suitable husband. She had no real interest in men. She felt happy at home where everything went smoothly and where most decisions were made for her. One of the men who were seriously interested in her was her piano teacher, the virtuoso Jan Heøman. He was quite the ladies' man and most of the family was rather puritanical. Jan Heøman was, on occasion, seen walking in the park called Havlíèkovy Sady (formerly Gräbovka) in Prague, which was situated close to the family home. You could see the park from Lída's window. He was walking around the park hoping to get a glimpse of her in the window. This information had to be kept from Lída's father since everyone knew it would make the puritanical father angry. Later on when Lída's marriage turned out to be a disaster, most of the family agreed that marriage to Heøman would have been better.

 

Another young man who had been interested in her was a physician who was the family's neighbor in Hrabačov. He was shy and did not declare himself clearly but remained unmarried. When, many years later, everyone was aware that Lída's marriage was a failure, the physician plucked up courage and sent a friend to Lída to inquire whether she would be interested in leaving her husband and marrying him. Unfortunately, Lída could not make up her mind. A divorce seemed to her a very difficult step which she seemed unable to take at that time. She did not accept his offer. As it turned out, many more years later, she did have to divorce her husband. But, by that time all the parties were advanced in years. It was too late.

 

Her husband, Karel Jung, was an architect by training. He came from the city of Pardubice, where his father had been the chief of police. His mother was a rigid woman and his whole upbringing was strict. The children in that family felt oppressed by the mother's many rules which possibly were thought to be quite all right in the family of a police chief. It was expected of the boy, Karel, that he would do his utmost in everything he started. He did well at school and when he started his own architectural firm, he expected to succeed. He had some initial commissions, but he expected customers to flock to him. This did not happen. He reacted with anger. Did he expect that people would "obey" as he had to at home? He got into conflicts with some of his customers, and when payments did not come right away, he took his customers to court. That discouraged further commissions. He began to be quarrelsome. He blamed the outside world. He expected his father-in-law to support him financially. He expected me to turn over part of my dowry so that he could build a house "for me" (which I did not need). He became nasty when I refused. He kept a large office and employed an expensive draftsman although there was practically no work for him. He secretly took away from Lída her jewelry and gold coins. He quarrled with her, too. At first, she tried to protect him from the wrath of the rest of the family, but at last she saw the truth.

 

What most of us had not been aware of was that Karel suffered from a mental illness. He was paranoid. After their only child, Karlík, was born, Lída moved away from him to Hrabačov, where she spent the rest of her life supporting herself by giving piano lessons. The small farm gave her and her mother food. By that time, father Richard had died of diabetes. Hrabačov was the place where mother Marie had been born and raised. She, daughter Lída and little Karlík, lived there until the two women died. Even while living there, Lída could have improved her lot by divorcing Karel and marrying the physician, but she did not have the courage to make, for her, such a drastic decision. She died at the age of 81. Most of her married life she needed all the strength she could muster. She fought bravely.

 

After Lída had moved for good to Hrabačov, she came from time to time to Prague where Karel had an apartment. She cooked and cleaned for him and did what she could. He was unable or unwilling to keep his apartment in a semblance of order. He always made scenes with her, accusing her of all sorts of deeds. He had no work and no income. When my husband and I left our home for good, we lost track of him. We finally learned that Lída divorced him and also were told that before and during the divorce, Karel made her life miserable. I do not know what he died of and when. Karlík, the son, is quite different from his father. He gets along very well with people and is well liked. He is 57 years old at this time and continues living in Hrabačov with his wife, two children, and four grandchildren.

 

Otík's younger brother, Vladimír ("Mírek", 1901-1970)

 

Most Machotkas proved to be orderly, well-behaved children who caused no difficulties to their parents. Vladimír proved to be the exception to the rule. Thinking about all the trouble he caused his parents, I sometimes wondered: Why? He had all he needed. His mother adored him; he was the soul of every party thanks to his proclivity for making fun of everything; he did not do too badly in school (though not very well, either); there was enough cash at home to give to him most of what he wanted, and yet he never did exactly what a boy of his background was supposed to do. He was mostly in rebellion against established norms and got away with it because he could invariably turn any situation into a ridiculous one. He made jokes about everything and got away with it.

 

Between the two brothers there could not have been a greater difference. Otík was good-looking, had brown eyes and brown hair. Mírek was blond with blue eyes, but he did not have the Zelinka good looks. (He may have resented that.) Otík was a well-behaved boy whose marks at school were excellent. Mírek resented authority and at school did not do too well. He may have been aware of his lack of talent. Very soon in life he found out that he could twist his mother around his little finger and used it. Whenever he did something undesirable, he turned it into a joke and that conquered mother. She was a rational woman, but where Mírek was concerned, she showed an astonishing weakness and did not see straight. Otík's face was that of his mother, Mírek's the face of his father. He became the clown of the family. It was not until much later in life that mother admitted that Mírek got his ways without fail by making everyone laugh, not by doing the right thing. Until he was middle-aged, he used his antics, and because of his lack of discipline, he had many setbacks in employment.

 

He studied electrical engineering and it took him ten years to finish his studies! No one at home knew for a long time that he did not pass his examinations. When it had taken several years already, his father sent Otík to the Dean's office at the Technical Institute to inquire about his progress. He was told: "Oh, you mean that Machotka! The eternal student. No, he never comes to classes and never bothers to take examinations!" This caused great consternation in the family. Otík and mother talked seriously to Mírek. Father wanted Otík to inquire from time to time at the school. The father himself did not do it, I cannot guess why. In any case, it took Mírek the full ten years before he was able to graduate. The other students took four to five years. That must have been a blow to the parents. Maybe that was what opened mother's eyes.

 

Looking back on those years of clowning and showing off with other young men, equally lazy as Mírek had been, it occurred to me that one of the reasons for his behavior might have been Mírek's envy of his brother. Otík had all the makings of a good student. He was very talented (much more than Mírek); he was diligent; he was good-looking; Otík caused no trouble, either at home or at school; teachers had only good words for him; Mírek met with a lot of disapproval, etc. Whether it was like that from the beginning I do not know, but I now believe that by making people laugh, Mírek might have wanted to "get one up on his brother". He may have found that this was an easy way to be popular. Because of his jokes, Mírek became quite liked by women and was considered to be good company. Yet some of his jokes were cruel, especially when it came to making fun of unpopular people. In spite of this, there always were some people who enjoyed jokes made at the expense of others, even of physical defects. I remember a few instances when his sharp tongue wounded his targets. There cannot be doubt about the fact that in comparison with his brother, he came out wanting.

 

It was not just the fact of Otík's being on the honor roll at a classical gymnasium, of his being successful in every field. Mírek found that he had to surpass his brother in another field. He fancied himself as a shrewd businessman. He started various types of small businesses. I well remember one of them: he started breeding dogs. Begun with great enthusiasm, it soon was unproductive. Mírek found something else (e.g. selling cars), which ended equally poorly. And so it went from one venture to another. He needed funds for his ventures, and where does a young man find funds? From his brother, of course. Otík saved all his extra money (by then he had been employed) and Mírek borrowed and borrowed, always promising to repay. All of his ventures failed; none was successful. He never returned any money to his brother. Father was aware of the situation having himself refused to finance any of Mírek's businesses. When it seemed to Father that things had gone far enough, he asked Otík how much Mírek owed to him. He was surprised at the amount. He knew that Mírek would never repay it and decided to give this amount to Otík himself. For a time this ended new ventures.

 

From an early age Otík wanted to ride a motorcycle, but his parents would not permit it, it being "too dangerous." When Otík reached 20 years of age and began to earn some money, the first thing he bought was a motorcycle. Mírek was jealous and wanted one, too. Otík let him have his on occasion, but that was not enough for Mírek. At night he sometimes raided the garage and started riding the cycle around Prague with his companions. All were very happy of this escapade even though a lot of damage was done to the cycle during those wild rides. They thought it served Otík right, he should not have a motorcycle when the others did not have one! Otík was not happy about it, but he loved his brother and made allowances for him. By then he knew that Mírek would not change his ways. It took two more decades before Mírek began to settle down.

 

Occasionally, he was aware of having gone too far. Once, when he had a row at

home and had been rebuked, he bitterly complained to his girlfriend and her mother how mistreated he was at home. Both women believed him and the mother, feeling sorry for the nice boy and the cruelty in his family, offered to have him move in with them. He did. It caused great consternation in the family. Mother Machotka showed her resolution then. She went to the family, saw Mírek and simply told him: "Come home now!" To her surprise he obeyed immediately. He probably was uneasy himself at what he had done. Father was inclined to punish Mírek but mother thought that Mírek might have been punished enough when he realized how grave his act had been. Mother was shaking and trembling while bringing him home, but felt that no further punishment was necessary.

 

Being well-liked by ladies made it possible for Mírek to meet a lot of young women. From his days at the Technical Institute, Mírek had know Klára Kroupa, one of the most beautiful girls in her circle. Her father owned a chocolate factory in Vokovice, a suburb of Prague. The family lived nearby in a large expensive villa. The factory was founded by Kroupa, who came from Haná (he had an accent and talked dialect). His wife ("stará Kroupka") was from Berlin and must have been a good-looking woman in her youth. She handled all insubordination with Prussian efficiency and was generally feared if not disliked. (For an unknown reason, she liked me. Could it be because I was not afraid of her?) The Kroupas had three children: František, Heda, and Klára. Both girls inherited mother's good looks, especially Klára. Her face was beautiful and her eyes were soft brown. She was a placid girl who rarely got upset (which later proved to be the best attitude toward Mírek's impulsiveness). She had slow movements and on a tennis court, she hardly moved to strike a ball. Her mother found for her (in her opinion) a suitable husband. He was a mediocre businessman who wanted a charming wife. On the day of the marriage ceremony, Mrs. Kroupa had the road to the church strewn with white roses. Klára expected that the marriage would work out, but it did not. In spite of Klára's real beauty, her husband was soon unfaithful to her with women less endowed and that continued until even mother Kroupa decided that that was the end. There was a divorce. Klára was given custody of their only daughter, Marcela.

 

Mírek met her soon after her divorce and started dating her. In her second marriage, to Mírek this time, Klára was not much luckier but at least Mírek was very fond of her. Klára was used to being pushed around and his ways did not come as a surprise to her. I saw some occasions when Mírek was rude to her. And yet the marriage worked somehow. Much of it was due to the fact that Klára was not easily angered. Mírek had no opportunity to make fun of her physical imperfections (as he did with others) -- there were no imperfections. Klára decided that she would shut her ears to his occasional "rough" language. She knew how to cook (Mírek loved good food) and she let him have his way. This was an almost perfect set-up. Mírek could not have asked for a better one. And, like her first husband, Mírek was occasionally unfaithful to her. They had no children (Mírek at that time did not want any) and Marcela became his daughter by adoption. (Some 40 years later, I came across the name Marcela Machotková, which was that of a soprano at the National Theatre. I do not know if she is the same girl I knew.)

 

After Klára and Mírek were married, they moved to Northern Bohemia, to the city of Podmokly, where he had a job as an electrical engineer. This was a part of the country called the Sudetenland which Hitler claimed as belonging to Germany due to the fact that most inhabitants spoke German. In reality, it was an integral part of the old Kingdom of Bohemia and Hitler had no right to it. He did not give up, however. Using strong propaganda, he persuaded most Sudeten Germans to vote for him in the general election in 1934, and his Nazi-oriented party got the majority then. From then on, living in that part of Bohemia was not safe for our people. When in 1939, Hiter made the move against Czechoslovakia, the Sudeten Germans staged raids on Czech establishments. Many Czechs started fleeing for their lives leaving property behind. Klára and Mírek were really in danger, but Mírek did not move. He was almost paralyzed. Klára's mother resolutely stepped in. She never lacked courage. She harassed a moving company in Prague to make the immediate long trip to the north and move all the young couple's belongings back to Prague within the same day. Only some non-essentials were left behind. It if had not been for her, who knows where the couple would have ended.

 

I always had the feeling that in spite of Mírek's boastful manner, he actually did not have physical courage. He proved it again during the Nazi occupation. While Otík risked his and his family's lives, Mírek did not dare to do any underground work. For his undoubted bravery, Otík got a Military Cross and Medal for Bravery from the President of our country. Mírek's mother herself once asked him: "What did you do for your country during the war?" He could not give an answer. Similarly, when Otík had to leave the country forever, and I was trying to find a way out with my three children, Mírek was no help at all. He did not contact me, he never offered any help. As on previous occasions, he was paralyzed. We cannot really blame those who are fearful and yet we do not admire them. Between the two brothers, there was a world of difference, not only in talent, diligence, and behavior, but also in moral characteristics. But in spite of this, there remained a bond of affection between them. As Mírek grew older, he learned to appreciate the qualities of his brother and of his own wife. She died a painful death at the age of 60. By then he admired her patience and devotion and sincerely mourned her death. Otík's death in 1970 affected Mírek greatly. I had to describe to him in a letter Otík's last moments. Soon after, Mírek entered a hospital himself where he died of tuberculosis of the bones.

 

I sometimes wonder what Mírek could have thought of his life if he ever looked back. Did he believe that he had a good life? Did he think that he achieved anything worth while? Was he satisfied with the way he performed tasks? In his opinion, had he been a good husband? He was well liked, but did people really know him? All those questions remain open.

 

 

My mother's side of the family,

the Trmals

 

My mother, Jiřina Eleonora Trmalová-Mohrová,

April 1, 1880-August 29, 1929

 

It was not a habit in our family to talk at great length about various members and their histories. That is why many events remained unknown to me. The family name, before my mother's marriage, was Trmal. Her father derived his name from that of a minor nobility, Trmals of Toušice, who were "rytíøi" (a possible equivalent of "barons") and who were Protestants. When the Counter-Reformation was at its fiercest, the Trmals had to hide. Their original home was in Central Bohemia. An old aunt of my mother's, living in the well-known Spa of Poděbrady, had in her possession a portrait of several members of the Trmal clan together with the family crest with seven carnations. (That portrait probably is still in Poděbrady.) Some members were in time forced to renounce their religion, abandon their convictions, and accept Catholicism, the pressure being overpowering. The conversion, however, was not deep. There always remained a lot of scepticism about the new faith and it never disappeared. I myself well remember it from my youth.

 

My mother's father, Josef Trmal, made a living as a brewer forman (sládek). He was not in good health and lived to be only 40 years of age. He died of what was probably heart disease. His widow, Marie, was left with seven young children. Of the original 14 children, half died in infancy of childhood diseases. In those days there was a child born every year. When the oldest child, also called Marie (later called by us "teta Márinka"), reached the age of 14, she was married to a young man in order "that there be a man in the house". At the time of father's death, a branch of the family was living in the small town of Nymburk while the rest lived in Prague. The widow's sister, Anna (teta Anna Suchanová), living in Nymburk, was asked to take care of the three youngest children, my mother being one of them. Teta Anna and her husband operated a grocery store which had an unusual (for us, nowadays) name of "krupaøství", which in English would be called a "barley store". After her husband's early death, teta Anna ran the store herself. Being obliged to manage in the business world by herself may be one of the reasons which made teta Anna a hard woman. The three children she was taking care of for her sister were: my mother Jiřina (Georgia), her brother "Míla" (Mikuláš), and the youngest, Julia (teta Julča). Anna was a strict disciplinarian and ruled with an iron hand. She beat the children for the slightest infraction. My mother was a shy girl who could not defend herself. The other two, it seems, were of stronger disposition. Whenever the children returned home from play with soiled clothes, teta Anna beat them soundly, expecting that they would not get dirty the next time. For a sensitive little girl like my mother, this was painful, literally and figuratively. In later years, when she and the other two children were able to return to their mother to live in Prague, mother remembered the little house in Nymburk with sorrow. She never forgave teta Anna for having treated them so harshly and having made their early childhood years so miserable.

 

The four older children who had been living with their mother (my grandmother) in Prague after their father's death, were: Marie (teta Márinka), František (strýc František), Jan (strýc Jan), and Josef (strýc Pepíèek). Teta Márinka was very good looking. Married at 14, she had only one daughter, also called Marie (called by us Maru), who inherited her mother's good looks. Her father came from Sudetenland and his name was Hoffman. He did not live long. That made it necessary for Maru to go to work at the early age of 16 to support her mother. In those days, there were practically no jobs for women as old as her mother was. Maru became a milliner and a very good one. She had excellent taste. She could combine colors in a way that was pleasing and unobtrusive. She could decorate hats in a charming way. She never exaggerated her designs. In later years, when my sister Lída and I were living without the benefit of our mother's advice (she having died young), we always relied on our cousin Maru's advice as to the dresses we bought.

 

Teta Márinka and Maru lived in Prague in an old house in a street called Smecky (no. 4). I well remember the house as I had spent two summers there in 1917 and 1918. The apartment was on the ground floor (called "first" in America). The apartment was full of knick-knacks, as was customary in those days. From early years it had been the home of teta Julia, the youngest of the Trmal children. Maru and Julèa became close friends and remained so until Julèa's death many years later. On some occasion when Julèa had been hospitalized, Marie visited her daily. On those visits she met a young doctor, a handsome, tall physician called Dr. Ćeněk Seitz, who made it a point to visit the sickroom every time Maru came. He became entranced by her beauty. They made a handsome pair -- she blond and blue-eyed, he tall and darker. They soon got married. At that time teta Márinka had been deceased and teta Julèa was the nearest family Maru had, my mother and father having moved to Jihlava. Teta Márinka died of heart trouble and a kidney disease. After their marriage, Dr. Seitz did not want his wife to work, which was a pity because so much talent in decorating was left unused.

 

Ćeněk was a highly educated man. His specialty was pediatrics. He made a special study of children's teeth. He was named college instructor and was to be named assistant professor at Charles University when he suffered a stroke and died soon after (there was high blood pressure in his family). He and Maru never had children. Maru died much later, some 30 years later. It is a great pity that two such beautiful and talented people did not have children. I remember one detail: Maru had beautiful teeth, large, white and rounded such as teeth were made for porcelain dolls in our youth (a sign of perfection). A dentist literally fell in love with her teeth! In later years, especially after her husband's death and during the years of the Communist regime, Maru became rather fat (possibly as a result of mostly starchy food). Even while fat, Maru kept her beauty until her death. She died in 1957, all alone, in a tiny room assigned to her by Communist authorities "as a bourgeois widow". Her body was found after a week when my sister enquired why her letters went unanswered.

 

My mother's oldest brother was František (strýc František). He was probably the most talented of the Trmal children. He did extremely well at school and concentrated on teaching. Because of his excellent work, he achieved the coveted position of "School Inspector" for all of Bohemia and Moravia. In this capacity, he made yearly visits to all middle and secondary schools watching the achievements of pupils and teachers and making reports to the Ministry of Education. Schools in the old Austrian-Hungarian Empire were centralized and had the same curriculum for all districts. It was the task of the Ministry of Education to write the syllabus, and the schools were expected to be up to standard. The Inspector's task was to point out where any district was lagging behind and make recommendations to those schools. Uncle František was very good at it and his work was greatly appreciated. He became quite prominent in his field. Only a few educators achieved this grade.

 

He and his wife, Rùžena (Rose), had three sons: Jiří(George), who became a banker, Bohumil who was a businessman, and Jan (John), an electrical engineer. Uncle František and Jiří met with a tragic end: In the spring of 1945, when Prague tried (and succeeded) in liberating herself from the Nazis, both František and Jiří hung out a Czech flag on the balcony of their house. They were observed by a couple of SS-men who aimed their rifles at both of them. Both were shot in the abdomen and died a few days apart in the hospital. Jiříleft behind a young widow with three children.

 

As to Jiří's brothers, I lost track of Bohumil. He was a very pleasant young man, full of optimism. When my sister Lída and I were students in Prague, Bohumil (whom we affectionately called Páček) visited us often. (Uncle František's family had lived in Prague since the late 1880's.) Páček and the two of us had a lovely time going to various events with our other cousins. They were always in an excellent mood. It was amazing that both Páček and his younger brother Jan were of such sunny dispositions, since their father was a serious man. Jan had a nickname of Honda (believe it or not!). He was a real joker and his good-natured ribbing made everybody fond of him. One of his sons, also named Jan, made it to the USA and is employed by a large concern in Connecticut.

 

František's younger brother was Josef (strýc Pepíèek). He became a businessman. He had a big concern which sold coal and coke. During World War I, coal was in great demand, and he and his family became quite well-to-do. He and his wife, Anna, had three children. The first, Lambert, who followed in his father's footsteps, was a businessman. I know nothing about Lambert's history. The second child was Hana, who married a docent (i.e. an assistant professor) of pharmacology. The youngest was Ludmila (Lída), a girl of unusual beauty. Not only were her features absolutely perfect, she was also endowed by, what was called, "the Trmal eyes", large and dark brown. A visiting Frenchman fell deeply in love with her and brought her as his wife to Paris where he owned a hotel. Aunt Anna deeply regretted that she could not give Lída any trousseau. The marriage was performed during the war years and the occupying Nazis did not allow anything of value to be exported. I remember having seen Lída once when she was taking riding lessons. I was struck by her good looks. I never saw her again. I only know that her name became Madame Lily Lavaud.

 

It is hard for me to judge who was more beautiful, Maru or her cousin Lída. They were different. One, the blue-eyed blond, the other brown-eyed brunette. Lída's older sister Hana was average, and their brother Lambert was a muscular type, not too bright. He was fond of using his father's wealth to enjoy himself. He had no higher aspirations. Hana's marriage did not last. Her husband, Dr. Sládek, divorced her (I do not know the reason) and later married Dr. Gertrude Wessely, a German scholar who wrote studies on Goethe and Schiller. These two were living in Washington, D.C. where they both later died. I suppose that no one of this family is alive anymore.

 

The youngest of the Trmal brothers was Jan. He probably was the least talented. He owned a butcher shop in Strasnice, which was then a suburb of Prague (now a part of it). He and his wife had several children. I followed the careers of only three daughters of theirs. Jiřinka (Georgia), married very badly. Her husband was a man-about-town and a philanderer who had many girl friends. He infected his wife, Jiřinka, with a disease and their two little girls had to be under frequent medical care. Jiřinka was another member who had the Trmal beautiful brown eyes. Her younger sister, Jarmila, was a stronger personality. Where Jiřinka was meek and shy, a woman who could not defend herself, Jarmila was a resolute person. She married well. Her husband, Petr Kousal, became quite well-known as a sculptor and reached a prominent position as a serious artist. They lived in Zlín, the home of Baťa shoes. They had two children.

 

The youngest of these Trmal girls (the daughter of Jan) was Rùženka (Rose). She only lived to be six years of age. She was a charming little girl, shy, well-behaved. She was taught not to ask too much and to be patient. That shortened her life. When she was stricken with abdominal pains, she did not complain until it was too late. Her appendix ruptured and she died of peritonitis.

 

Of the father, uncle Jan, I remember very little. I only know that he suffered greatly from arthritis and that he did not live long. The family did not have an easy time.

 

Of the three children left in the care of Anna Suchan in Nymburk, my mother was the oldest. All three remained in teta Anna's care until they finished elementary school. Then they joined their mother in Prague. My mother's younger brother's name was Mikuláš (strýc Míla). He was a kind-hearted boy who loved his sister (my mother) and remained devoted to her all his life. He and his wife never had any children. Maybe that is why he took a liking to me, and before I was eight years old, he made a lasting present to me by buying a bibliophile edition of a Czech masterpiece of literature, the book: "Babièka" (Grandmother) by our illustrious author Božena Nìmcová. This book was so dear to me, and I read it so often that it soon became worn out and had to be rebound and fixed many times. Strýc Míla died young. He did have a heart condition and was under a strict regime for quite some time. I shall always remember him.

 

The youngest in the family was Julia (teta Julča). She was quite artistic and had wonderful taste. She was unerring in the matter of colors. Moreover, she loved books and had in her possession some lovely editions. She became a teacher of arts at a woman's school in Olomouc, called the Pöttingeum. She married late in life. She and Maru Hoffman-Seitz (her niece) were great friends and were inseparable. Both had similar tastes. I am sorry that so many members of the Trmal family died childless.

 

My mother was educated in the convent of the Ursuline Sisters. In those days, the Catholic Church was the only one to offer further schooling to girls. In the convent, as was then the habit, my mother was given lessons in French, piano playing, and singing. It was discovered that mother had a beautiful soprano voice, which embraced three octaves! After initial lessons my mother was sent to Pivoda's music school for further training. (Pivoda's music school was notorious in the past for being opposed to the compositions of Smetana. Mother's lessons took place at the end of the century, she having been born in 1880.) She was trained in coloratura. She was expected to have a good singing career, but on her way to Pivoda's school she frequently met a young law student with whom she fell in love. That was my father. After they married, they moved to Jihlava where father found his first job as a "concipient" to an established lawyer, Dr. Shenk. In the course of years, they had six children and that was the definite end of mother's singing career.

 

I remember some of the songs she liked to sing. There was one called Song of the Doves (Cukrují si hrdlièky). It was full of trills well-suited to her soprano and to her coloratura training. Her beloved operatic arias were two: The song of Cherubino, Voi che sapete, from the Marriage of Figaro, and the aria of Rosina from the Barber of Seville, Una voce pocco fa.

 

With so many children she had only a few opportunties to sing. At the beginning of her married life, she sang at the Czech Beseda in Jihlava at concerts. Later she only had a chance to sing to us children. I do not know if life would have been better for her had she continued singing professionally. She was a shy person, not at all aggressive, because she suffered from bad nerves. She could not defend herself and always looked for peace and quiet. With so many of us she did not get much peace. She was good-looking. She had brown hair and blue eyes and a straight nose. She was not too tall and most of us children grew to be middle-sized. She devoted all of her life to us, her family. Marriage to our father was a harmonious one. When she reached 40, we thought that her physical illness was a heart trouble. She spent many summers in the Spa Poděbrady, which was supposed to "cure" heart disease. In reality, she had a kidney disease which shortened her life. She died at the age of 49 after uremic poisoning on August 29, 1929.

 

The six of us children have had our own disagreements and squabbles over the years. The day she died we stopped squabbling for good. Father would have spent any amount of money to have her cured, if it were possible. We all felt that even if she were to remain incapacitated, we would dearly have loved her just to sit and watch us. When she died, the oldest of us was 28, the youngest was 11. I was 18, my sister Lída 19. Her death crushed us all, most of all our father. He never married again. At her death he, too, was 49. None of us three daughters got her voice. The talent died with her.

 

I can still see her sometimes whenever I think of my childhood. She wore her brown hair upswept with a bun on top. In those days, ladies would put some hairpadding under the first strands so that the hair-do would look richer. At the time of her death, her hair was still dark brown. She still had a lot of it which she sometimes had to braid. Before her death, she had to spend some two months in bed. She could not very well comb it. After her death, we cut off most of it. It was long and there was no streak of grey in it. We kept it in a porcelain container on her dresser. I sometimes wonder where the braid is now.

 

By nature, she was almost timid. She was such a sweet-tempered lady that she did not dare to offend anyone with her criticisms, not even us children. She straightened us out when we did not behave by pointing out what we did wrong.

 

She was about 40 years of age when she became seriously ill. She slept poorly. Her nerves gave her a lot of trouble. Father, as a lawyer, used to bring work home from the office and worked on it until late. Mother helped him with the kind of work that did not require legal judgment. They sometimes worked until midnight. Every morning mother got up at 6 AM. That did not give her enough sleep which she so badly needed. At best she got 5 1/2 to 6 hours of sleep. Sometimes she tried to have an afternoon nap, but it rarely worked out. There was also a lot of noise from the neighbors, one of them trying her luck at piano playing. Occasionally, when she was exhausted, she was close to tears. it seems incredible that no one though of seeing to it that she got more rest. In those days, work was sacred and no thought was given to the necessity of relaxation.

 

When she began to be seriously ill, I was 10 years old. We all took her illness badly. I remember that, on occasion, I was afraid to go home after school wondering how ill she would be that day. Among other difficulties, she had anxieties with palpitations. These were taken to be a sign of heart disease. The spa Poděbrady was taken for the best place to alleviate this trouble. Nine summers in a row she visited the spa during June. As school was still in session in June, we children visited her on weekends. She suffered with very high blood pressure (occasionally it shot up to 300!). That should have been an indication of kidney disease. No physicians pointed that out. I thought that her illness had not been properly diagnosed, but now I rather think that the doctors did not want to alarm us by telling us the truth. (In Europe, the physicians believe that it is better not to tell the patient all if it cannot help in any way and if the illness is a final one. Our doctors usually will not tell you if you have cancer.)

 

Mother was put on a diet. She was told to avoid salt and seasonings. She was told to go to bed after having digested. Dinners for all of us were arranged to be served at 6:30 PM. Food had to be bland. For a long time mother was patient and tolerated the unappetizing food, but toward the end she twice got angry at my sister (who did the cooking for us) and wanted some real food from a restaurant. That should have been a warning sign to us. Mother was by nature a very patient woman who never made demands on others. To have become angry was highly unusual. And indeed the end was coming. After having been in bed for a month, she asked her physician, Dr. Havelka, to let her out of bed. He finally let her try it. She was helped out of bed, stood in the corner of her bedroom and was supposed to walk to the other end. She could hardly make it. Her legs would sag under her and my sister and I had to hold her on each side. She was frightened at such a tremendous loss of energy and could hardly get over it. Her doctor tried to console her by stating that after a long period in bed people have to relearn how to walk, but she was not fooled. Two days before she died, she suddenly got into a good mood. She said: "I am not going to worry. I am going to enjoy myself and sing!" And she did sing some of her favorite songs. She kept at it for a while.

 

Two days later she lapsed into a coma. I happened to stand by her bed while she held my arm. I was hoping she would come to and waited in the same position for about an hour. Another physician who had previously been called for consultation, happened to pass by our house (on purpose, maybe?). He went in to see her. Her breath became raspy and labored as if she were snoring. He told my father and me: "We are nearing the end." And he was right. Soon she stopped breathing, and the physician closed her eyes.

 

After this awful blow we kept asking ourselves what life will be like without her. The tragic end of one so young drew us all together. We became more cohesive as a family. Father told us that he would never marry again. Life had to go on. My sister Lída, then 19 years old, had to keep house for the rest of us. Our oldest brother, Josef (called Pepèa, 28) was already employed as assistant to a professor in Bratislava. His younger brother, Zdeněk (Sidney, 21) was studying law at Charles University in Prague. Lída remained home for two years until father hired a housekeeper. I returned to my studies at Charles University (I, 18, was taking courses at the Philosophical Faculty in two languages, English and Czech). Our younger sister, Milada (called Milu, 12) was still studying at the gymnasium (the European name for junior-senior high school). Our youngest, Jiří, then only 11 years of age, was in school, too.

 

Things were never the same after mother's death but it had to work somehow. We all had to arrange our lives as best we could. Lída and I were at the age when mother's advice would have been more than welcome. After the second year, Lída joined me in Prague. We had four first cousins living in Prague, and we saw them frequently. Yet, in 1939 when the war began for us in our country, sooner than in other countries, and things gradually became frightening, I sometimes thought how would our mother have been able to stand the awful pressure on her nerves. The torture of prisoners, frequent executions, and serious deprivation were meant to create panic followed by complete submission. This is what the Nazis so effectively achieved. How would mother have reacted? Would her poor nerves have been able to withstand this tremendous pressure? For the first time since her death, I felt that in spite of her untimely death, she had been spared a lot of suffering. The horrors would have destroyed her emotionally.

 

 

My father's side of the family:

The Josef Mohrs

 

 

By tradition, the first-born boys in the Mohr family were usually christened Josef. Some birth certificates and a couple of death certificates have been preserved and passed on. I have copies of them in my possession. My grandfather passed them on to my father, he to his son (my oldest brother), and after his death, my sister Lída had them. After her death, it was our youngest sister, Milu, who let me make copies. She, in turn, intends to give them to Zdena Mohr (my brother Zdenìk's son), who, however, has no children. As there are no offspring of the name Mohr, the line will end there.

 

The earliest member by the name of Mohr that we know of is Johann Christofer. He was born somewhere around 1760 and had a wife, Anna Rosina Nisser. Nothing else is known by us about them. His son was František Mohr, born 1790 in Prostøední Nová Ves. His wife was Eleonora Gebrtova. He was a farmer. For the first time in the history of the Mohr family, we come across the nickname Mùr (English pronunciation Moore). František's son's name was also Josef Mohr ("vulgo" Mùr). About this man it is only known that he owned a flour mill in the village of Bìlá, no. 44, that he was born also in Prostøední Nová Ves, and that his wife's name was Kateøina Kùnová. The photograph of this flour mill has been preserved. Kateøina was born on July 8, 1823, in Bìlá near Bìlohrad, no. 6. We can assume that her husband was older than she was. They had a son, also Josef (nicknamed Mùr), born on January 23, 1846, in Prostøední Nová Ves. He was my grandfather. He married Theresa Sabitcher, who was born 1849 in Vrbièov near Litomìøice. My grandfather became a country doctor, first in Jilemnice, then later in Tannwald. All those places were located in the northern part of Bohemia where the Czech and German elements were mixed. Jilemnice was a Czech town, Tannwald was mostly German. In this German place, grandfather remained Czech and organized a group of the gymnastic union "Sokols", which was definitely Czech patriotic. Grandmother Theresa's father was a blacksmith.

 

My grandparents altogether had 10 children of whom only four survived. Although grandfather was a physician, in those days even he could not save his children from childhood diseases. The first child, Malvina, died two months after birth. The second, Marie, died at the age of only 10 days. Anna Božena was the only girl who survived. Eugene John, born 1876, survived. So did Rudolf Felix, born in 1878. The next boy, Josef Julius, died after 11 days. The second Josef (Emanuel) was my father, born the 23rd of December 1880. He survived and had the longest life span of them all. He died on September 18, 1969, at the age of almost 89. At her death, Julie Theresa was seven months old. The next boy, Zdenko, reached the age of four years. The last one, Bohumil, died at birth.

 

Medical science was not advanced in those days. Even our grandfather, a physician, could not save himself from the ravages of diabetes. He died in 1916. Grandmother survived him by two years. She died as a result of malnutrition in 1918, following the end of World War I, when malnutrition during the four years of fighting weakened almost everyone.

 

The next in line of the Josef Mohrs was my oldest brother, nicknamed Pepèa. His interest in mathematics led him to study that discipline plus physics and later, astronomy. He became a professor of astronomy at Charles University in Prague, with shorter stretches of college teaching in Brno and Bratislava. He also spent some time at Meudon (France) and the observatory in Algiers, where he married Rosalie Hain, a Czech schoolteacher, and where their son, Josef, was born in 1928. My brother was born on November 26, 1901, and died on December 16, 1979. His son (nicknamed Pepi) moved with his sister to Australia after the Communist takeover of our country. He married an Australian girl, but they have no children. He now spells his name Moore. There are no young male children by the name of Mohr, let alone Josef Mohr. Those two names will die out with Pepi in Australia. And the last Mohrs are Zdena and Aleš in Brno. Zdena has no children and Aleš has two daughters.

 

 

My father, JUDr Josef Emanuel Mohr

(December 23, 1880-September 18, 1969)

 

My father spent his early years in Jilemnice, a small Czech town near the language line that separated the Czechs from the German population. Bohemia has a natural frontier. There are mountains surrounding the country and they have formed the natural border of our country since time immemorial. In the 13th century, silver and coal were found in the ground. A Czech king, Pøemysl Otakar II, in the Middle Ages, invited German miners to work in the mines. In those days, the Germans were quite proficient in that respect, having been engaged in mining for some time. The miners came, settled down and raised families. In time, their numbers grew until they became a majority in the northern area. During the Middle Ages, the question of language was not as acute as it became in the 19th century. Religious affiliation was the predominant question ("Cuius regio, eius religio!"). But in the course of centuries, language became the major problem. The German Reich proclaimed the idea: Drang nach Osten (On to the East!). As our nation had always been small, it was the question of how to defend what we had. In the times of Czech princes (1300's), a substantial sum of money was paid yearly to Germans to leave us alone. During the time of the Holy Roman Empire (i.e., great Germany), the Czech kings were members of the college of "Kurfirsts". In 1620, after a bloody battle at the White Mountain, where the freedom for the Protestant religion and of the liberties for nobility were defeated, our country fell under the rule of the Hapsburgs, who immediately instituted Germanization of the nation and the complete victory of Catholicism. The language question became more acute. The Czech language was almost obliterated, eliminated from schools, offices, and official communications. In northern Bohemia, where both German and Czech were spoken, the division along language lines became more than painful. My father's early education was in Czech. It is interesting to mention here what my husband's mother said when Otík and I told her how we met in Geneva and who our families were. She, having been born in Jilemnice, remembered "how the Mohr boys ran around Jilemnice when they were young!"

 

After a few years, my grandfather, the physician, moved his family to Tannwald, a bigger town with a larger practice. There were no Czech schools in Tannwald and my father had to attend a German "gymnasium", where he received a classical education, complete with classical Greek and Latin. To the end of his days, father had a complete mastery of both living languages and cultures of that country, which made it easier for him later on to take a job in Jihlava, a town that, before World War I, was bilingual. Unfortunately, the Sudeten Germans, as then Germans were called, felt greater affiliation to the Reich, and over the years became disloyal. When Hitler came to power, they formed a "Fifth column" in our country that later brought our country down. In spite of some intermarriages between the Czechs and the Germans, the two nationalities grew more and more apart.

 

After completing his secondary education in Tannwald, father went to Vienna to study law. During his student years my father developed polyps in his nose which had to be surgically removed. Unfortunately, something happened during the surgery which left his nose twisted to the left. It is rather strange to say that this displacement gave my father a distinguished look, as one can see in his portrait done in later years. One of father's voluntary works for the community of Jihlava was his work as the chairman of the local Savings Bank. All the chairmen had to have their portraits hung in the main room where decisions were made. This portrait is now in my younger sister's possession.

 

My grandmother was a proud woman and her photograph shows it quite clearly. Grandfather wore a beard. From what I am able to see, it would seem that my father and grandfather looked a bit alike. As a country doctor, grandfather owned a horse and carriage as many of his patients were living in far away places. He had to drive the carriage even in very cold winter months. To protect his feet, he had a fur-lined foot sack. I well remember this sack. Some of the little details are still remembered. Life could not have been easy for him since Tannwald is located near the mountains. His family lived in a villa where we children sometimes were guests. One of my recollections of him is seeing him upstairs on the landing and looking at him from the ground floor. Children sometimes remember only snatches of past events. Grandfather was not easy to talk to. He was often tired and liked his peace.

 

He had a good relation with my father who was probably his favorite. I judge that from the fact that only my father had lived up to his expectations. His daughter, Anna, married a lawyer and soon moved with him to a faraway town called Tábor. Grandfather did not have much luck with the other two sons. Rudolf was an obstinate boy who challenged his father on several occasions. After one particularly sharp exchange of opinions, Rudolf angrily took leave of him and said he was going to America. And he did. For some time, nothing was heard of him. Later, he wrote home to his mother that he was making a living as a "Dolmetcher" (translator).

 

During World War I, he sent home a postcard from New York with a picture of the Flat Iron building. It was assumed that he joined the Army on the way to Flanders in 1917. Nothing at all was heard of him afterwards. He disappeared without a trace.

 

His older brother, Evžen (Eugene), was grandmother's favorite. She spoiled him to such an extent that he never finished his studies. She always found excuses for him. I do not know if he had a regular job. Many years later, my husband and I visited Jilemnice. I went to the local cemetery trying to find where members of the family were buried. By chance, at the columbarium, where ashes are placed of the ones who are cremated, I met a woman who knew where Eugene's ashes were. It came out that she had once been Evžen's girlfriend. She told me how he died. As was often his habit, he went to the pub to drink. It was a very cold winter night. On the way back he slipped and because he was inebriated, he could not get up until some men found him and took him home. He developed a kidney infection which soon took his life. The woman also told me that grandmother would not allow Eugene to marry her because she was not of his social class.

 

My father's only sister, Anna, married the lawyer Procházka, with whom she had three children, all of them born in the city of Tábor. The first born, Karel, a physician, became a skin specialist at the Medical School at Charles University. He married another skin specialist. Her first name was Manka. While studying in Prague, my sister Lída and I often met Karel at a ski club where he had been a chairman. My last memory of Karel was during my attempts to flee from our country following the Communist putch. He refused to help me then. His youger sister, Marie Kabelka, was ready to help although she was a widow in reduced circumstances. Her husband, a member of the Sokol Gymnastic Union, had been executed by the Nazis. She struggled with deprivation as well as she could while trying to raise three children. The youngest of the Procházka children was Jarmila, a talented chemistry student with a RNDr degree. She had one child, Karel and Manka had none. Manka died of cancer and Karel soon remarried.

 

Grandfather died of diabetes in 1916. He was 70 years old. In those days there were no insulin injections. I often wonder whether in his life he had many happy moments. Sometimes I think that except for the satisfaction with his son's (my father's) work, he may not have had too many rewards. A note about how like every one he sometimes was: Grandmother told us once that he watched a funeral procession passing his house. He turned away with tears in his eyes. The deceased had died of diabetes with which grandfather had already been afflicted. He knew he did not have long to live.

 

When grandmother was ill, and was not expected to live long, my mother went to Tannwald to take care of her although she had much to do at home. Grandmother greatly appreciated it. For years, she had been jealous of my mother because "she took away her son." After her death, my parents took only a few souvenirs from home: Two wall photographs of the parents and two coffee mugs. I still see the mugs. One was pink, the other green. Made of porcelain, the shapes were twisted as was fashionable in Victorian times.

 

After two years in Vienna studying law, my father switched to Prague. Having had only a little practice in using the Czech language, father had to relearn it. On his walks to the Carolinum to attend his classes, he met my mother who was on her way to Pivoda's music school. They saw each other frequently and fell in love. Grandmother Mohr was opposed to the marriage, as sometimes happens, but the young couple persisted, and when father finished his law training, he accepted work as "concipient" to a lawyer in Jihlava. They were married and started life with very little. After Prague and Vienna, life in Jihlava must have had a slow tempo. Yet that was probably exactly what my parents needed. They were well matched: Father a strong person, mother meek. Both wore glasses. One of them was far sighted, the other near sighted (I don't know which one was which). I myself have always been far sighted. I remember once in first grade looking at the blackboard and suddenly seeing it all at a great distance. As a teenager, I remember being able to see objects that were very far in the sky when others could not see them.

 

One of the many things that father and mother had in common was their love of music. Father played the piano very well. Even during his law studies in Vienna, he had been taking piano lessons from the composer Proksch. He accompanied mother whenever she sang, not only at home but also at concerts which she sometimes gave at the Beseda in Jihlava. Some of the concerts even I could remember although as I was growing up they were getting less numerous, there being so many births in our family. Mother loved singing so much she even sang two days before her death.

 

Father played also for us children and sometimes sang for us. His favorite song was: Na horách už svítá (Dawn is coming to the mountains). He liked to march around the room with us children and whistle to the beat. When the oldest, Pepèa, grew up, he too developed a great liking and talent for music. He played both the piano and the violin very well. That gave father a chance to play duets with him. Their favorites were sonatas for piano and violin by Beethoven. I remember them often playing the sonata no. 6 opus 12, which has a lively and charming scherzo. Both could play the Kreutzer sonata well. Once, my husband and I were listening to the second movement (variations) of the Kreutzer sonata on the radio, and I could not contain myself, I had to sing and whistle the variations along with the performer. My husband, who played the violin himself, could not believe that I could follow it so faithfully. I had been hearing it so often that I could not miss any of the variations.

 

At the time when my parents established themselves in Jihlava, the Czechs were in the minority. There was room for two lawyers, one German, one Czech. In Europe, lawyers are either solicitors or advocates or judges. Each type has special schooling. Judges are not elected (they have to attend special courses). My father was a solicitor. His work consisted of marital and business contracts, making last wills and testaments and similar work. His clients were mostly farmers around Jihlava. There was an enclave of special German language. The farmers spoke a dialect which very few could understand. They also wore special costumes, not attractive at all. The women's orange stockings were the most difficult to like. Father gained a lot of respect from the farmers by his fair dealings.

 

After World War I ended, Dr. Schenck, father's boss, retired and father took over his office. Financially, things improved for us. All six of us were born by then. The youngest, George, was born on the day when our country was made a free republic. Pepèa, our oldest, in his teens, was studying sciences in Telè where there was the only Czech science institute. A new Czech gymnasium was established in Jihlava, one of the "reform" types. It taught sciences, but also humanities: four years of Latin, six years of French, descriptive geometry (curves and third dimension), geology, and arts. After eight years, you had to pass strict examinations in order to be able to get a "certificate of maturity". If you passed with good marks, you were entitled to enroll in the university. The maturity degree was similar to the American Associate degree of a junior college. The last two years in the gymnasium, two old courses were offered: one in Logic, the other in Psychology. Both courses were of a very old date having been taught since the Middle Ages (made up-to-date). Charles University was founded in 1348. The four years of Latin were gruelling, since in such a short span of four years, we had to cover material which the classical gymnasium covered in eight! Learning was very intensive. School began at 8 AM. There was a period of one hour for lunch, then back to school for two or three hours more. School was also held on Saturday. In the afternoons, you did your homework. The German language was not obligatory. Most of us in Jihlava knew it rather well, since, during my youth, we had it beginning in first grade. (Remember that Jihlava was bilingual.) Many of us also took lessons in piano or violin playing. I took both of them but dropped the violin at the age of 15. Once, when I was about five years old, I took my brother Zdenìk's violin and tried to play the melody of the polka from the Bartered Bride. It was immediately (wrongly) assumed that I had talent, and I had to take violin lessons before even taking the piano. Violin never became my forte and it is good that I concentrated on piano only. I would never have made even a mediocre violinist. Those were the times! Taking some instrument seriously was part of your upbrining.

 

Memories of the war years are rather painful. I well remember the hunger we often felt. Father was too honest to ask his farmer clients to sell us some food (it was against the law during the war). He himself fainted twice because he was hungry. I myself remember hunting in the bread box for some pieces of old bread.

 

After three hundred years of Hapsburg domination, our country became free in 1918. There was much work to be done. The currency was almost worthless. The new Czech minister of finance, Dr. Alois Rašín, devised a plan for containing inflation. He ordered all major currency denominations to be stamped. By obligatory stamping (and the stamps cost quite a bit!), the number of large but nearly worthless bills was greatly reduced. Those people who tried to exchange large bills for small denominations (which were acceptable in stores) did not gain much as the small bills were soon exhausted. The golden ducats, which before the war were the coveted currency, completely disappeard. Nobody ever saw them again. Other small coins, which during the war were minted of cheap metals, had no value whatsoever.

 

The Czech part of the population of Jihlava went to work enthusiastically. New schools were open, work in the fields had to resume, new institutions were established. Father became active in two areas: He organized a new Czech volunteer fire department of which he later became the chief. He helped establish the new Savings Bank. He served as its unpaid, volunteer chairman until the Communist takeover in 1948. When the Communists took over everything, especially financial institutions, they could not believe that he had been working for the bank all those 30 years without pay! Father had a strong sense of community responsibility. The Communists were most anxious to show to the world how greedy the "bourgeois elements" were before they themselves came to power. They must have been greatly disappointed that it was not so in my father's case.

 

With the advent of freedom in 1918, many new musical activities were taking place. It was the time shortly before radio became popular. If you wanted to hear music in those early days, either you waited for a well-known musician to come to your town to give a concert (a rare occurence in a small town of 33,000 people), or you made music yourselves. Many an amateur quartet group sprang into being. Sometimes a string quartet was played in our house, my brother Pepèa at the first violin and the priest, Father Hugo, the second. I do not remember who played the other two instruments. Since my father played the piano, he took part only in piano quintets or in trios for piano, violin, and cello. To show you an amusing incident: Friends and Pepèa and father were playing a quintet one Sunday afternoon in our apartment. I was sick with the flu in the adjoining bedroom. In the middle of the concert, our landlord, who wanted to sell the house, barged into the house with a client, opened our rooms with his key and proceded to show him all of our apartment, disregarding even the music and my illness. He was an aggresive man who gave us no right of privacy. Even in those days of few civil liberties, this was an unusual occurrence.

 

Father was a generous man by nature. He liked to give. He never thought of his own needs. When we were growing up, he saw to it that part of our education must be getting to know other cultures and lands. Except for the youngest, Jiří, we all were sent abroad. Pepèa's studies of astronomy in Meudon (suburb of Paris) were subsidied by father. Zdeněk (Sidney) was first sent to France (to Dieppe) for two months to the family of a pastor to learn French. A year later, he was sent to England. Lída spent a summer in Dieppe, too. I was sent to Eastbourne, in England, to learn English with the same family as Zdenìk, the Davisons, who had six sons and one daughter. We had a good time with them and their cousins, Graham and Jean and Mary at their home, called Denecroft. Milu spent two summers with the pastor and his wife in Dieppe. George was given the opportunity to travel in Austria.

 

While mother was still in good health, our parents liked to travel in Austria, too. When the Communists took over the government of our country, and my husband and I felt it imperative to leave everything behind and start a new life somewhere else, my father clearly saw the danger for us. He realized that my husband had to leave, not only because he lost both his jobs, but also because of his unshakable convictions. My father generously offered to support me and the children financially and tried to persuade me to stay. He talked very earnestly to me and separately to my husband. We stood firm. Otík told him privately that he could not be without me. I said that every family must always stay together. As painful as this decision to leave forever was, we were glad we made it. Life under communism would have been deadly for us. After a lot of hardships, we managed to make a new life for us and prepare a better future for our children.

 

What life was like for my father after the Communists started to rule by force and intimidation, I cannot imagine. Gone for good were the idyllic days of my parents' life together. Mother was not there any more to cook his favorite dishes, boiled cauliflower or boiled beef with dumplings and onion sauce. Sometimes friends brought him crayfish, which he greatly enjoyed eating. It was Milu and Lída who cooked for him. He was allowed to work as a lawyer until he was 70, but he was not given any money! As a "bourgeois" he was not entitled to it! He had to work for free. After mother died in 1929, he became depressed and after the "putch" he must have become permanently so. Having been a real patriot, he was held by the Communists as an enemy of the state. Financially he became dependent on his children which must have humiliated him. He was always giving, never before accepting. The only property that was left to him was his house. The new regime did not expropriate houses for the simple reason that it was unmanageable for them, there having been such a great number of houses to run. They left them "in the care" of the previous owners but set up the rents so low that no repairs were possible as there was no income from renting. But at least father had the feeling that he owned something! For quite some time I did not write to him fearing I would place him in danger. When conditions became less strained, I began to send small presents to him through friends in Austria.

 

As a strong family man, he liked to have as many members of his family around him as possible. He told us once that mother's fondest wish had been to have all of the children and their spouses around her at dinner. During her lifetime, it did not happen. It took place only some time after she was already gone. He was conservative in his political outlook. He firmly believed that partriotism is the only proper attitude toward your country. During the 20 years of freedom and democracy, we were not sure whether he was right. Not before we lost all our freedoms, first to the Nazis and then to the Communists, did we realize that he had been right. As a lawyer with a strong sense of what was right he must have gone through a lot of painful experiences toward the end of his life.

 

Except for arthritis, his health had always been excellent. I do not remember him ever having consulted a physician (and he was the son of one himself). He lived to be 89 years old. His ashes are in the family vault. He had it built after mother's death for her coffin and his own. With the new regime's poor economy, it was later necessary to bury in the vault many other members of the family, so that now, aside from mother's coffin, there are some seven more urns with ashes buried there. The new regime ordered all deceased to be cremated. My father, too, was cremated.

 

So ended a life which would have been very promising had not the two brutal regimes overrun us. Little nations are at the mercy of the large ones and if they have to fight alone, without outside help, they are lost.

 

 

My Siblings

 

Josef Mikuláš Mohr, born November 26, 1901 in Prague,

died Dec. 16, 1979 in a hospital in Frýdland (Bohemia)

 

Of us six children, Josef Mikuláš was the eldest. His first name was given in honor of the line of the Josef Mohrs before him. His middle name was in honor of mother's younger brother. Uncle Mikuláš and mother were always close and remained so all their short lives. Pepèa went under both names. He signed his name as Josef Mikuláš Mohr. Normally, in our country, we use only the Christian name, which means the first name given at christening.

 

Pepèa was the most talented of us all. He learned everything with great ease whether it was school subjects or music. He could play several instruments and was very proficient in two, the piano and the violin. He greatly appreciated art and was deeply fond of poetry. He was good-looking both as a boy and as a mature man. When he was quite little, the family called him Pepánek. A story has been told about his reaction to the play Hansel and Gretel: When the witch was about to make short of the children, Pepánek yelled at the top of his voice to Hansel so that everyone in the theatre could hear: Watch out, she is going to eat you up!

 

Early in his development, my brother showed a great talent for mathematics and other exact sciences. This was taught in special technical schools called "real gymnasium". In these schools were taught all disciplines except humanities, especially not the classics (Greek or Latin). The only "real" school in our vicinity which was conducted in Czech, was situated in Telè, a small place south of Jihlava. Before WWI in Jihlava, only German gymnasia (two in number) were available for students. Telè was a charming little place with a lake in the middle and a large square with arched walks all around it where strollers could be protected from the rain, and where most of the businesses were located. Many towns in the Middle Ages had such arched walks. The one in Telè is well preserved to this day. Others have fallen in disrepair. Telè has been a wonderful example of this practical way of building convenient stores.

 

When my brother was 12, he entered this "real" school. These schools taught their offered courses for seven years where the classical gymnasia were for eight years of study. I remember two young men who became his close friends during those seven years: One was the son of a member of the parliament with the name of Stanìk, the other's name was Navara. Stanìk met an early death by drowning, Navara became a professor of mathematics. Both boys sometimes visited us at our home. Navara once questioned me on the theorem of Pythagoras. It is strange how some of these little details stick in our memory. However, we children did not have any daily contact with our eldest brother. He was gone from home at an early age. When he graduated from Telè, he enrolled at Charles University and finished his RNDr (i.e. Rerum Naturarum Doctor). He majored in Astronomy. For two years, he had done studies in Paris (Meudon) where the French government kept an observatory and later, he studied in Algiers, then a French colony. The observatory in Algiers was in the vicinity of the capital, on a hill overlooking the harbor.

 

Pepèa's first romantic involvement was with the older daughter of a lawyer in Jihlava. Her name was Louisa Haièman, nicknamed Nuna. She had been his schoolmate. She was a very good-natured girl with an unusual Mona Lisa-like smile. We were all very fond of her. She had a sister, Milèa, who was also a good friend. Except for their mother, who felt important as the wife of a wealthy lawyer, the family was friendly and Lída and I were occasionally guests in their house. I well remember some of the presents the father gave us at Chritmas, e.g. some music accompanying the story of Hýta and Batul, a rendition of the American story of Helen's Children. Parties at the Haièmans were usually gay and Pepèa's presence was greatly appreciated. However, when Pepèa went to study in Paris for two years, Louisa met another young man and fell in love with him. That was a great blow to our brother.

 

Pepèa's years of study in France were in the 20's. That was a time of great cultural activity in Paris. Stravinsky's music came into the vogue. Pepèa loved his ballet music Petrushka, bought the piano transcription and often played it. Works of the Spanish composer, Issac Albeniz, was often heard in concerts in Paris at that time. My brother played his Seguedilla and other dance music. In Paris, Pepèa made friends with the Czech sculptor, Foit, who later made a bust of him. We kept a copy of it in our "salon" (a room reserved for visitors). This copy was made of plaster of Paris. When my brother's son was a tiny tot, we carried him in our arms. He liked to touch his father's plaster cast by its nose and did so often that it eventually became discolored where it was most prominent. The sculptor Foit later moved to Africa where he made a lot of busts of the natives. In those days, African sculpture was very popular, including those made of wood. Some of this trend persists to this day, but it began in Paris after WWI.

 

My brother loved poetry, both lyrical and epical. I remember him having cherished two large volumes of Czech poetry which had been published by our Czech Academy in the 20's. Their titles were: Èeská Lyra and Èeská Epika. Both were thick volumes bound in red with golden trimming. I always envied him these two volumes. After his death, his granddaughter sold them together with other memorabilia. I often wonder who has them now, where they ended up.

 

On one of his infrequent visits home from France, he met Rosalie Hainová, the daughter of the director of our local tobacco factory. She was a school teacher. She was very good-looking, short, blond and quite talented. She was a disciplinarian which was unusual in one of such a small stature. As a teacher, she was very successful. She taught the 12, 13, and 14 year olds. She would have been capable of teaching higher grades, but in those days even the very smart girls were not given much chance for promotion. It was expected that girls would marry and raise children, which was more than a full-time job. However, Rosa was not made for housework. She did not like cooking or cleaning, and as the saying went, she had "two left hands". She was all brains. She and Pepèa met and fell in love. As there was some opposition on both sides to a marriage with a "brainy woman", Pepèa and Rosa decided to marry outside Jihlava. After Pepèa's next trip back to Algiers, Rosa made the trip there on her own. They were married in 1927, and the next year, their son, Josef, was born. From infancy, he held dual citizenship of Czech and French, and incidentally is now an Australian. He is married but has no children, and at his age (now 61), it is not likely that he will have any. He is the last one of the Josef Mohrs, and the name will die out with him.

 

Pepèa and Rosa had one more child, a daughter Jarmila, named after her maternal grandmother. (She and I had, before our marriage, the same first and last names, Jarmila Mohrová). The little girl was born in Prague two weeks before my mother's death on August 29, 1929. My mother always loved children of any age. Rosa, knowing that mother was dying, brought the little bundle to Jihlava to show her to her grandmother. The little tyke slept all through the visit. Rosa wanted to awaken her, but mother would not allow it. She just said: "Babies are their own masters." (In Czech: Dìti jsou svým vlastním pánem!) Those were the last words mother said. Two days after the visit, she passed away.

 

Pepèa, Rosa, and the two children settled in Prague where my brother became assistant professor of Astronomy at Charles University. With a RNDr degree and his work (about colors in the spectrum of some stars), he was fully qualified for college teaching. When the war years were nearing, the family moved back to Jihlava and Pepèa commuted to work. Both his children made good grades at school.

 

Rosa had two brothers: František and Bohumil (Bohouš). František had an engineering degree, Bohumil was a lawyer (an advocate). I do not know much about Frank except that he has a daughter, Mánina. Bohouš was incarcerated during WW II by the Nazis and spent two years in jail for anti-Nazi activities. During those two years, his wife was unfaithful to him and Bohouš divorced her. He was given custody of their three children. My younger sister Milu's husband was also active in the underground. He printed and distributed anti-Nazi literature. He was apprehended, sentenced to death, and executed in Breslau, in Germany. At that time, Milu was living with our father. He was concerned about her and wanted her to marry again. Bohumil, a divorced man with three young children, met her and eventually they got married. Milu had one daughter by her short marriage to George (JiříHeimrich). During her marriage to Bohumil, she had to take care of four children.

 

Rosa inherited a villa in Rynoltice (Ringelsheim) in the northern part of Bohemia. It was in a German speaking part. Her mother, whose first name was Jarmila, had a sister by the name of Olga, who was married to a school teacher. They were the original owners of the villa. Olga and her husband never had any children. Olga was known to be a well educated woman whose greatest joy was to play Chopin's waltzes on the piano. Of her German husband, only an anecdote is known. He appreciated good food. He said on more than one occasion: Die Buhmsche Kuche ist sehr gut. Die Deutsche Kuche ist nicht so gut, aber gesund! (Czech cooking is very good. German cooking is not so good, but healthy!)

 

There were frequent visits between Rosa's family and that in Rynoltice. When Aunt Olga and her husband died, the sister Jarmila inherited the villa first, and after her it came into the possession of Rosa with all of the furnishings, bibelots, silverware from several generations, and the grand piano, which Olga cherished. After Rosa's death and in his retirement, Pepèa lived there alone. He loved to play the piano, and I am told that many a time the villagers of Rynoltice stood under his window and listened to his music. Piano was the instrument he played until his death. Gone were they days when he could play the violin so well with our father performing Beethoven's sonatas and Dvoøák's Sonatine. I remember some of the possessions he had in his room in Jihlava. From France he brought a copy of the death mask of Beethoven. He also brought a copy of the Venus di Milo and some unusual musical instruments. I wonder whether he still had them in Rynoltice and what happened to them. "Tout passe, tout lasse, tout casse." (All passes, all gets tired, all breaks -- French proverb).

 

After the Communist putch in 1948, Pepèa's children, Pepi and Jari, then already students at Charles University, decided to leave the country. Knowing that their father would definitely object, they fled secretly one night. As brother and sister, Pepi and Jari were always very close. When they left without informing their parents, Pepèa and Rosa were crushed. Jari left behind a daughter, Ellianne. Pepèa and Rosa decided to raise Ellianne. At least they had someone to take care of since they did not expect to see their children in the future. The "children" came to Germany as refugees. Unfortunately, they were not covered by the law that would have made them eligible to emigrate to the USA (they arrived in Germany past a certain date). They tried to settle in Canada, but suddenly an opportunity opened up for them to move to Australia, which they took with the enthusiasm of young adventurers. Both are there to this day. Pepi became a businessman, first as a salesman, later in hotel management.

 

Jari was first married to a Czech compatriot, later to a TV anchor man, Kenneth Carroll. Occasionally, we are in contact by writing. At this date, Pepi is 61, Jari 60. She, too, has no children with her husband. Jari inherited her mother's good looks and to this day she is a striking looking woman. Pepi suffers with the illness that shortened the life of his mother, diabetes. Ellianne, Jari's daughter, lived in Prague for some time. She is quite gifted and after serious studies, she received a PhD degree in biophysics. At that time this was a new science and her prospects for employment were good, but later this discipline became rather crowded so that now she had no chance to use her degree. Her marriage went sour. She divorced her husband, sold all her property and moved to Australia. Her uncle Pepi gave her employment in his hotel. She is probably in her 40's.

 

To get back to my brother. When both he and his wife reached retirement age, they moved to Rynoltice to the villa Rosa inherited from her aunt. In Rosa's family there was diabetes, which afflicted her and later her son, Pepi. Rosa had a lot of other complications, too, and kept a great number of medications on the dining room table. My sister Lída visited them often in order to lend a helping hand (she was always amazed at the number of bottles of pills and how Rosa believed in their healing power). As already stated, Rosa was not "handy" and Lída's ability to put things in their proper shape was very welcome. The medications in which Rosa believed to restore her health, did not help much, and she died at the age of 69 on December 12, 1969.

 

During their married life, Pepèa was obliged to do many things usually done by women:. He had to cook and clean since he was the one who was handy. For his scientific work he had to scramble and squeeze in all the time he could. He managed well, but I often think that his life would have been easier if he could have devoted all of his time to science. However, he never resented the fact that he was doing "double duty". Before his end, he got a special award from Charles University as an outstanding astronomer who was very active in the advancement of astronomy in our country. During the Nazi occupation, when our universities were closed, much developed abroad and many inventions took place. The knowledge of all of this was denied to us. I often think how happy he would have been had he been aware of all this progress in the West. Similarly, I think of my father, how much he would have enjoyed being able to listen to all his favorite music on such a scale as I am able to now!

 

Pepèa died 10 years after Rosa, in 1979, alone in a hospital bed in Frýdland. It saddens me to think what damage the two dictatorships have done to the whole nation and particularly to the scientific world. Pepèa left behind several articles about astronomy. They were up-to-date in his time, but toward his end, so much progress had been made in his field that he was actually being left behind. All dictatorships are criminal, not only in suppressing freedoms, making citizens poor, undermining their physical and emotional health, often depriving them of their lives, but also in denying them to move along with other nations in scientific progress and denying them participation in general development. The gap that exists between the two systems, of freedom versus bondage, cannot be easily overcome. Much is lost forever.

 

 

My brother Zdeněk (Sidney)

Born Dec 10, 1907, died May 6, 1972

 

Zdeněk was born three years before me in 1907. Lída was born in 1909, and I in 1910. Three years in a row of taking care of babies must have been a great burden for our mother. Luckily, Zdeněk was a good-natured boy who rarely caused trouble. He had to have a wet nurse. Her name was Kateøina, affectionately called Kaèenka. She stayed with our family until Zdeněk was three or four years old, helping with whatever had to be done. My little brother was very attached to her and was "protective" of her. A little incident will show this to you. In our town, we had a trolley car which took residents from the center of town to the far-away railroad station, which was on the main line between Prague and Brno. A smaller station was nearer the town which took us to neighboring villages. Zdeněk always walked hand-in-hand with Kaèenka. On one occasion when they were crossing the rails of the trolley, Zdenìk, apprehensive about the fast approaching cars, told her: "Káče, drž se mně, at tě elektrika nezajede!" (Katherina, hold on to me, so the trolley won't run you over!). He was about two years old then. He and Kaèenka remained devoted to each other for a long time.

 

In his early teens, my brother was quite interested in sports. He loved to swim, to skate, and later to ski and play tennis. He and several neighbor boys formed a group which became a model to the others. They read all of Jules Verne's books (and there were at least 30 of them, all in Czech translation with the original engravings). Some adventure stories became popular in those days and the boys devoured them. He also loved book-binding as a hobby.

 

Zdeněk did rather well at school but he was not as talented as his older brother. After the end of WWI, in 1918, a new Czech gymnasium was established in Jihlava and Zdeněk entered the third form. At first, he did only good work, but later, in two years, he was already on the honor roll. Latin caused him some trouble. He was good at mathematics, physics, and chemistry. Most boys, whose parents wanted them to have a good education, had to take a musical instrument. Zdeněk took violin lessons, but his heart was never in it. He soon dropped it. A fashion came from the USA to play instruments from the South. Zdeněk bought a banjo and devoted much time to its music. He organized a small band for four instruments: a violin, a piano, a saxophone, and a banjo. On me fell the duty to accompany them on the piano. We had some lively times playing together, but I am not sure whether our parents enjoyed it. The violinist was a Jewish boy by the name of Kirschner who, years later, perished in a concentration camp. The saxophone was played by another student, Míla Bartoš, who later became a teacher of physical education.

 

When the time came to decide what to study at the university, my brother wanted to study science, or possibly engineering. However, our father persuaded him to follow in his own footsteps and study law. Zdeněk agreed. He moved to Prague where he shared a room with the son of a local school principal, Leoš Kliment. I remember the street where they lived until they graduated (Leoš studied medicine). It was in the residential section of Prague, called Vinohrady. Unknown to me then, my future husband's family lived nearby and, some years later, Lída and I spent two years with a lady whose apartment was in Vinohrady, too. That section was on a hill with a good view of the lower parts of the city. I even remember the name of Zdenìk's landlady, Mrs. Štìpníèek. Lída's and mine was Mrs. Kolbe. (Strange how some little details stick in our minds!)

 

When we joined Zdeněk later in Prague, we became members of two sports clubs, the Ski Club and the Alpinist Club. During the winter months, the members of both clubs took part in skiing activities while during the summer some were trying to scale the sandstone cliffs in the vicinity. Skiing was done mostly at the mountain called the Ještìd near the town of Liberec. On weekends, a train from Prague would take us in the direction of the mountain range called Krkonoše. We passed a major railway station which, to us, had the distinction of selling excellent sausages popularly called "umrlèí prsty" (skeleton fingers) because of their slightly irregular shape. We never failed to consume them during the trip. I remember some of the members of the ski club: the instructor, Josef Janeba, a man greatly admired for his skill, sportsmanship, and friendliness; professor Dr. Jareš, who taught electrical engineering at the Technical University; a young girl affectionately called Kotek (meaning a kitten in Polish); her fiance; a dentist and his wife who separately met an untimely death; my brother's good friend Vašek Myšák; our cousin on father's side, Karel Procházka and his wife, Manka, both physicians. All are gone. Janeba fell from a window during the Nazi regime. The dentist's wife, by mistake, took a dose of sulfate that she thought was Carlsbad salts (a digestive powder) and died an extremely painful death in spite of immediate help. Her husband, who could not bear this tragedy, killed himself. Manka Procházka died of cancer. All of us were good friends in those days when things were still peaceful and nobody expected the terrible days that were looming ahead. Another of our cousins on mother's side, JiříTrmal, occasionally took part in our skiing expeditions. No one could have expected him to die as a result of a Nazi bullet during the Prague uprising.

 

As most members were the same in both clubs, we had a lot of opportunity to meet during climbing exerises. Yet only the very young and strong were able to enjoy this kind of activity. We practiced and learned the basics near Prague where some limestone cliffs were the ideal spots for learning climbing. The cardinal rule of climbing was to have in mind that there were four points of your body to keep firm. Three of them had to remain static while the fourth was the only moveable one. One had to keep the three points (two arms and one leg, or the other way) firm while climbing up and proceed while getting a new firm hold of the fourth point. The focus of your body was always to be held parallel to the shape of the cliff. The greatest difficulty was when you came to an overhang (pøevís). The leader would climb first and drive hooked nails into the rock. Through those looped hooks, a rope was passed. Others in the group followed the leader who then positioned himself firmly on top of the cliff and with both hands held the rope which the next climber was using to prevent any fall. It happened once that Zdeněk was climbing an overhang while Janeba was securing him up above. Zdeněk lost his grip and his weight would almost have pulled Janeba off the cliff to a certain death for them both had not Janeba pulled with all his might, holding on to his spot. To this day, whenever I remember it, I feel sick. How Janeba was able to withstand this sudden jerk of the great weight of the man hanging in the air, I do not know. I am grateful that our parents did not know anything about this. We never told anyone in our family what was involved in this sport.

 

One summer Zdeněk and I learned another technique in mountain climbing. It is called "the chimney technique". It can be used only in climbing cliffs that are parallel and close together. It could not be used near Prague where the stone has been eroded for many years into irregular shapes. However, in Eastern Bohemia there were many more sandstone formations some of which were well suited for this technique, not having eroded so deeply. These cliffs were harder, smoother, and had practically no protrusions where the foot or the arm could find support. Where two cliffs are separated only by a distance that is a little shorter than the length of your whole legs, you can prop your back against one side of the cliff and pose your feet against the other side. You move up by moving your feet while pushing against your back. Then you slowly move your back up, using also your arms, then the legs, and so on. Towards the top of the cliff you usually find that the sides are too far apart for this technique, and you have to use your ingenuity to switch to the original technique of "four points". You cannot propel your body up any more; your arms, which in the chimney technique support your back, now have the task of finding a protruding spot. This is a bad piece of maneuver, but must be done. Climbing is not just a matter of strength, but of ingenuity, too. If you reach the top of a cliff which is a "hard" one, you find that the climbers before you have hidden somewhere a metal box with a note pad where you sign your name with the date and hour of your climb. You then hid the metal box again from the elements.

 

Most Apinists are physically strong besides being fearless. It is technically possible for a less than strong person to become an Alpinist. In my case I found that I really did not have strength enough to do the difficult mountains. I was able to manage the practice cliffs near Prague and one of the parallel cliffs in "Prachovske Skaly". Sandstone seems to be the best type of rock on which to practice climbing. My first (and only real) cliff in this area of Prachov was a fairly high cliff, parallel enough for the new technique and propped with the problem of how to switch to the original technique. I was surprised at how much strength it required. I did reach the narrow part in the sandstone cliff, but I was exhausted. My nose started bleeding. I rested with a friend, signed my name, and started downhill. Let me emphasize here that going downhill is much harder than climbing up. You do not see where the best places are (you must not look behind and you must preserve the position by not losing your body's parallel stance). When I reached the firm ground, I took stock of what I had been through. I came to the conclusion that I was not strong enough to continue. I never could have made real mountains. From that day on, I would eventually go back to the "practice cliffs", but that was about all I could do. Zdeněk was made of stronger stuff and he could climb some of the cliffs in the Alps. Yet he, too, never forgot his experience of almost having fallen to his death while climbing the overhang, and later he concentrated on other sports.

 

After two years of law school, Zdeněk passed the rigorous examination in Roman law and started studying both civil and penal law. This required further two years of attendance after which more examinations were scheduled. This kind of study entailed a lot of rote learning which was dry. Yet he had great help in his father who, as a solicitor himself, had much experience. He was able to give his son practical presentations of cases and these proved just the thing to help Zdeněk learn the meaning of the sometimes obscure language of the law. Zdeněk passed all his exams and received the degree of JUDr (which means: Juris Utriusque Doctor - doctor of civil and penal law). He was about to become a solicitor like his father when he became closely associated with the Heimrich family. The owner, Èeslav Heimrich, inherited from his father a factory for making tools for sugar refineries. There were four children in the family: the girl Zora, her sister Božena, brother Jiří, and the youngest girl Vìra. Zdeněk was much interested in Božena, but over the time of his courtship, he was more in contact with Zora. She was quite an ambitious girl who knew what she wanted to achieve, and she had a great influence on Zdenìk. They became engaged and later married. She was the one who persuaded Zdeněk to become an advocate instead of a solicitor. Advocacy was a more lucrative position. It required further studies, which Zdeněk passed. As in other countries, advocates have a reputation of being very aggressive and even ruthless. Our family had serious doubts that Zdeněk would become a successful advocate. He was always mild-mannered, always dealt kindly with people and made no demands on anyone. We were greatly surprised when he became a great success exactly because of these qualities. Clients appreciated the fact that they could always trust him, that he did not cheat, that he did not charge too much for his services, and, in their words, "that he was such a good man!"

 

He remained friends with his boyhood chums until the end. I remember some of them: there was JiříÈervený, son of an advocate who became a lawyer, too (incidentally, his son emigrated to the USA and became a friend of our son Pavel while they were both living in Denver); Jaroslav Øíha, also a lawyer who taught me tennis and who is now living in San Antonio, Texas; Míla Bartoš, later a teacher; the Matoušek boys, Pepa (Josef), an owner of a book store and his brother Jára (Jaroslav), later chief of surgery of a hospital in Most (northern part of Bohemia) and others. There was a strong family bond between Pepa and Jára Matoušek. Pepa decided to support Jára financially in his medical studies since he, Pepa, could not hope to achieve much (not being as talented as Jára). Jára was also a violinist with whom I played some compositions for violin and piano. Jára was a very dedicated violinist, and he would attempt to play the most difficult compositions for which neither he nor I were well equipped. What we did play rather well was Beethoven's Fruhling Sonata in F major. To this day, I believe I could play some parts of the accompaniment by heart. But, some of the concertos for violin were beyond us and their performance was just barely "passing". It gave Jára a lot of pleasure, though. My parents heard us play quite often and father just felt tolerant, as I could see from the expression on his face. Jára was neither a Sarasate nor a Kreisler.

 

One of Jára's friends in his medical studies was Otakar Vondrovic, who turned out to be an excellent pianist and who could play the most difficult compositions with ease. When my husband and I were living in Nusle, both the young medical students came to visit us to play. I had an excellent piano, a wedding gift from my father, and Vondrovic liked its sound better than others he had a chance to use. I must not forget that for one of my birthdays, Jára Matoušek brought me his own composition on the theme of my first name, Jarmila. He elaborated this way: The first note was j(g), then a, then he used a -ro- -mi- -la-. It later got lost when we had to flee.

 

For his honesty and fairness, Zdeněk remained popular among his clients. However, after the Communist putch, his fortunes turned radically for the worse. Our country suddenly became a lawless state. The first ones to be imprisoned were lawyers, judges, and whoever was a symbol of order. The form of justice as we had known could not be tolerated. Although there were no charges against him, Zdeněk was put in jail, called an "enemy of the state" and made to work felling trees. Here is where his sports training helped him. He had physical strength, he was used to hard work in sports, and he somehow could stand the rigors of his new situation. Some years later, he was released and allowed to be a lawyer again, but the law now had been altered. His wife Zora took those limitations very hard. Gone were her dreams of a comfortable life. There were some compensations, though. Their first born, also Zdeněk (called Zdenìèek or Zdena), was a talented boy who, though of a "bourgeois" background, was allowed to get university education and eventually got a PhD degree in modern languages. He teaches at a gymnasium as does his equally talented wife.

 

The younger son, Aleš is not as qualified as his brother and his job is a minor one. Zdeněk has no children; Aleš has two daughters. With those two, the last name of Mohr will end. There are no male descendants. Both my sisters changed their names when they married, and our youngest brother, Jiří, has only one daughter.

 

Zora's only brother, also Jiří, married my younger sister Milada, and he died the tragic death I mentioned earlier. He was executed by the Nazis for having printed and distributed anti-Nazi literature. Zora's sister Božena is married. The youngest, Vìra, married a physician and died young of cancer. Even her physician husband could not save her. She was the best looking of the Heimrich girls. What happened to the factory after the putch I have no knowledge.

 

My brother, Zdenìk, did not live long. He died of a lung embolism following surgery on May 6, 1972. He was 65 years old. Gone is the cheerful young man whose optimism seemed to be unshaken in those earlier, better days.

 

My sister Ludmila Kryštùfková (Lída)

Born June 20, 1909, died July 14, 1987

 

Lída and I grew up together as there was only a year and a half age difference between us. With our brother Zdenìk, we engaged in most things together, we played and, in the case of Zdeněk and me, we quarrelled. Lída was a timid child who never quarrelled. Typical of her good nature was this: In Central Europe, clothes are kept in a wardrobe that stands on four short and stout legs. Under this wardrobe is an empty space, cleaned and swept every day. This space we children used as a hiding place. Whenever mother gave us candy, she divided it into three parts. Zdeněk and I usually made short shrift of it. However, Lída saved hers in wrapping paper, hid it under the wardrobe and when Zdeněk and I had nothing left, she would ask us: "Do you want some?", get hers from the hiding place under the wardrobe and give us whatever we wanted. This trait of hers continued all her life. She liked to give whatever she had not only to us but also to all her relatives. Never did she ask for things for herself. In that respect she was just like our father.

 

At school, called "M욝anská škola" (in German the Burgerschule), she did not do too well. Not until recently did I learn that she never dared to ask the teacher for an explanation of things she did not understand. Schools in those days were very authoritative. What teacher said you accepted without question and that was that! It seems such a tragedy that Lída sometimes did not understand what she was learning and that it ended there! She could have had a better future. She would have made an excellent nurse. She had all the qualifications for it.

 

Everybody who was living in Central Europe during WWI had suffered physically. We, the children, along with the adults, showed serious under-nourishment. As we were growing up, it was necessary to do something more radical about it than just to eat as well as possible. After the war, a group of physicians in Prague organized sojourns in Yugoslavian seashore resorts for the purpose of strengthening young people healthwise. Each summer groups of volunteers were sent to the seashore to be exposed to the sun and sea air. The group bought a villa in Crikvenica on the Adriatic coast where youngsters were housed. Parents did not mind the expense of the trip and lodging and food which, in those days, was not small. Our parents sent Lída and me there twice, first in June 1924, and then again two years later. They preferred to send us in June as the later months were too hot there. Since school was still in session in June, a special permission had to be obtained from the school authorities. It was given gladly, but examinations in the missed courses had to be taken later.

 

Lída and I traveled with the others from Prague to Trieste in Italy and from there we took a boat to Crikvenica. This was a lovely little resort directly on the shore. Rooms in the villa bought by the group of directors were furnished with about 6-8 beds each for the children and a supervisor (usually a teacher). Most of the days were taken by swimming, hiking, and above all, eating! Some excursions were made to the Island of Raab, to Dubrovnik (a former Dalmation colony of the Romans with old buildings), and other places of interest. Evenings were spent with discussions of lectures which were geared to our ages. On one of those excursions (I believe it was that to Raab), we bought a little Yugoslavian wine and drank it (this was against the rules). All of us got dizzy and had headaches afterwards which cured us of further experiments. We very much enjoyed buying almonds, which were a luxury, by the kilo. Very attractive were the gifts one could buy provided one had the funds. The gifts were decorations made of coral or shells, but most of all, previously unknown to us, was jewelry made of silver filigree. Never before had we seen anything like it. For centuries Yugoslavia had been occupied by the Romans, the Turks, and other invaders, all of whom left a mark on the country. There were the Roman buildings in Dubrovnik. Silver jewelry made with filigree was the result of Eastern occupation. We were also told that in former times, all of the Yugoslav shores were heavily covered with forests. When the Romans occupied the country, they felled all of the trees for wood that they needed to build ships. Thus it happened that after the Roman "presence", the whole of the shores remained denuded of vegetation and is now rocky. Feelings between the native population toward the Romans (now Italians) remained bitter and may still be the same.

 

As people, the Yugoslavs were very friendly to us. They felt an affinity with us. After all, they were "brother Slavs". Even now, whenever one of our people comes to the country, he feels at home. There is a natural feeling of having much in common. I believe that among the other Slavic nations, the Yugoslavs are closest to us. Some of it is also due to the fact that part of what is now Yugoslavia, the Slovene part and part of Croatia were under Hapsburg domination, and, as a result, attitudes and customs were somehow similar.

 

Lída and I greately profitted from the two sojourns in Crikvenica. We made some friends with whom we corresponded. We gained weight, although not as much as some others did. We acquired a better appetite. We were better able to withstand illnesses. We came in contact with another world for the first time. We associated with youngsters from other parts of our own country. This was the first step which opened our horizon. Until then we were constantly staying within a small circle of small town people. The two summers in Crikvenica were beneficial to us in more than one respect.

 

Lída and I were inseparable from the time we played as children in the sand at Štefánik Square, through music lessons (she, too, took the piano), through dancing lessons where mothers had to act as "garde-dames" watching us turn clumsily in the arms of boys our age, to the years we spent in Prague. We were like twins. We dressed alike and acted alike. In 1928-29 while I enrolled at Charles University, she took lessons in French at the Institut Ernest Denis in Štìpánská Ulice. At that time she and I lived in Žitná ulice (No. 9) in the home of Mr. and Mrs. Rosendorf. That particular winter, 1928-29, before Christmas, a severe cold struck. It came from Siberia and lasted all of four months. In 1929, it reached -40 degrees Celsius in Budìjovice (southern Bohemia). The river Vltava was frozen to a great depth and we could walk over its surface. Both Lída and I got frost bite. New felt-lined high boots were a must. Factories came out with new heavy material for underclothes which were sewed privately at home by seamstresses. Before going to bed, Lída and I would put our slippers under the bedcover so that when we got up in the morning, we could have our feet a little warmer. That was the coldest winter I have ever experienced. Our oldest brother, Pepèa, had spent the fall before that in Algiers and when he came home for Christmas in 1928, he shivered even in a furcoat.

 

In Prague, we had five first cousins, who included Dr. Karel Procházka and Maru Seitz, daughter of mother's sister, "teta Márinka". Maru had excellent taste, and thanks to her advice, Lída and I were always well dressed. Daughters growing up without mother (as we were) did not always make good choices. Mother's oldest brother's sons, Jiří, Bohumil, and Jan, were also living in Prague. Jiříjoined us sometimes on ski outings. Most frequently, we were in company of Bohumil (called Páèek) and a little less so of Jan (called "Honda"). Both boys were great jokers and their company was just what two new arrivals in Prague, like us, needed. Sometimes we were visited by a friend of Pepèa's, Karel Grün, an engineer by trade. Since early years in Jihlava, Karel Grün had been a devoted friend of Pepèa who gave him a new first name, "Matyáš". It had no understandable relation to Karel Grün, but the name stuck. The whole Grun family were our friends. Karel's younger sister, Máòa, went to school with me. She died young of sarcoma of the hip suffered after a fall during our third year of gymnasium. Another sister of Karel's, also called Lída, married a Frenchman and moved away.

 

With some of these cousins and friends we made trips to the museum, to the zoo in Troja, and other places of interest. That summer our mother died, and Lída took upon herself the task to keep house for father and the two young ones left at home, Milu and Jiří. I returned to my studies and moved in with Ms. Božena Kožíšková, daughter of an educator and herself a teacher of the Montessori method. For the benefit of those who can read Czech, I include here a song which was then popular in Prague and which was called a Mormon song, as told to me by Ms. Kožíšková. Here goes: "Já mám dvì ženy, obì Boženy, mám je složený v tašce kožený. Nemìjte mnì za neøáda, každá z mých žen má mnì ráda....." Ms. Kožíšková's first name was that one of the ridiculous song.

 

Lída's sojourn in Prague had come to an end. From then on, for her it was only a string of days filled with duties. She could perform them well as she was a "born mother." She knew what to do. As it turned out, to her last days, it remained her duty to take care of others. She never complained. She took her tasks as if they were something natural. She took care of her three children, her husband for eight years after he had had a stroke, her grandchildren, our brother Pepèa when he was incapacitated, our father when be became very old, and even her two great grandchildren. Her whole life was filled with service to others.

 

Two or three years after mother's death, friends told father that it was not right for a young daughter to devote all her energy to the service of the family. Father took this advice and hired a housekeeper, who remained with the family for a number of years. Lída was able to take part in some social activities and met her future husband. He was Karel Kryštùfek, a school teacher who in temperament was Lída's opposite. He was full of energy and fun, and he was just the type to bring her out of her shell. She learned not to be so timid. They complemented each other. They moved into the house father owned on the floor above. Their first baby was stillborn. They had three live children: Karel (Kája), Ludmila (Dáda), and Milada (Mika). Lída's husband inherited the family disease--high blood pressure. From Karel it was the son, also Karel (Kája) who later inherited the disease, and now even Mika is afflicted.

 

For Lída, life with Karel was a pleasant one until the Communists took control. Without any apparent reason, Karel was sent to jail, either as a means of spreading fear in the population or because he was a teacher and therefore a possible menace. Their well furnished apartment was confiscated. Our father took care of the needs of the young family while Karel was incarcerated. The family managed as well as they could until Karel was released. When Karel was 50 years old, he had a stroke from which he never recovered. He was in a wheelchair for eight years. Lída took great care of him. At that time, women of all ages were supposed to work, presumably in factories, so that they would be eligible for pension later. Lída chose to take care of Karel. As a consequence, she never qualified for normal pension and what she received as an old woman was just a pittance. Karel was not an easy patient and many a time Lída's task was a very hard one. Yet, she never complained, not even later when Karel was gone. He died at the age of 59. The high blood pressure, which also killed Karel's mother, was the illness that remained in the family. In spite of warnings, the family was addicted to salty and highly seasoned food.

 

After Karel died, it was too late for Lída to go to work. She had to reconcile herself to the fact that her pension would be minimal. And so it remained all the rest of her life. She devoted her life to her grandchildren. She managed to squeeze in the care of our brother Pepèa. Occasionally she took the long bus ride to Rynoltice and did for him all she could. He would have liked her to be with him longer, but she could not. She had to take care of so many others! She lent a hand to the care of our father, although Milu was the one who then lived with him. And last but not least, she helped with the care of two of her great grandchildren.

 

In 1979, I finally got permission for my two sisters to visit me in Endicott. We had not seen each other for over 30 years! I tried to make it up to them for all the privations they had been exposed to. First, I saw to it that they had some goodies they had not seen in ages, like bananas, good meat, butter, fresh vegetables, oranges, almonds, and all the foods that had disappeared from their menus. I took them to visit my children in New York City, Virginia, and California. I bought them all I thought they might like. I believe they were very happy to forget the grey times they were to lead again upon their return. Lída especially enjoyed the view from the World Trade Center and went to see it again two years later when my sisters visited me again. As I could have expected, on her return, she gave all the presents that I gave her to her relatives. She only kept a porcelain rose given to her by an acquaintance, a jeweller in Endicott. Two years later, she did not even have that rose. It had been sufficient for her relatives to admire some of the things she brought with her and immediately she would give it to them. She was that generous.

 

About five years before her death, she had surgery for cancer of a gland. For those five years she felt cured, but it was not to be. She and Milu were to visit me again for the fourth time in 1987. She had not been feeling well that Spring but badly wanted to visit me again. I encouraged her and when she felt very weak, I offered her to be transferred to and from the plane in a wheelchair. At that time she realized she was seriously ill and said she would not be coming that year. On July 14, 1987, she passed away while taking a bath at home. I was told that she died of heart trouble, which sometimes afflicts cancer patients. I was also assured that she died without pain and instantly.

 

After the death of our oldest brother, Lída was the keeper of family documents and photographs. Milu brought them to me on her next visit in 1988. The documents I had copied, and some of the family photographs are now in my possession. Lída was an unsung heroine. She passed away as inconspicuously as she had lived. Only we, her family, know the extent of her work, and only we are aware of how important it had been. It seems to me that these women who endlessly work for the family, without acknowledgement, are the real centers of our lives. How would the world function without them? When you remove a keystone, the arch falls apart. The mothers of this world are always there, otherwise the structure would disintegrate. It is also good to point out that although Lída never claimed to be well informed, she had common sense which enabled her to see situations as they actually were, and not as other people would have liked them to be. In spite of official Communist propaganda under which she had to live for 40 years, she saw things as they actually were and was not influenced by the untruths of the regime, while some much "smarter" people eventually were. She deserved better. I sometimes wonder what sustained her besides her family devotion and discipline.

 

 

My sister Milada ("Milu") Heimrich-Hain Hájová

born January 1, 1917

 

Between the date of my birth and that of Milu, there were more than six years of difference. At the beginning of 1917, World War I was still on and raged almost two more years until the end of 1918. Milu was a very good-looking child and everyone was fond of her. I still see her at the age of about four or five "reading" aloud from a book of fairy tales. She had known the tales by heart and by looking at the pictures, she was turning the pages exactly at the place where an adult reader would have.

 

Of us three daughters, Milu, then called by a diminutive Milunka, was the prettiest girl. I still can see her wearing a bonnet made of black silk and embroidered with Slavic motifs--hearts and apples and tulips, all in vivid colors. It looked so lovely on her little head!

 

At this time everyone in our family had to go more or less his own way, since mother was not living anymore. That is why I do not remember much about her early years. I was studying in Prague at that time and came home only for vacations. Most of the time Milu played with her younger brother Jiříwho was about two years younger.

 

The critical time for our family came with mother's death. Milu was 12 years old, Jiřínot yet all of 11. Had mother remained alive, I think Milu would have turned out quite a different person than she did. Our sister Lída kept house for the family for almost two years after which father hired a housekeeper. Her name was Jean, and we called her Žanda. She was an efficient woman of about 40 years of age. Milu took an immediate dislike to her. Milu believed that Žanda wanted our father to marry her, which was not the case at all, but Milu strongly believed the opposite. She never accepted any suggestions Žanda made. I heard Milu tell Žanda: "Do not tell me anything! You have no right to order me around!" After mother's death, father withdrew into himself and was somehow not able to pay attention to the two remaining children. As a result, Milu did pretty much as she pleased. She would read in bed very late into the night using a flashlight under the blanket. As could have been expected, her eyesight deteriorated. After she passed the "Maturity examination" with flying colors, I tried to persuade her to follow in my footsteps and study at the philosophical faculty in Prague. She did enroll at Charles University for the study of modern languages, but did not persevere. When she got the taste of having to dig deeply into ancient forms of languages and found out how much "boring" work was required, she quit for good.

 

Because mother was not there and father was withdrawn, she did not acquire proper learning discipline. Here is tangible proof of how important a mother's influences are. It is a shame, because she is very intelligent and would have passed the hard examinations required of graduates. Instead, she stayed home and married her classmate, JiříHeimrich, brother of Zora. Their marriage ended in extreme tragedy, as I have said. Jiříand two friends printed and distributed anti-Nazi leaflets, were denounced by some collaborator, brought to court and, on conviction, sentenced to death. Milu and her sister-in-law, Andu, who resided with them, were also jailed as possible collaborators. For lack of proof, Andu was released, but Milu remained in jail. It was found out, too, that she was pregnant. This fact saved her life. Our father wrote to the authorities in Breslau, Germany, and applied fo her release. At that time, the Third Reich had a policy of preserving all unborn children, as the number of births was declining during the war years. The Nazis were so anxious to have more babies for the benefit of the Reich that they even encouraged the births of illegitimate ones. They called the single mothers "Ehrenmutter" (Honorable mothers) and on occasion had them march in a parade to encourage more to follow and to make them feel important. However, after a few such "parades" the "shows" were discontinued as they had the opposite effect on the onlookers.

 

When Milu did return home after some months, it was a sad homecoming. She lived in constant fear of the outcome of her husband's trial. It was the worst! Jiříand his friends were executed in Breslau on January 24, 1945. Milu's baby was born prematurely, two weeks before her father's death. He was not informed of the birth of his daughter. She was named after him, Jiřina.

 

I am uncertain about the manner of his execution. Milu believes that he was either shot or hanged. However, people who were involved with the same group, learned that the convicted men were driven into a ditch where they were shot. The only thing certain about them is that they were all buried in a mass grave. In vain did Milu ask for his body to be returned to her. She was told that it was impossible to tell which body was his. She believed she would have recognized him as he had a scar on his left wrist where it had been broken in childhood. His body is still somewhere in a ditch in Germany.

 

The two tragedies, mother's early death and her husband's gruesome fate, marked Milu for life. She never completely recovered from these two blows. Gone was her cheerful attitude which she showed as a young child. From then on, there was only hard work for her, work done in order to forget.

 

Upon the urging of our father, she later remarried. Her second husband was an advocate, JUDr Bohumil Hain, himself a released political prisoner. He adopted Milu's little girl, Jiřinka, and the six of them lived for while in northern Bohemia where he practiced law. Later they moved back to Jihlava, to our family home where Milu and Bohouš live to this day. At this writing he is 86, Milu is 71. (Editor's note: Bohouš passed away in 1991; he was 88.)

 

Milu devoted all her life to Jiřinka and to her new family. She was a very kind stepmother but did not always receive the thanks she deserved. Her way of defending herself against further hurt was in looking at happenings with great caution and not expecting much good. She developed a tendency to see things in dark colors. She has a defensive attitude toward people. Two members of our family had a similar attitude after having lived through great upheavals: one was teta Julèa, the other Maru Seitz. Both believed that you have to be careful in dealing with people. All three, however, were (and are) very generous, ready to help, serving others without expecting too much in return, and devoted to the other members of the family. It is amazing how these three women developed similar ways after having had extremely bad experiences.

 

Milu's daughter, Jiřinka, was a sickly child and had to have a lot of care. Milu nursed her with affection. She gave the same unselfish care to her stepchildren. All are gone from home now. Jiřinka met a young man, Willy Bardas, in Jihlava, and later married him. By a twist of fate, he is the son of a German high official, who had been executed by the Czech Communists after the end of the war, without cause. Like JiříHeimrich before him, Willy's father was a good man. It is almost fateful that both Jiřinka and her husband Willy lost their fathers so tragically as a result first of the Nazi, and later the Communist, occupation. The couple live now in Germany and have two children, a boy of 17 named Michael, and a girl of 15 named Caroline. All of them often come to Jihlava to visit Milu and Bohouš, to do some skiing, and to visit old places.

 

Milu and Lída visisted me here in the USA three times: first in 1979, then again in 1982, and in 1985. Both were to visit me again in 1987, but Lída fell ill and did not recover. She died July 14, 1987.

 

When they left me the first time, I asked them what they liked best in the USA. Their answer was: "We very much liked the people and the fact that everyone is so kind and so nice." What is actually meant was that these qualities are in extremely short supply in Communist countries. The regime that divides families and asks only for complete obedience to the party cannot expect that people will feel happy about it. My sisters felt safe and welcome here. They admired the "luxury" we live in here, they were happy about the plentiful food and availablility of all necessities of life, but the greatest value for them was the friendly feeling among neighbors, the feeling of being able to say what was on their minds, to be free (for awhile) from fear and to enjoy life. This to them was the best they could expect. They enjoyed themselves tremendously.

 

Milu and I are the only remaining members of a once-numerous family. We decided we have to see each other as often as we can. We have to make up for the loss of thirty years during which I did not dare to make any contact with my family left under the new cruel regime. It grieves me that I never could make up to them for all the years of scarce food followed by illnesses, the stress and fear they had to live under, and the various deprivations. Those bad years can never be undone. The killed patriots cannot be brought back to life.

 

 

My brother JiříMohr (George, called Jirka)

Oct. 29, 1918-Feb. 3, 1975

 

Our mother was always of frail health, but she was able to hold on until the end of WW1, when she was 38 years old. She had a hard time delivering the five of us. During each of these deliveries, she suffered for three days. When the youngest, Jiří, was born in October 1918, she suffered pains for one day only, but at that time she was already seriously ill. She died on August 29, 1929 of nephritis. Jiříwas the only one of us who inherited this disease.

 

He being the youngest, it was only natural that he was very much liked. I am sorry that I did not have much time to spend with "Jirka" or Milu, having been away from home most of the time. The same situation we experienced with our oldest, Pepèa, who was away at school from the age of 12 or 13. We did not really "know him." Similarly, I cannot say much about Jirka's early years. I know, however, that he was a quiet boy, well behaved and that he did not talk much. (He remained uncommunicative to his end.) He was not yet 11 years old when mother died. On the day of her death, he was sick in bed with paratyphoid fever. I came to him and told him mother was dying. He started crying quietly and could not stop. He was still in bed on the day of her funeral.

 

Like other children of his age, he played cowboys and Indians. He read books for boys. He did rather well at school but his work was only good, not outstanding. Where Milu was always on the honor roll, he was not. The two did many things together, played tennis and participated in other sports. During WWII, he was forced by the Nazis to work outside his home, as most of the other young men also were. Being in business (sales), he was sent to Vienna, Austria, but his work was mostly manual. The Nazis did not send the young men of other nationalities into their army since they did not trust anyone. They correctly assumed they could not depend on "foreigners". Jiříspent a few years in Vienna. He had been in an air raid which destroyed the house next door. The one he stayed in was preserved by a miracle, but of the other, only one staircase remained. The man standing on the staircase, however, was knocked down and died on the spot. Jiříhad a narrow escape.

 

Of our family, no one except Jiříwas engaged in business. He set up an import-export business, mostly with neighboring Germany. From that country he bought auto parts and sold artificial sweetening. The fact that he had contact with business people in that country became important later when we as a family had to flee from the Communists.

 

In his business dealings he met his future wife, Anna Kretchman. She was only a month younger than Jiří. Her father owned a restaurant, her mother was an excellent cook. She proved her skill at the wedding reception of the young couple. It was before the end of the war, but there was plenty of food bought on the black market. To the large number of guests, Mrs. Kretchman proved her outstanding abilities. Not only was everything delicious, but the sizes of the portions were very large. Everybody started laughing when Jirka put in front of me an enormous Wiener Schnitzel. I can still "taste" in my mind the tiny and delicious koláèky which Mrs. Kretchman and the bride prepared for us. They must have spent hours in fashioning them, as the cakes were so small, the idea being to let everybody choose as many different ones as they liked in one bite. We all ate and drank and almost forgot that there still was a war.

 

Anna, called Andu, was of good nature, and the married couple were very happy. They had one daughter, no sons. Again, with Jirka, the male line went dead. Jirka was doing his work as well as he could, but he must have been sorry that, like Milu before him, he did not want to pursue studies and become a professional. He told me once: "When my daughter grows up, she will have to do well at school and continue. She will get an advanced degree. She will not end up like me. She will not be allowed to fool around at school the way I did." As it turned out, the Communist regime did not give her a chance either. It is sad to think that both Milu and Jiřírealized too late how very important college education was. Mother's untimely death was a tragedy in many more respects than one. They would have learned the value of higher education from her.

 

Jiříand Andu also had a great many frightful things happening to their families. Andu had a sister, married to an owner of a jewelry store. His name was Alois Králíèek, Andu's sister's was Marie. They had an eight year old girl, Eva, when tragedy struck. An acquaintance of theirs, Dr. Goldman, was to be sent to a concentration camp. His wife was Christian, but that did not save him from being deported. In his fright, Dr. Goldman appealed to Andu's sister and her husband to let him find refuge in their house. Both were aware of the great danger, but guided by compasion, they agreed. Dr. Godman was found in their house and sent back to the transport. However, our relatives paid dearly for it. They were put on trial in June 1942, which was very brief (no possibility of appeal), sentenced to die, and shot immediately. Whenever I think of these two young people, I shudder what their last moments must have been when they knew that they were leaving an eight year old child behind! We simply cannot imagine what anguish the condemned go through. Even though the war years were full of tragedies like that, one just cannot forget them. This tragedy happened some 35 years ago. The little girl is now married, has two sons, and lives in Karlovy Vary. I wonder what her life must have been like after she lost her parents in such a cruel way.

 

The most difficult time in the life of my own family and that of my husband was when we had to decide to leave home for ever. This was also the time when my brother Jiříproved to be invaluable to me. At my father's request, he came to Prague and through his business connections he found a contact who in turn, for a large fee, found a character, a smuggler, who took my husband to Germany through walks in the woods, known to him and his associates. He did not keep his promise entirely, he took all the money, but my husband made it to freedom. If it had not been for my brother, we would never have known where to turn, whom to pay, which way to go. In those days, full of intrigues and dangers, many people surfaced who previously were engaged in legitimate business.

 

Although Jiříwas not able to help me in my quest directly, he was around all the time and encouraged me, getting funds for me from the bank and helping with advice. I shall always be very grateful to him. In situations like these, you find out who your real friends are and whom you can trust.

 

The one who should have tried to help me was my husband's only brother, Vladimír (Mírek). Yet he could not even find courage enough to contact me, let alone ask for my needs or offer help.

 

In later years, Jiříwas not lucky. Under the Communists he had to take any job and Andu had to work, too. Soon the hereditary illness showed itself and after some years of pain, he died on Feb. 3, 1975. He was only 56 years old. He was the one whose life was the shortest of us children. Zdeněk died at 62, Pepèa and Lída both were 78. Our father died at 89, but mother at 49. Some of the in-laws are gone, too. Pepèa's and Lída's spouses are deceased, and so is my husband. (Since the time of this writing, Bohouš, Milu's husband, has died also.) Surviving are Zdenìk's widow, Zora, and Jiří's widow, Andu. On my husband's side, only his nephew, Karel Jung, survives. The rest have all passed away.

 

 

About myself, Jarmila Machotková-Mohrová

 

I was born on Nov. 20, 1910. At that time our country was still part of Austria-Hungary. I am told I was a chubby child until I was four years old (when the war began). Shortages of food were immediate and became severe toward the end. I remember seeing my father faint of hunger, and I, too, sometimes hunted in the breadbox for crusts of bread. As a lawyer, father could have asked his farmer clients to sell us some food (which was forbidden), but he did not do it. By the end of the war, our parents already had six children. We were all undernourished, just like the rest of the population.

 

From that point on I remained underweight until later in life. Let me tell you now that when I was 18 or 19 years old, to "fatten me up", a physician prescribed small doses of arsenic, which was to be slowly increased and then again diminished until discontinued. This was supposed to increase your appetite. That was the "cure" for low weight in those days. Needless to say, it did not help noticeably. My older siblings used to laugh at my thin waist which they compared to that of a wasp. I did not have much of an appetite, and while mother lived, she cooked for me all the good food she could provide. Now, at the age of 78 (editor's note: in 1988), my problem is just the opposite!

 

When my sister Lída started school, I was not yet five. I badly wanted to go to school with her and finally I was allowed to go with her. I remember where the school was located. It was at the other end of town and mother had to take us both by the hand every morning and make the great distance with us. Most schools in Jihlava were located toward the center, but this one was assigned to Czech-speaking children and was not in a good spot. I loved to go to school, but my attendance proved to be brief. When I came down with a severe case of what was probably influenza, I was kept at home for a month and then discouraged to come back. My regular schooling, as was customary, began at six, in another building which, during summer months, housed soldiers recuperating from wounds. One of my memories of that year is of having the schoolroom cleaned of bugs which were found even behind the crucifix on the wall. The Austrian government was strictly Catholic and pupils were obliged to go to Mass before instruction began. I have two more memories of that first year. Classrooms were heated by a coal stove, which the teacher or the older pupils had to stoke. One morning a girl put some coal in while a spark flew out and singed the rim of her skirt. It started burning while she was not aware of it. I noticed it and called the teacher who immediately extinguished what might have developed into a major fire and possibly burned the girl alive. My other memory is of looking at the teacher's desk in front of the class and all of a sudden seeing it as if it were very far. Much later did I figure out that already then I must have been far-sighted.

 

As for childhood diseases, I probably had them all. I distinctly remember being ill with scarlet fever. All four of us, Pepèa, Zdenìk, Lída, and I came down with it at the same time. We were all confined in one room as the fever was highly contagious. Our oldest, Pepèa, came off the worst--he also developed kidney infection. The rest of us came off more easily.

 

At that time our family lived in Sterly street no. 25, where Zdenìk, Lída, and I were born. Soon after, we moved to Štefánik Square where Milu and Jiříwere born. (Pepèa was born in Prague.) I well remember the day of Jiří's birth, Oct. 29, 1918. The day before, the Czech independent republic was born. We did not learn about it until a day later (there was no radio yet). Those were very busy days. My father took immediate part in local activities, especially the political ones, but also the ones connected with rebuilding the local community: The first one was in shoring up the almost worthless currency by "stamping" large bills and thus sharply reducing their inflated numbers.

 

The next one was to organize proper schooling in Czech language and organize some badly needed services, like a volunteer fire department and others. Let me point here to the fact that this was a year after the Russian revolution and already then some local Communists started a move for further expansion of the revolution. One Communist in Prague assassinated the minister of Finance, Dr. Rašín, who by his "stamping" of worthless currency, made the new one much stronger. Already then the Communists started to unbalance other countries by various means. I believe it was in 1919 that in Hungary, there was an uprising by Béla Khun, who tried to unbalance the legitimate government. It had to be suppressed by force. It took more than two decades before Hungary became Communist (before the end of WWII).

 

We in Czechoslovakia were conquered by the Communists a little later. The Communists waited for an opportune moment until both countries were weakened. And they did the same in other countries: Poland, East Germany, and others. Anyone who wants to believe that the Communists are not expansionists can learn from these examples. Their plans are for years ahead and they can wait. Let me point to another important argument: Communists tell the world that they are for social justice. There was no exploiting of poor classes in free Czechoslovakia after 1918. We had instituted an agrarian (land) reform already in 1919 and finished it completely two years later. We introduced medical insurance early after WWI ended, and at the start, at least half of the population had been covered. For those who were not satisfied with the care they were given, there still were physicians who would treat you outside of the insurance. Physicians could choose whether they wanted to join the system or not. Most of them did both--treated the insured patients and had a private practice on the side. It worked quite well.

 

The Communists had ordered their party member to kill Dr. Rašín in order to destabilize the nation financially. They did not succeed. By a certain irony of fate, Dr. Rašín's son was later executed by the Nazis as a member of student government when it suited the Nazis to close our universities (so that there would not be enough well-schooled people). In the opinion of the Nazis, the nations, other than the German population, were to work only in factories for the system.

 

The war years, 1914-1918, left everyone exhausted both physically and financially. There were a lot of diseases and after 1918, the Spanish Flu was the cause of a tremendous number of deaths. All my young years I was a sickly girl with frequent colds. Sometimes, during the spring and fall months, I had a new infection maybe twice a month. I could never go on class excursions, I did not have enough strength. Needless to say, I was underweight. This did not improve until I had children.

 

I did well at school ("gymnasium") and passed my examinations with honors. It was assumed from the beginning that I was a "bookish" type. Ever since I was able to read I indulged in this pastime. I remember that sometimes mother had to send me out to play when she thought I read too much and did not have enough exercise. Yet my parents realized that this was my real inclination and did not interfere with it. Usually children got one or two boks for Christmas. In my case, it was three or four books at least. Some of those books I remember to this day and wonder where they are now. For me, books were always cherished possessions, kept in a safe place and never mishandled.

 

Before enrolling in the gymnasium, I was allowed to skip fifth grade. The first year of gymnasium was a tough one. We had ancient Greek history and our teacher was a dour man who assumed that we already were future scholars. The other subjects were more to our liking. Mathematics was not my strong subject, although I managed to get at least a B plus or A minuses. In later years, I developed a liking for Latin. We had four years of it and in this short time we had to cover all the material which the classical gymnasium covered in eight. As a consequence, we had to work very diligently. We had an hour a day of Latin in the first three years (i.e., the fifth to seventh form) and in the last, eighth year, we had two hours a day of instruction in Latin. We had to be able to translate poems of Horace. Indeed we had to work to achieve it!

 

Much of it was also to prepare us for the "Maturity examination." At that time you had to pass rigorous questions in Czech literature, in mathematics, and either French or Latin. The last two were decided according to which language gave you more trouble. If you were weak in French, you were questioned in French. The same principle applied to Latin. Many students pretended, for the last two years, that French gave them more trouble. This was too apparent an excuse and was beneath many of us. I knew I would have to translate some Odes of Horace. Horace was a very difficult poet to fully translate. I took the unusual step of reading almost all of his poems so that I could be sure to at least translate well, if not perfectly. That was a very good decision on my part. It took me much of the year in between other studies to read most of Horace's poems, and I finally got "the hang of it." Actual learning during the school year would not have given me enough practice. To this day I like to think of the time when I had to translate one Ode and did it well. I even managed to compare it with some other quotations from other Horace poems, which my instructor liked so well he came to me afterwards to thank me and congratulate me. (It was also a reflection of his way of teaching.) I well remember his name, Prof. Košta. He was well loved in spite of the fact that in his class we had to work very hard. I also remember the questions I got in Math: I had to be well informed in the Integral and Differential calculus. In the Czech literature part, I had to know about the group around the monthly magazine "Lumír" (Vrhclický and Zeyer were the chief poets). My colleague Manèal and I got a special mention. When one is old, one likes to think of the times when you were successful and when teachers praised you. Not much like that happens in later life. What you find out in later years is that your wish "to set the world on fire" will never materialize.

 

After having graduated from the gymnasium, the question arises what you would like to do further. Those of us who did well at school were certain to go to college. But what discipline to choose? I did not want to study medicine; I felt I could not stand the sight of suffering. Natural sciences were not my forte. Only the faculty of philosphy remained, and in it the foreign languages. I could have easily studied French, but that field was overcrowded. One of our teachers of the German language suggested that the field of English was a new one and might be interesting. There was also the question that not much English had been taught in our schools and what we knew was only elementary. One early morning (at 5 AM), my brother Zdeněk woke me up and said he was taking the train to Prague to enroll himself at Charles University for the third year of law. Would I like him to enroll me and in what discipline? As sleepy as I was, I remembered the advice of the teacher of German and told my brother: "Enroll me in Czech and English!" He did and that decision later completely turned my life around.

 

The professors who gave courses were the following: Prof. Vilem Mathesius (English literature), prof. Bohumil Trnka (Anglo Saxon and Middle English), Josef Osièka (practical English), and Herdman-Smith (English). Miloš Weingart (Old Slavonic), Emil Smetánka (Old Czech), Hujer (Indoeuropean), and others. Courses were tough, especially for those of us who barely had knowledge of spoken English and had to struggle through Anglo-Saxon texts! Practical seminars, which were supposed to teach you what the lecture did not, were even tougher than the lectures.

 

The difference between a gymnasium curriculum and that of the University was tremendous. Suffice it to say that in our country, we do not have undergraduate courses, and with a maturity examination, you were expected to be able to manage the graduate courses immediately. There was some "mortality" among the students as the years went by. A few dropped the studies after the first year, but most of them "fell by the road" after the third year when all of us who intended to be high school teachers, had to pass comprehensive examinations in the history of pedagogy (teaching). Most people do not realize that in Europe you are not obligated to attend classes, but you must be able to master your subject. Nobody makes you come, but you certainly must know your subject. Those who did not bother to attend found later to their grief that they made a basic mistake in taking studies lightly.

 

There were the three of us studying in Prague: Zdeněk in his third year of law, Lída taking French at Ernest Denis Institute, and I in my first year of philosophy. Not everything was just hard work. There were excellent opportunities in Prague to hear some famous musicians. We heard the Calvet Quartet play Ravel's only quartet, we heard Alfred Cortot play with the Czech Philharmonic, we heard two violinists, Jacques Thibaud and Jeanne Neveu, and we heard Pablo Casals play Dvoøák's Cello Concerto.

 

Mother's death meant more than just loss of guidance in daily matters. It actually changed all our lives. We children became closer and yet every one of us had to be able to function on his or her own. We had to make our own decisions. After the fateful summer of 1929, I returned to my studies. Zdeněk had only one more year of attendance after which final examinations were due. Lída had to return home to keep house for the family. Pepèa continued his scientific work as associate professor of astronomy at Charles University. He was very close to mother and her death affected him deeply. Before her coffin had been closed, he put a copy of his latest work near her body to be buried with her. We changed our ways in that we rarely had disagreements after her death.

 

In the spring of 1930, a suggestion was made to the department of English that a few students be selected as possible candidates for a scholarship for two-month's study at the International School in Geneva, Switzerland. The scholarship included all tuition, lodging, and food for the chosen ones. My friend, Bojslava Flek, was the first one suggested. Two more names were given, and mine was included, too. We all wished we could all participate and hoped that we would all be selected. What a surprise it was when at the end I was the only one who qualified! I do not think there was envy expressed, only sadness that just one scholarship had been given. And this selection also gave an entirely different direction to my life. My future husband, Otík, had been acting as tutor for some of the students for the second summer in a row, and I was to have instruction from him. The two other students from the other faculties of Charles University who were to participate were: a student of law, Jan Sedláèek, and an engineering student, Josef Pražák. The three of us immediately made acquaintance and beginning in July travelled together to Geneva.

 

For eight weeks we attended lectures in various subjects, like economics, various literatures, sociology, psychology, pedagogy, international law, and others. The lecturers were famous professors, for example, Bronislav Malinowski (for anthropology), Jean Siegfried (for economics), Sir William Craigie (linguistics), Jean Piaget (for pedagogy), and many others whose names escape me (it was 59 years ago!). Needless to say, the instruction was first class. The director was an Oxford scholar, Sir Alfred Zimmern, a professor of Greek. His energetic wife, of French descent, was in charge of the department of education. The school's secretary was Philip Boegner, son of a Protestant minister in Paris. Students came from all European countries. Some twenty were Americans, ten were French (some from the prestigious school, Ecole Normale Supérieure), four were Italians, some were Spanish, and so on. Every country was represented.

 

Lectures were conducted in English and French. This school had been in operation for some ten years and had been financed by funds from the United States. There were concerts performed for our own audience, there were sports to engage in, and most welcome of all, trips around Switzerland to make, either to Saint Bernard, to Mont Blanc, to Zermatt and the Matterhorn, to Lac Annecy (in France) or around Lac Léman (Lake Geneva).

 

We all were enthusiastic about the aims of the school, which was not only to give us students a sample of the best in knowledge of that day, but also to promote international understanding. I remember some of the names of friends of different nationalities. I was much attached to two French girls, Ida Frandon and Renée Ragot (both from Ecole Normale). My English friends were Freda Gurling, Nancy Walker (British) and Ella Pratt Yule (Scottish). I remember Louise Froehlich from Vienna, Olga Weissman and Kazimiera Perez from Warsaw; Peggy Hess and Leona Gillette from New York City, Mina Mondrup from Copenhagen, and others.

 

Among the boys I remember Willy Timmerman from Hamburg, Georges Costa of Paris, Haralambides from Athens, Paul Staub from Alsace, Gresham-Taylor from Oxford, Austin Van der Slice (Dutch American), and of course the two Czechs, Sedláèek and Pražák. With these daily contacts, I still kept quiet about my serious friendship with Otík. There were frequent trips to the nearby Jura Mountains, to the Mont Saleve, to take boat rides on the lake, and to swim.

 

Some of the morning lectures that we attended in small groups were memorable. Unforgettable was the week when Piaget came to our class to give us his findings on how a child's concept of right and wrong develops. Malinowski's anthropology classes were a novelty to me, as were classes in international law. Lady Zimmern, who was in charge of my group of students in education, took a liking to me and occasionally called me "ma petite poupée tcheque". In those days I wore my hair short and simply combed down without any waves, which was then in vogue, and that might have made an impression of a little girl on Mrs. Zimmern.

 

Most of us girls were housed at two places on Rue Toepffer, near a Russian church, with a golden shaped dome. One half of us lived with Madame Burgy, the other (I among them), across from hers at the Foyer de l'Ecole sociale. The rooms were large, as is usual in Western Europe. Food was French. Before me, the only Czech girl residing at the Ecole was Trude Wessely, daughter of a physician from Brno. I was to meet her 57 years later for the first time and learn that we have been related by marriage (she was married to my cousin's divorced husband--if that could be called a relation!).

 

Paul Staub started a habit of doubling the first syllables of our names as a joke. A very aggressive German boy, Soberman, was called so-so. Mrs. Peardon was Madame pee-pee. Paul said that when I was good, I was ya-ya. When not so good, I was ra-ra, and so on. I do not remember all of the names he twisted.

 

Presence at the school gave me a new outlook on what was going on in other countries, how the other nationalities reacted and felt about our common problems, but did not give me an inkling what was in store for Europe. The rumbling of war was still distant. Some of the Jewish girls later became refugees and, hard to contemplate, finally we, too, had to leave home for good. The summer spent in Geneva remained one of the happiest times I have had. Only with one friend, Peggy Hess, did I get in contact and that after 57 years! Who knows what fate had in store for all of them.

 

The following summer I was sent to Eastbourne to polish my English with a family named Davison. The Davisons had been acquaintances of my brother Zdeněk when he had been learning French with the family of a French pastor in Dieppe. They had one schoolteacher daughter, Peggy, and six boys. I became acquainted with the two youngest ones, Dick and Tony. The rest were already gone from home. Later, I met the oldest, Max and his wife Mary, who took me on an excursion to London and showed me the Tate Gallery and the Albert museum. Mrs. Davison's sister and her family lived nearby at Denecroft. They had two daughters, Mary and Jean, and a son Graham. This boy was a very cheerful little spirit who made everybody like him. Mary was fond of boys approximately her age which was considered not only unusual but also undesirable. Actually, she was pitied for this tendency. It amazed me. For the first time I came across the belief that sexes better be separated.

 

Eastbourne is situated on the Channel coast, high on chalk cliffs. Surrounded by greenery, it has innumerable grass tennis courts, many of them on private land. There are walks around the town such as to the lighthouse on Beachy Head, to the castle of Pevensy, to the dunes called the "Downs", and others. One can see tennis tournaments, swimming exhibitions, and amusement parks near the beach. Besides me, another visitor to the Davisons was a French boy, Paul Bélingard, son of a schoolteacher. He was treated by the British boys with indifference if not by dislike. But when he proved his prowess by being an excellent rower, the attitude immediately changed. Up until then, I was not aware of how deeply the British dislike the French until I realized how many centuries of fighting there had been between the two nations. If an "enemy" excells in sports, the British are ready to accept him as equal.

 

We ate the traditional British food of roast beef with Yorkshire pudding, treacle tart (not too tasty), and strawberries with cream. The countryside was beautifully green thanks to frequent rains. The cemeteries were especially attractive to me with the tombstones in the shape of bedboards (both the front and the foot part). The two months spent in England were unforgettable.

 

My last two years of mandatory attendance at the university were spent in diligent work. That, of course, was not yet the end. Examinations were to be passed still. As Otík and I got married in the meantime, in 1932, I had to pass them later.

 

Otík and I had known each other two years before we got married on August 11, 1932. It was not recommended in those days to get married soon after you met. First your future husband had to have a steady job, preferably to have tenure. Otík was 11 years my senior and his job was secure, but he was not yet tenured. My father had some misgivings about that and at first thought that we should wait for the tenure before getting married. But when he came to know Otík well, he changed his mind.

 

At that time, Otík was employed at the State Bureau of Statistics and working on his second book in order to be "habilitated" as an assistant professor of sociology at Charles University, with the title of "docent". Since the time of Austria-Hungary, "docents" were unpaid (their title was "private docent" to indicate that they had to have another job to support themselves). There were only a certain number of "chairs" for every discipline at the university and if the chair was "occupied" by another young man, you waited until it was free, if ever. To be accepted as a candidate for an available chair, you had to write an original book which would meet the requirements of the other professors of the department. Otík's first book, written to get his PhD, was about moral problems, as discussed in other sociological publications. His second book was Sociology in Modern Life. The one he wrote for his "habilitation" was called The Family. It was a large volume and this was the one that was accepted by a panel of professors and made him an assistant professor. We began our married life with his position secure at the university.

 

 

Otakar Machotka ("Otík")

October 29, 1899-July 29, 1970

 

The nickname Otík is a common abbreviation of Otakar as it is used in Podkrkonoší, the part of Bohemia where his mother came from. When she was expecting him, her firstborn, she decided she would give him a good first name. She looked in a calendar where names of saints and of well-known prominents were listed. She said to herself: "Pøemysl Otakar was a famous Czech king. I shall name him after this king." And she did. The first name is not used too often as it sounds too German (originally Odoaker). Her other children got real Slavic names. Vladimír is Russian. Ludmila is both Czech and Russian.

 

From his infancy, Otík was in fragile health. Mother went out of her way to keep him in good shape. Everything was kept immaculately clean. Feeding was done exactly on time. In spite of the care, Otík was to catch every germ as a baby. He had frequent colic. He developed rachitis (lack of vitamin D), which caused his bones to be "soft". His back remained slightly bent as a result.

 

At school, as a Protestant boy, he had to walk outside during compulsory Catholic education. He used these free periods to go to the market to buy fresh fruit. After consuming fresh and most likely badly washed oranges, he developed typhoid fever, which weakened him very much. And yet he had enough vitality in him that he overcame serious diseases. Even in later life, he had to keep many diets. He had frequent colds. He could not take part in some sports. Yet again, as an adult, he liked to go swimming even in very cold weather when the rest of us kept indoors. Just like his father before him, he loved to walk. He and I used to go for daily walks and he was the one who outdistanced me. He could play tennis and he liked to ski. But in his early life, he could not engage in many of the sports which other children enjoyed.

 

He inherited his mother's very good looks and even in old age he looked attractive. He never became a ladies' man even though he had the opportunity. Girls were attracted to him not only by his good looks, but also by the fact that he was kind, cordial, and always polite. Both his mother and grandmother made it a point to bring him up according to their ideal what a young boy should be. They had the same ambition for the other two children but went off the mark quite a bit. Mírek remained a rebel till his late years and Lída did not care. Otík, too, was the most talented of the three. His slight drawback was that he was shy. To teach him to be more outgoing, his mother had him visit every neighbor's home while on vacation outside Prague. On those visits he had to deliver everybody's mail and, of course, had to talk with both adults and the young ones.

 

Every summer, the family rented a house in the village of Zbiroh, not far from Plzeò (Pilsen), which was a favorite spot for Prague residents. It was supposed to be a real vacation for all, but I sometimes wondered what the concept of "vacation" had been. It so happened that one of the vacationers was a teacher of Latin at a gymnasium. Otík was a good student in any case, but the good Latin teacher, thinking he was doing Otík a favor, made up new phrases every day for Otík to translate into Latin. Otík did it as expected. The teacher, meaning well, wracked his brain daily to come up with something new. In those days work was number one. Not many thought that even a child needs rest. Otík did not really need this extra work as he was doing well anyway. Mother had some doubts about the advisability of the extra work, but she did not dare to object when the Latin teacher offered this volunteer work!

 

Vacation days were spent swimming, hiking, mushroom hunting, picking berries (blueberries, raspberries, and cranberries), which the ladies preserved on the spot and brought home later. Summer activities were pleasant in that they were done in open country near woods and streams. Hills were nearby to provide long walks. Prague residents looked forward each year to this time of year. Children enjoyed them enormously.

 

As expected from a boy of his age, Otík took lessons in violin playing and in piano, too. He later dropped piano lessons, but he remained true to the violin until late in life. He took lessons from Jan Novák, a virtuoso, who played first violin at the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra. (And he and I sometimes played duets when we got married and did so even later, here in Endicott after we had escaped and after Otík was able to secure another instrument.) His own Amati, which he had to leave behind, is now being used by a grandnephew. (I have no knowledge as to what happened to my piano. I was told it was being used in a municipal music school.) Otík and I got as far as playing Beethoven's Frühling Sonata in F major and César Frank's violin sonata in A major.

 

One little detail about Otík's violin playing: When the Nazis invaded Greece in WWII, they exploited the country in a peculiar way. They caught all the turtles they could and sold them for profit in the other occupied countries (stating they made good soup). Most of us "others" did not want the "soup" but bought the turtles as pets. One of the ones we bought was a female who soon after laid an egg. We did not know how to hatch it. But another one was a male who became very interested in my husband's violin playing. Otík used to practice late in the afternoon after he came home from work. As soon as he started, the turtle woke up, went from wherever he was to Otík's room and listened. (The turtle never listened to my piano playing!) We took the turtle with us to the country one summer. He escaped from us and was never found. We missed him.

 

Otík's parents, especially his mother, as true Christians, had modest ambitions. They just wanted to do good. Mother did not dare to expect Otík to do well at school. The family then lived on the same street where a classical gymnasium stood. When Otík was growing up, Mother would look at the building and wonder whether Otík would ever be able to be accepted there. He surprised her. Not only was he accepted, all those eight years, he was on high honor rolls, excelling in both Greek and Latin. He continued this trend even at college.

 

When he received his PhD in 1926 from Charles University, it was with such excellent marks, that the ceremony could have been conducted "sub auspiciis", which means with many professors present and with a gift from the office of the President of the republic. However, such a ceremony could be done only upon special request of the parents and after paying a considerable sum of money. Otík's parents were retiring, modest people who did not like ceremonies and who preferred to be by themselves. Although it would have been very flattering to Otík, they did not care for it and did not ask for it. Incidentally, Otík also got a diploma with distinction from the Ecole Libre des sciences politiques in Paris a few years earlier.

 

In spite of his preference for intensive learning, Otík was a happy boy who, to the end of his days, remained an optimist. His optimism helped him enormously during the Nazi years. Most friends became downcast, but Otík always hoped. After some especially gruesome acts by the Nazis, a friend asked Otík where does one get this hope? How can one get it? Otík could not say. It was just his nature. The family expected him to be, one day, a Protestant minister. Although he would have been a good preacher, ministry would not have been enough challenge for him. His spirit was too lively. It is true that by his upbringing, he was a serious young man who read only the books that were "educational" (like the Journey of Scott to the South Pole), and missed out on books that all of us read (like The Three Musketeers). In that respect, I had an influence on him and steered him toward more everyday ideas. (Incidentally, I had him read The Three Musketeers when he was about 60, and he enjoyed not only the easy style of the book, but also the abandon of the narrative.) But he was not all work; he enjoyed drawing and painting, hunting, and when he gained his strength, light-weight boxing!

 

When he was about seven years old, he badly wanted to play soccer, but his parents considered soccer to be a rough sport and forbade it. He was very unhappy about it for years. He kept it within himself, and I believe that his decision to start boxing was a compensation for his early disappointment over soccer. Both Mírek and he went to box together and even to stage exhibitions. On one of the occasions, a young man, much heavier than Otík, badly wanted to prove himself to his girlfriend who was looking on and challenged Otík to a match. Otík pointed to the difference in their weight, but the young man insisted. Otík gave in, with the result that his lower jaw was broken. It healed after awhile, but to his last day there was a scar on the bone and two of his lower teeth, where the jaw was separated, remained discolored.

 

Two years before he received his PhD from Charles University, Otík went to France to study sociology, which was then developing this discipline at a great rate. He went first to Strassbourg, where he was a pupil of Maurice Halbwachs. Then he transferred to the Sorbonne in Paris, where his teacher was Marcel Mauss. (Both professors later died in a concentration camp.) At the same time as at the Sorbonne, he enrolled at the prestigious Ecole Libre des sciences politiques. He did so well at this school that he received an honorable mention (Mention Bien). In its heyday, the school was quite famous, but it does not exist anymore. It prepared future diplomats and stressed world history aside from other disciplines.

 

The two years' sojourn in France made a deep impression on Otík. Before WWI ended, almost all our scientific work in Central Europe was oriented toward the German way of thinking. There was very little contact with science as it had been developed in the western part. French thinking is strictly logical and that appealed to Otík whose inclinations were always toward logic. He used to say that our gymnasia's strength had been in teaching students to think strictly logically.

 

He felt at home in France. He loved not only her progress in various sciences, but also her art. He loved her atmosphere full of ideas, of new creations. There was nothing stagnant in France in those days, as if, after the horrors of the first war, the nation was anxious to make up for lost time. He remained influenced by the French way of thinking to his last days. He strongly influenced our children and me in this respect.

 

In the twenties there were a lot of Czech students in Paris. One of them was his friend, mathematician Vladimír Koøínek. Both Vladimír's and Otík's mothers were ladies who thought that Paris must be a place of dangerous morals and full of loose women. Since they were convinced that their sons were in actual moral danger, they made an unusual decision. One day, both took a train to Paris to see for themselves whether their sons needed saving. In those days, elderly ladies did not travel alone, let alone to Paris! It was a monumental decision for both of them since neither one had been away from home further than a two hours' train ride. Otík and Vladimír could hardly believe their eyes when they saw their mothers emerge from the express train! The two ladies did not have to worry. Both young men did behave themselves, spending most of their time either at lectures or at the library. They lived frugally, just as most of the foreign students had to. All had limited means and our two young men were most anxious to get good marks at school. Moreover, both were enchanted with seeing a new world which up to then had been closed to all students from our country. It is remarkable that my brother Pepèa had been studying in Paris at the same time, but the two never met. Of course, Pepèa's observatory was in Meudon, a suburb which is quite a distance from the city center. Moreover, there were so many Czech students in Paris in the twenties that one could not expect that they all would have met.

 

The summer of his first year in France Otík spent in Provence, in Montpellier. South of France remained mostly Protestant in spite of Cardinal Richelieu's cruel war aimed at their extermination. Here Otík met another Protestant student, Eugene Causse. He was the son of an editor of the local publication called La Journée vinicole. Otík and Eugene became very good friends and the friendship lasted many years, until Eugene's death. He, too, became an editor like his father, at the same paper. He also owned a printing establishment. Eugene visited Otík in Prague shortly before we were married, and later Otík and I visited his family in 1963 when we travelled to Europe for the first time since our escape. To this day, I exchange letters with Eugene's widow, Madeleine, and I am kept informed about the whole family. (I note sadly that since this writing, she too has died--at the age of 96.)

 

While in Provence, Otík visited Nimes, the birthplace of the historian Ernest Denis. Denis wrote a two-volume book entitled: La Boheme apres la battaille de Mont Blanc (Èechy po Bilé Hoøe). That period is the most painful in our history and Denis followed all the happenings leading to this tragedy. As you may not know, that battle sealed our fate for 300 years of oppression under the Hapsburgs, forced Germanisation, conversion to Catholicism, and almost to the destruction and loss of our language and political freedom. Professor Denis' detailed work was highly appreciated in our country. Otík got the idea that a monument to profesor Denis would be a fitting appreciation of his work. He thought that at both places there might be a statue commemorating this event. On his return to Prague he started working on this project. The idea caught on quickly. Prominent politicians and scientists were contacted, and almost all were in favor of erecting a statue. One of our sculptors by the name of Dvoøák was engaged to do the work. He created a bust of the historian sitting in a chair and looking at the Prague castle, Hradèany. The statue was placed on one of the small squares in Malá Strana south of the castle. It had an intimate look. The statue was made of bronze. A plaster cast of the bust was given to Otík by the sculptor as a token of appreciation. It stood on top of our bookcase in Prague until the time we fled our home. He also gave Otík a small statue of a boxer which stood in our bookcase. Where are they now?

 

At the unveiling of the statue, both President Masaryk and his minister of foreign affairs, Eduard Beneš (later the second president of our country) were present. A photograph of the ceremony that we had at home showed the two presidents on one side and Otík with two politicians on the other. Upon seeing this photograph, a friend of ours cracked a joke that the two presidents were standing in attention before Otík and saluting. The friend, Blažièka Ullrich, used the expression "standing in Habt Acht!" which, used by Germans and corrupted by frequent use, sounded like "hapták". I remember the ribbing Otík got just from being seen in such august company.

 

In Nimes, the municipality erected a different monument. It was like a small memorial stone, about six feet high with a bronze plaque showing the French Marianne holding hands with a Czech girl as a sign of friendship. During the war, the bronze statue in Prague was removed by the Nazis immediately after their victory and melted for use in a forging cannon. The one in Nimes was melted down as well, but has since been restored on a grander scale. We Czechs were not supposed to have any testimony of our history. (Neither were we supposed to have a new college-educated generation.)

 

The French government gave Otík a ribbon of the Officier de l'Académie. The other politicians were given the higher rosette. Otík would have qualified for the higher rosette had he then been a post-graduate student. But as he was still working toward his PhD, in the opinion of the French government, he could not be entitled to more than an Officier.

 

The Nazis tried to erase all our past from our memory. They forbade the new publication of the work of František Palacký: The History of the Czech Nation (Dìjiny národu Èeského). Their counterpart, the Soviets, did the same thing, only more thoroughly. They rewrote it. They do it not only in our country but in their own. In many respects, these two dictatorships were alike. As the French say: Les extremes se touchent.

 

Only about four percent of the population of our country are Protestant nowadays. They are the ones whose ancestors remained steadfast in their beliefs under incredible pressures from the Hapsburg emperors. As most minorities in Europe, they represent some of the best qualities like honesty, straightforwardness, hard work, working toward honorable goals, etc. There is no deviousness or lack of character. In most minorities, only the strong characters could survive. There is also a strong bond with others of the same faith.

 

One such Protestant was Professor Vilém Mathesius, expert in English language and literature. For years he was professor of English at Charles University until his untimely death of tuberculosis of the spine in WWII. He and his colleage, Professor Bohumil Trnka, founded the Prague Linguistic Circle which has gained international reputation and attracted other specialists, among them Roman Jacobson, a refugee from USSR. Professor Mathesius had known Otík and as a fellow Protestant, he wanted to help him. He suggested that Otík be made the chairman of the Student Union. Soon after, this was done. It might interest my readers that this fact led indirectly to my meeting Otík and eventually to our marriage. This is how it went:

 

As the chairman of the Student Union, Otík often had to greet foreign visitors who were interested in our higher education. One day Otík accompanied two visitors from Great Britain who wished to know what courses our students found most interesting, what kind of outlook and possibilities for the future our students had, current cultural trends, and similar things. The visitors seemed to be pleased with Otík's answers, exchanged glances and started questioning him about his own education and plans. When they learned that his major interest was in sociology, that he had studied in Strassbourg and at the Sorbonne, that he had a diploma from the Ecole Libre des sciences politiques, that he had a PhD from Charles University, and that he had already published his doctoral thesis about the Moral Problem in Society, they grew interested even more. It turned out that one of the visitors was Sir Alfred Zimmern, a professor of Greek and Latin at Oxford. Soon after, Sir Alfred sent a formal letter to Otík offering him a position of tutor at the 1929 summer session at the International Summer School (Ecole Internationale de Geneve) in Switzerland, of which he was the chief administrator.

 

This school had sessions every summer for eight weeks, each week in a different discipline. The students came from every country in Europe and every state in the USA. It was financed by voluntary American donations. The pupils were selected according to their good marks and had to be recommended by their professors. Their financial status was not important. All of them received a scholarship which covered all tuition, room and board, but not transportation. A great number of students came from well-to-do families. The idea had been that talent, and not need, was the guiding prinicple.

 

Every week another professor from a well-known university came to lecture in his special field, be it economics, sociology, education, literature, or international law. Courses were given both in English and in French. Classes were held at the Conservatoire de Musique, which was available during the summer. Students were grouped in eight sections according to their special field of interest. Seminars were held each afternoon where the lecture held that morning had been discussed. The lecture of the day was held in the main hall (where recitals usually took place) and questions were encouraged. Otík's job as tutor was to conduct one of the seminars each afternoon with his sociology group. Otík had been so successful in his work that he was invited back for the following summer, and that is when I met him.

 

The other Czech students at the school, Josef Pražák and Jan Sedláèek, were friendly, and the four of us made a lively group. Occasionally we saw one other Czech girl, Terezie Šašková, whose parents lived in Geneva and who had been invited to sit in at the lectures, although she was not a regular student at the school.

 

Otík and I struck a chord right away. I even came to hear some of his evening lectures in sociology, although I knew precious little about the subject. Most of the excursions to the countryside we attended in a group, but to some of them we went alone, just he and I. Otík was very popular with students of both sexes, and I had some good friends, too, but when the school ended, we traveled home together. We came from similar backgrounds. Ours was a classical teacher-student relationship. Otík's knowledge of French was excellent, I was better in English. His evening lectures conducted in French were commented on very favorably by the two French students, Ida Frandon and Renée Ragot. I heard one of them say in explanation: "Il a fait ses études a Paris!"

 

After I returned home that summer, I informed my family about my new interest. My brother Pepèa simply said: "That is why you wrote to us so seldom!" Afterwards, Otík and I saw each other frequently, and I met his family. We had known each other for two years before we got married on August 11, 1932.

 

 

Preparations for Marriage

 

 

When young people decide to get married, they begin the pleasurable task of selecting the pieces of furniture and other things which will be part of their "nest". Parents of the bride are the ones who provide the financial basis for the selection. This is an old European custom. Parents also provide the dowry, whose amount in our time was set by law. Brides' parents had to contribute to the new household according to their financial means. When girls in the family began to be of age to get married, mothers started to collect their trousseau. This consisted of bed sheets, pillow cases, towels, personal slips, night gowns, etc. Most of them were embroidered. The idea behind all this was to make the life of the newly married as easy as possible. Of course, the amount of pieces of "trousseau" varied according to the wealth of the brides' parents. Under the new Communist regime, all those customs have disappeared. Parents are not expected (and even able to) save money for their marrying daughters.

 

My mother had been collecting pieces of "trousseau" for years for both me and my sister. My father had been saving money for the dowry. What remained was to select the furniture. Otík and I started to look around for something we might like, but what we found was either too showy or impractical. We kept looking but nothing pleased the two of us. Otík's brother-in-law, Karel Jung, was an architect. He came up with a solution: He told us to consult two of his acquaintances, the brothers Fischer, who were interior decorators and who were supposed to be very good. And so they turned out to be.

 

The older brother Fischer was the dominant one. He had studied in Holland and in England and learned much from the new waves that swept Europe at that time. Dutch furniture was considered at that time the best (as Scandinavian furniture was to be much later). British furniture had the distinction of being of permanent value, as shown by the willingness of British brides to take with them to their new home most of the pieces the bride had at home. When we contacted the brothers Fischer, we told them to design for us something which would be practical, pleasing, not showy, of good quality, and most of all, which would be good to look at even many years later, and which would not show that it was made for the year 1932.

 

The older Fischer took it all into consideration and told us, "All right, I shall do it, but first you must read a certain book." This book turned out to be "Ins Leere gesprochen" (Czech translation: "Øeèi do prázdna". The equivalent in English would be: Talks into thin air (or empty spaces)). The book was written by Adolf Loos, a German architect working in Vienna at the beginning of the century. It was very much in the vein of the contemporary style then sweeping Europe. The book begins with an anecdote:

 

A professor of design gave his pupils the assignment to bring new designs for a horse saddle. The pupils set out dilligently to this task and brought their results to the teacher. He was so proud of them that he invited a master saddler to come and see the works. The master saddler was very astonished at the various designs. He said that he had never seen so much new work, and finished by saying that there was only one thing wrong with them: That one could not very well sit on them!

 

Statements like these were a signal to the new trend: functionalism. Things of daily use and especially those for comfort (like furniture) were supposed to be functional--should be made so that they would be comfortable and would be made for the "purpose" or "function" for which they were meant. The new movement started in Central Europe, in Vienna and Germany and soon spread all over. Simultaneously, Le Corbusier introduced new ways of building houses with flat roofs and different shaped windows, different material, and different colors. The tendency was: away from decoration! Adolf Loos exclaimed in a Viennese cafe one evening: "Only savages cannot live without an ornament!" He went so far as to proclaim that using an ornament was a "crime".

 

The new movement, away from decorations, toward simplicity, toward functionalism and toward something "solid and permanent" led to use of good solid colors replacing decorations. The previous generations, under the influence of Art Nouveau (called "Secession" in Central Europe) used decorations profusely. In our time there was a great reaction against this stress on decorations, especially the preponderance of stylized water lillies in wall posters as background to paintings, wall decorations, etc. Nowadays, you can still see the revival of this style (Tiffany vases, lamp shades), and you may be surprised to learn that in the early thirties, we were very much opposed to this kind of "trash".

 

The road was clear for us: We wanted the kind of furniture which would be of good material, of "decent" colors, without decorations, and which would be comfortable. From learning about the new rules of design, we learned much and added something of our own. The new style furniture had sharp edges. Otík found that that really was not "functional" because daily objects of use and the furniture, too, should have smooth edges. Sharp edges do not make for comfort! Ordinary things, like a hair brush, have handles which do not have sharp edges but smooth ones, so that they would be good to hold. And the same is true about other things of daily use. That was Otík's argument and he asked Joseph Fischer to design our furniture with smooth corners. Mr. Fischer did as he was asked. Our furniture came out as something really worthwhile. Otík's room was of dark brown wood with off-white "interior". The writing desk was covered with a sheet of grey rubber so that papers would not slide off its surface. The book shelves were furnished with glass fronts so that books would be protected from dust. Niches were built into one side to accommodate the exact height of some of his sculptures (I am thinking chiefly of his favorite small statue of a boxer, given to him by the sculptor Dvoøák). The couch was covered with camel hair to give the room good selection of color, and the carpet was dark green to imitate grass. The color combination was perfect; the wood was of excellent quality, the material for the couch and the rug was first-class.

 

The dining room was to be a cheerful balance. The furniture was painted light green, combined with black leather for the chairs. The table was round and it could be extended. It, too, was covered with grey rubber (for practical purposes). The round rug underneath (hand woven like all the rest in the atelier Kybal) was pink on the outside and toward the center it had less and less pink, substituted by off-white. The chairs were of simple design, with full, rounded backs covered with black kid leather (gross grain). Two more pieces were part of the furniture: my "secretary" for doing correspondence, was a small upright piece, the front of which could be opened up to make a writing desk. That desk, too, was covered with grey rubber. The secretary had several drawers for papers and writing materials. On the other side of the room was a piece for storing fancy porcelain, used only when visitors came. The lower part had sliding doors made of thick greenish glass. This door could be locked. My sterling silverware was stored in two drawers above that.

 

My most treasured piece of furniture, a piano, stood facing the light. My father gave it to me for my wedding. It was a "Foerster", of Czech make, and a very good one. The man who sold it to us told me (after he had seen me play) that two keys on its keyboard were a little light sounding. If he had not told me, I would not have noticed. The piano had a lovely tone. The proof of it was when Dr. Vondrovic, a young physician and a great musician, told me that he preferred my piano to any other he had played on. Whenever he could, he would come and play. He and another friend, Dr. Matoušek, came to our house when their physician's work allowed them to. The piano was 165 centimeters long, which gave it an excellent sound. (Concert pianos are 200 cm long.) I wonder who is using it now. It served me and my husband when we played together. Pavel and Georgia practiced on it, too. I have been told that it now stands in a music school.

 

Our bedroom was made of cherry wood. The headboard was low and was combined with a chest, in which spare bed coverings could be kept. We also could place a light on it if we wanted to read in bed. There were no side tables as the chest served many purposes. The featherbeds were made with green covering, which went well with the color of cherry wood. The bedroom also had a side table with two small chairs in the same combination of colors: cherry wood with grey rubber, chairs covered with green wool covering. The "piece de resistance" was finally my wardrobe. Here the architect surpassed himself. He decided that both my husband's wardrobe (in his room) and mine will have to include everything that a person uses when dressing. Both wardrobes were designed to be large enough to contain drawers for underwear, shelves for knick-knacks, drawers for shoes on the bottom of the wardrobe, hangers for clothes, above them a section for hats. For me, he included a pull-out section for umbrellas and parasols, for my husband hangers for ties. Both wardrobes also had mirrors. Mine had the added advantage that the left part had been built in two vertical sections so that the lingerie had double the space.

 

These three rooms became an object of admiration of our friends. We certainly did well in having an architect design good furniture. Even the kitchen furniture was functional. Kitchen cupboards were made to fit the contents. For instance, one part of the kitchen "wardrobe" was again divided vertically. In the front were perishable foods in glass containers, behind that was an "alcove" for mops and brooms. The alcove was placed behind the front firmly, so that it could be closed and not be seen. An extra wardrobe was made to contain winter clothes in the summer and vice-versa. The kitchen furniture and the dining room furniture were painted with oil colors of several layers and when finshed, the paint was finely sanded down so that it would make a "matted' appearance.

 

The older brother Fischer was very proud of his design, and we were happy to have found him. Our furniture was something we cherished. When we had to make the painful decision to leave home forever, to part with these treasured pieces was heart-rending. To be able to get over it we decided not to think of it and never mention it again. But it was stronger than us. I began to dream about it. In my dreams, I was wondering where the furniture was and who was using it. Similarly, I often dreamed that I was looking for our home and could not find it. Even now, 40 years later, it sometimes comes to me. Our furnishings were part of our life, something never to be forgotten.

 

Sometimes I had strange dreams that I had been trying to find our home, and our furniture, and could not find it or saw it at some other strange place. Who has our apartment, our furnishings? Does the new "owner" appreciate the beauty of each individual piece of furniture? I used to tell myself: One should not get attached so much to worldly possessions. And yet, each piece means certain memories that are attached, too. One does not easily forget where we used to sit in the evenings, where the children played, where the beds were, the clothes, even toys, and what chair my husband preferred for relaxation. After 40 years, the memories are poignant and painful.

 

Our life as husband and wife

 

Otík and I were married on August 11, 1932, in a civil ceremony at the office of the mayor of Prague. My brother Zdeněk acted as witness for me and Vladimír (Mírek) for Otík. Following the ceremony, our families and a few friends gathered at Barrandov for a banquet. Barrandov was the name of a jutting rock on the south side of Prague above the river Vltava. The name commemorated a famous geologist of French origin who studied the Silurian system around Køivoklát in Central Bohemia, especially the occurrence and later extinction of trilobites. Joachim Barrande wrote a book entitled: Systeme Silurien du Centre de la Boheme. His name was placed on a bronze plaque on the hill overlooking the Vltava. In time, the municipality of Prague developed the surroundings of the hill and a restaurant was built. It served the population well and was known for good food. My sister Lída preserved the printed menu of what was served at the banquet. It reads like a typical Central European menu for a festive occasion: We started with chicken soup, followed by grilled fogoš (a large fish from the river Danube), served with sauce tartare. There were two meat courses: Roast venison with cranberries and roast duck with salad. The dessert consisted of the so-called "pudding diplomate" and ice cream. Mocha coffee was the last item on the menu. Banquets of this type usually last quite some time. Both families enjoyed the fellowship and the after-dinner speeches. The one who was missed, who was not able to see me get married, was my mother. By that time she had been gone for three years.

 

While the guests were still enjoying themselves, Otík and I went to the station and took a train to France. We were going to spend a whole month of our honeymoon in Biarritz. The Atlantic coast in Biarritz has mostly rocky shores and the first smooth place where you can safely swim is called Chambre d'Amour. The native population are Basques and strange names were everywhere. Even the name Biarritz is Basque. At the beginning of the century it was quite a famous place where royalty congregated, but slowly it lost its attraction.

 

For three weeks we stayed at a hotel called Ené Etchéa. (If it has a meaning, I do not know it.) We were served a lot of seafood and learned to like aubergines (egg plants) and other vegetables we were not familiar with until then. We swam, played tennis, walked on the beach, and watched the game called La Pélote Basque. It is played with huge long baskets attached to the right arm. A hard ball played against a wall is caught in the elongated basket and returned to the wall. (Some churches have a sign on their walls: Défense de jouer a la pélote!)

 

Basque churches have an entirely different architecture from the ones we were used to seeing in Europe. We saw some of them while making a trip down the Basque coast to Spain, crossing the frontier in Hendaye to San Sebastian with its beautiful half-circle bay. We went to Spain for the first time and even though the people were friendly and helpful, we felt lost because we knew nothing of the language. But the Southwest of France is a very attractive country and has a lovely climate and offers tasty food.

 

Back at home I returned to my unfinished studies. Even though I had been married, I decided to finish my studies and get my PhD. I knew it would be hard work. I expected I could finish it in two or three years, but it took five years instead because in the meantime we visited the USA for a year and our first-born saw the light of the world the following year.

 

Meanwhile, Otík was busy with his work. Employment at the State Bureau of Statistics gave us livelihood while at the same time Otík worked on his "habilitation thesis" to qualify him for teaching at the university. He had two close friends, Zdeněk Ullrich and Jan Mertl. All three were students of sociology, which at that time was a novelty. The three formed a discussion group whom the others called "our young sociologists" even after all had reached their forties. Zdeněk Ullrich had JUDr degree (in Law) and later got a second doctorate in Sociology. His wife, Blažièka, was an anthropologist. Jan Mertl, too, had a law degree. Together with Otík they directed their work toward "empirical sociology" which was based strictly on experiences (never preaching or moralizing as some people expected sociology to do in those days). When sociology began as a science, it had an aspect of philosophy of history. Over the years, it has developed and changed and is now quite compartmentalized. It is quite different from what it was in those days.

 

As often happens with friendship, the three separated during the Nazi times. The least outspoken of the three had always been Otík, and yet he was the one who found enough courage to do underground work at a great risk to himself and his family. Zdeněk was undecided, but Mertl definitely turned against all patriotic work. He always suffered with bad nerves and had many fears, and he could not find courage enought to oppose dictatorship. He withdrew from work and waited to see what the outcome would be.

 

Ullrich held firmer. After the war, Mertl had some trouble to prove his loyalty to the republic. And when the Communist coup came, after hesitating a long time, Ullrich, too, left the country with his third wife. After a long search, he found work as professor of sociology in Alexandria, Egypt, where he later died of a tropical disease. His wife, I am told, had to return home while his daughter, Monica, married an Arab. I do not know how Mertl managed under the new regime. By now all three friends are dead. Ullrich's first wife, Blažièka, turned Communist and married a man much younger than herself. Otík was the only one of the three who emerged from the two ordeals with flying colors. President Beneš conferred on him an Order of Merit and a Medal for Bravery in 1945.

 

The year 1934 brought great change to our life. Otík received a scholarship from the Rockefeller Foundation for a year of study in the USA. It included all expenses for a trip to the USA and $200.00 of monthly stipend. Just as my scholarship to the school in Geneva did before, this scholarship turned our lives around. Even though we could not have known it then, this event made it possible for us later to settle in the USA after the Communist putch.

 

In September 1934 we took the SS United States from Le Havre for a rather unpleasant crossing to New York. Four of the six days I had to spend in bed unable to tolerate any food. The ship did not have stabilizers (these were found only on a handful of ships; they were then a novelty.) The two "good" days we were able to meet some of the other "Rockefeller fellows" who took the same route. I remember there was a British girl, a German profesor with his wife, two Hungarians, a Latvian, and a Finn. We arrived in the harbor in a fog but we were able to see the Statue of Liberty. It was an unforgettable sight. We were all housed in a good hotel downtown and met the director of the program for the foundation, Dr. Stacy May. He discussed our plans for study with individual students and had good suggestions. We stayed in New York City for three days. Otík and I took the opportunity to visit a friend from the times of our studies in Geneva, Leona Gillete-Kern and her family. Paul Kern had been a secretary to the mayor, Fiorelo LaGuardia. He took us to the mayor's office which impressed us as being in good taste in a style of about 100 years ago. The next day, Leona took me shopping. Most amazing for us foreigners was the abundance of things for sale. and, of course, we had to visit the Rockefeller Center (then a rarity among the skyscrapers) and the Empire State Building.

 

Otík's first choice for study of sociology was the University of Chicago, which at that time boasted a very up-to-date group of scientists. In order to see the country well, a fellow whom we met on the boat suggested we take the Greyhound bus. Travelling on the bus was fairly comfortable and we did manage to see some sights which would not have been seen otherwise. Since we had to take overnight rests in hotels, the trip to Chicago took us three days. For the first time we saw Niagara Falls, an impressive place which we saw later in 1950 when we entered the USA at the immigration office (at Niagara Falls) to obtain permission to remain in the States.

 

On that trip in 1934, we also visited Dearborn, Michigan, with its museum of artifacts and inventions of Thomas Edison. My photographs taken in New York City did not come out well. I got help from Miss Margaret Giddings, secretary to Dr. Stacy May, who kindly sent me her snapshops taken at Rockefeller Center. Incidentally, Miss Giddings was the daughter of professor Giddings, a very well known scientist whose name was familiar to most of us Europeans. Miss Giddings and I corresponded for many years exchanging cards at Christmas until about 1985 when Miss Giddings passed away. She was close to ninety years old.

 

In Chicago, we rented a furnished apartment on the south side of the so-called Midway, named Pleasance Apartments. Midway ran from east to west and was a wide park, as wide as three streets, and as long as six blocks. No building was permitted on the Midway. Except for the two car routes, there was only grass all around. People used to sit there on warm days. In 1948, when we came to Chicago as a family of immigrants, we could not find the old Pleasance Apartments.

 

The Gothic style buildings of the University were on the north side of Midway. In Central Europe, most college buildings were more modern in style. We realized that this was to imitate the style of Oxford and Cambridge. Otík made acquaintances of the professors with whom he was going to work. Professor Ernest Watson Burgess was a specialist in problems of the family which happened to be Otík's chief interest, too. The others were Professor William Fielding Ogburn, Herbert Blumer, and Louis Wirth. Absent at that time (on sabbatical) were two other professors, Ezra Park and Everet Cherrington Hughes. I remember some other names of professors whom Otík met only occasionally: Leonard Cottrell, Drs. Faris and Sutherland. Otík found working with these people very stimulating. The university had at that time been a center of new ideas. The funds for research in sociology came from the Rockefeller Foundation. It seems to me that other departments also enjoyed the generosity of the Foundation.

 

During our stay of six months in Chicago, I took the opportunity to sit in on some classes. Sir William Craigie, the Scottish lexicographer, taught a course in Anglo-Saxon and kindly allowed me to attend. He found that most of his students were not really able to translate Beowulf and, to my surprise, he had to do it himself. What a difference from Central Europe! In Prague, we had to try to work on our own and no professor, especially not a luminary like Sir William, would have done it for us! I also attended two classes in English literature, one by Professor Robert Lowell.

 

The atmosphere around the university was a friendly one. We made an acquaintance with two southern students, Marjorie Daniels and Wilson L. Newman. I remember that Marjorie came from Senoia, Georgia. Wilson's field was psychology and after he finished his studies, he became a psychologist for Joliet Prison, south of Chicago. Otík's colleagues in Sociology were Cayton and Edward Shils. Shils later became a professor himself and alternated his work between Chicago and the University of London. He and another young man paid us a visit in Prague shortly before the Communist putch. The other young man, Thomas Donovan, became secretary at the American Embassy in Prague, and was later able to give us some help when we became refugees. Another friend was Peteris Lejins from Latvia and his German girlfriend who became his wife. Lejins later taught at the University of Virginia.

 

Miss Pauline Sage was another good soul who was in charge of foreign students. She was affiliated with the International House where most of the single foreign students lived. Her task was to make the transition to life in the USA easier and to provide advice. She also arranged for us to have a feeling of home at Christmas.

 

Yet the best friend was Professor Ernest W. Burgess and his sister. Miss Burgess took us to concerts, to a restaurant and to wherever we were planning to go. We could call on her any time. Her brother arranged for all the courses Otík should listen to. Roberta Burgess became invaluable to me right from the beginning.

 

About a week after we settled in Chicago, Otík was stricken with stomach pains, which at first looked like indigestion but which in reality were pains of appendicitis. It had to be operated on right away. Miss Burgess took charge and arranged for a surgeon and for the hospital stay. Needless to say, for me this was a critical time. This to have happened after being in Chicago only a week! I did not know how to cope. The physician, Dr. Gill, was very helpful. For instance, when he learned that after my daily visits to the hospital, I had to cross Midway on foot every evening, he made it a point to take me home every time in his car even though he had to make a special trip. What I was not aware of was the fact that it was not safe to walk on Midway at night. I was ignorant of the danger of holdups and possible physical danger (I was 23 then). Both Otík and I were real innocents. (Later on our trip to San Francisco, a man tried to hold us up by pretending, in plain daylight, that he had a gun in his pocket. I, in my innocence, pushed him away with my right arm while we were sitting in our car. He let us alone realizing that his trick did not work.)

 

As soon as Dr. May learned about our plight, he came to visit. He was very solicitous and for that I was very grateful to him. He also arranged for the Foundation to pay for the surgery and for the hospital bill after he made certain that the surgery had been a sudden necessity and not something planned ahead. I remember that the cost of the surgery was $150.00, then quite a sum of money.

 

There was quite a large colony of people of Czech origin living the suburbs of Chicago, Cicero and Berwyn. Not far from us lived two Czech ladies who became very good friends: Mrs. Marie Herites-Kohnová and her daughter Mary. Mrs. Herites was a former violin virtuoso who came from the family of František Herites, a historian. Her daughter Mary was a college instructor. She received her PhD from Charles University. It is interesting to note that Mary later married a physician whose father had come from another Czech literary family, the Holeèeks. Joseph Holeèek wrote a ten volume book about Czech peasants of the last century. The book's title is "Naši" (literally "Ours").

 

In this way two scions of literary figures were joined in marriage. The mother, Mrs. Herites-Kohnová, was of short stature and even her fingers were short, which was a handicap for a violinist. Especially the little finger of her left hand bothered her because she had trouble reaching high notes on her violin. Yet she overcame this handicap quite well and was quite well known in her time. She even played before the Czar. She married a businessman. Her daughter Mary first taught in Duluth, Minnesota, then in Chicago and finally in St. Petersburg, Florida, where her husband practiced medicine. He died recently. I am still in touch with Mrs. Holeèek.

 

Both ladies were very friendly and gave us a lot of valuable advice. Since both were familiar with life back at home, they could point out the differences to us, tell us what to look for, and what to avoid. At Christmas, Mrs. Herites baked for us our traditional bread (Vánoèka). They showed us where to go in the Czech quarter, where to find a real old-fashioned Czech bakery and helped us make acquaintance with the Czech old-timers. We learned about the Czech National Council (Èeská Národní Rada) headed by Miss Vráz, daughter of a famous Czech traveller, Enrico Stanko Vráz. They showed us the Czech National Cemetery on Pulaski Road. (Incidentally, some time after my husband's death, I brought his ashes to Chicago to be buried there in the Masaryk Mausoleum, niche no. 195, unit 4). Both ladies subscribed to the local Czech paper, the Daily Herald (Denní Hlasatel). With their help we were able to meet some of the old-timers, like Mr. and Mrs. Èáda and others.

 

It is important that I also mention neighbors at the Pleasance hotel. Many were young couples. We were friends with two couples: The first one was a college instructor and his wife. She later died of a brain tumor and we lost track of her husband. But with the second couple I am in contact to this day. They were Everett and Ruth Johnson. Sometimes they were visited by Everett's mother, Mrs. Amelia Johnson, a retired librarian from Wisconsin, and a younger sister, Carmen. We corresponded with Ruth and Everett for years. Both are now in a retirement home in Missouri. [Note: Everett has now died, 1990.]

 

Mrs. Amelia Johnson and daughter Carmen visited us in Endicott one year and we renewed contact. After the old lady's death, Carmen, who had been stationed in Tokyo after the war for years and wrote a book about her experiences, moved to Washington, D.C. I am in frequent contact with her. She is a literate person, very much active in feminist circles.

 

In the spring of 1935, Otík decided he wanted to see the work done at some western universities, especially in California. We bought a second-hand car, a Plymouth, two years old, for $300.00. It was in excellent condition. The Herites ladies planned the route for us. Mary advised us to take route 66, which was then the most popular route to Los Angeles (and which has been abandoned in recent years, which is a pity since it took you leisurely through many important spots every visitor should see).

 

It was not hard to leave Chicago behind after six months because the outskirts of the city are depressing. The first interesting place to visit was the home of Abraham Lincoln in Springfield, Illinois. As we progressed west, there was more and more to see. For us Europeans, to visit the Indian reservations in Arizona and New Mexico was a revelation. To meet Navajo Indians in person was unusual for us. To meet Chief Martinez in San Ildefonso, known for the local black pottery makers, was an additional treat. In other places we were able to buy real old jewelry, baskets, and rugs.

 

Driving north from the Indian reservation, there was the unforgettable trip to the Grand Canyon. We saw the canyon twice, first at sunset when the reddish hue of the sides was at the best, and then again on Easter Sunday when the canyon could be seen illuminated from the opposite side during the sunrise. I can truthfuly say that I have never seen anything as majestic as the canyon. If anyone were to ask me what is the most impressive sight in the USA, I would not hesitate to say it was the Grand Canyon. We were sorry we did not have enough funds to take the flight over the canyon in a small plane. Nowadays, these flights are common.

 

Not too far from the town of Flagstaff, there is another sight to see. It is the Petrified Forest. It seems incredible that whole logs of trees are in this condition. When you see them from the distance, they seem to be still of wood. Some were flattened before they became petrified and that fact starts your mind spinning. It is forbidden to take a piece of the petrified wood from the park, but there are still places where you can buy some. We brought a couple of pieces home bought at a gasoline station, which was built out of all the stones gathered undoubtedly before the parks decided that these are real treasures, to be preserved for posterity.

 

While driving through Texas, we ran into a real sandstorm. (Remember, this was the spring of 1935!) Near Amarillo, we saw some dark clouds rolling close to the ground in the distance and before we realized what it was, it was on us. A veritable storm of sand enveloped us. We could not see where we were, we could only hear the sound of sand pelting our car. Otík went out of the car to see what it was and the wind immediately took his hat away, never to be found. We waited for quite some time until we were able to see that near us stood another car, similarly in distress. When the air seemed to clear a little, we left the car and knocked on the door of the other car to ask the people inside what could be done. There were three people inside, a young man, his wife, and their mother. The young man told us that Texas had been recently plagued with these sandstorms and that nothing could be done, except to wait until they subside.

 

He gave us his name: J. D. Sugg. He was a car dealer (in Hudson-Terraplanes) from Amarillo. He was able to look at our car and find that it would not start as the engine was full of fine sand. He advised us to leave the car where it was, to ask the farmer living nearby to look after it, and to go with them to a hotel in Amarillo. He promised that the next day he would send some mechanics to clean the engine and bring the car to Amarillo. He was as good as his word. The farmer next door promised to look after the car (incidentally, the door on the right side could not be locked and all our possessions were inside). When the car, repaired, had been returned to us, we found all our possessions intact. (In the USA, there is more honesty among people than in Europe.)

 

In the meantime, the Suggs took us to Amarillo, found a hotel for us, and took us to dinner. During the conversation, we learned that most Texans would like to be independent of the USA and that this feeling runs very deep. In the morning, Mr. Sugg indeed sent two mechanics to the place where we had to leave the car. The two men cleaned the engine thoroughly and brought it back to us. We thanked the Suggs for all that they had done for us. Thanks to them, we were obliged to pay only for the work of the mechanics withoug paying the towing charges, which any other dealer would have forced us to pay. This left a very nice impression on us. We met with American kindness and willingness to help on many more occasions. It often seems to me that the pioneer spirit still exists in the USA. There are always people ready to help you. Pioneers had to help each other, otherwise they would not have survived.

 

While traveling during the spring of 1935, we could see that the country was still struggling to get out of the Depression. It began in 1929 and lasted several years. One could stay in "Night Courts" or Night Cabins for a reasonable price. You could cook a simple meal there and in some cases you could even use your own sheets (we did not). Nowadays, you do not see those courts anymore. They have been replaced by expensive motels. Gasoline was cheap then and it was believed that leaded gasoline was better for your car. I remember only a few prices we paid at the stores. For instance, the best coffee cost 35 cents a pound; you could get lunch for 35 cents. We could easily manage on our stipend of $200 a month.

 

After having crossed the Nevada border during a spectacular sunset, California came as a surprise to us. I personally have rarely seen palm trees. Driving to Los Angeles among four rows of palm trees was memorable. The air itself in L.A. was clean then. Most individual residents burned their trash in backyard burners. There were not so many cars then and not so many highways, either. Smog was unknown. The central municipal building in L.A. was surrounded by low dwellings where Mexicans made and sold tiny boxes with fleas dressed as circus performers. Pottery and hats were sold, too.

 

The University of Southern California was located far from the center. The Chancellor at that time was Rufus von Kleischmidt. Some acid tongues claimed that he added the "von" himself. Otík was mostly interested in the work of two scholars: Erle Fiske Young and Clarence Chase. The chairman of the sociology department at that time was Emory Steven Bogardus whose line of work dealt mainly with "social distance." With the help of questionnaires he found out which nationalities prefer which nations. The most favorite were the British, the least liked were the Turks. Bogardus also wrote poetry and sent us a volume some time later. Young devised a method by which he measured social changes. His wife, Pauline Wislock, taught social work. I do not remember what Professor Chase's specialty was, but it was in the field of sociology. Dr. Neuman taught psychology, Bessie McClanahan taught social work. A Russian, Boris Morkovin, who had previously lived in Prague, taught comparative literature.

 

Of the people originally from our country, we met two who became good friends: Mrs. Annie Nekuda, a retired schoolteacher whose home later was in Wawona, in Yosemite Valley. The second friend was Božena Hess, a painter who was employed by a Los Angeles museum to paint backgrounds for exhibits. Some people were employed in the movie industry, like Miss Máša, who worked as a hairdresser and Rudolf Myzet (real name Procházka) who provided information on sets for creating Central European situations (e.g. court sessions, living in castles, etc.). Many young people we met were making a living by doing bit parts in the movies.

 

We stayed in Los Angeles 2 1/2 months. Life in the western part of the country seemed to be less intense and at times idyllic. Much of the feeling was due to the beautiful countryside, to the blue skies, the clean air, the nearness of the Pacific (in spite of the fact that you could not swim in it, the water being much too cold). Most of the states we saw in the west seemed to us clean and orderly. We were told that because the west was settled much later than the east, the cities were built later and as a consequence were still in good shape. We did not see results of the Depression.

 

Our last Sunday morning in L.A., on Father's Day, we were invited to the home of Mr. and Mrs. Young. After a cordial farewell we drove north to San Francisco. This city struck us as one of the most beautiful cities in the USA. Driving up the steep hills was a new and scary experience, but the reward, watching the bay, was worth it. Fresh seafood was a novelty to us. Seeing the sea lions was another new experience. We had never been to a Chinatown before. And even though a man tried to hold us up, we still thought this was a small paradise.

 

Our ambition was to drive all the way east from San Francisco to New York. It was almost summer and driving so far north was quite pleasant. Our first lovely place to visit was Lake Tahoe, which at that time was still an unhurried place with not too many visitors. There still was some snow in the mountains and the lake was skyblue. In Bismarck, North Dakota, we were surprised how different the place looked. It was true that the buildings were of the same type as anywhere else in the USA, and so was the general aspect of Main Street. But, life seemed to be slower and it almost looked like a different country. Yet coming to Wisconsin, we had a feeling that we were approaching home: the same rolling hills as at home, same meadows, country lanes twisting right and left, dairy farms everywhere, and so on. No high mountains like in the mid-west, no wide spaces, even though the country is much larger than anything back home.

 

Returning to Chicago after a hiatus of three months was like coming to a well-known corner of the world. Some old friends were still there, some were on vacation. Yet the oppressive heat that is so typical of Chicago was a drawback. Driving east we were hoping for a fresher climate, but found it only later in New England. New York City was a place where professors still were busy teaching since so many students had only the summer months to come and do some work. Otík wanted to do some work with Professor Thrasher. To be close to the university, we stayed at a hotel in lower Manhattan which was frequented almost only by Hassidic Jews. The elevated trains were more than noisy.

 

Lower Manhattan was like a beehive. People were everywhere. The docks, nowadays deserted, were busy then. Street peddlers tried to sell all sorts of things like perfumes or even furs, all probably stolen. Yet you still could walk around without fear. We had one more month of stay in the USA.

 

We drove away from the heat to New England. We found a quiet spot near Lake Winnepesaukee with cottages for rent. The place was owned by a man called Bushnell. There we made friends with a couple from Hartford, Connecticut. Their names were Jack and Eleanor Thomson. We hit it off so well that to this day our friendship has endured. Eleanor was a schoolteacher, Jack an insurance man at the Traveller's. We had many friendly talks and had a lot in common. Neither one of us had children then. Upon our return, we corresponded until the beginning of WWII. After it ended, Eleanor tried to find out what had happened to us and we resumed correspondence.

 

They have two sons. The older, Johnny, was struck at the age of 12 or 13 with a disease of the central nervous system and has been confined to bed ever since. Eleanor takes excellent care of him. Jack has had several heart attacks, and it is again Eleanor who provides all the necessary care. The younger boy, Steven, is an electrical engineer. He is married to an architect. As of this year (1989) Otík has been deceased 19 years. It seems like yesterday that we all had such good times at the lake. Hana and I went to Steven's wedding and this enabled us to reminisce again.

 

For our return trip home, we chose the ship Conte Grande which made a cruise through the Mediterranean. The ship was well built, it was fairly stable, but it was old and not scrupulously clean. The Italian crew was impolite, but the food was tasty. The most unusual food we ate was after we reached the port of Algiers. Fresh octopus was brought and the chef prepared it with herbs and tomatoes. It was delicious. Our table companions were two ladies, Miss Céline Bays from the Swiss canton of Vouvray, and Fräulein Uhrman from Vienna. They became our companions on our trips to the various ports where we stopped. The first one was the Azores Islands with its municipal buildings and rather uninteresting countryside. Today the American Army has a lease on parts of the islands. The next stop was Portugal. It was most enchanting to see rebuilt Lisbon, all its new buildings erected after the earthquake of 1755. But the best place was the neighboring monastery of St. Hieronymus with its Gothic arcades and enclosed cloister. Otík bought me a piece of local jewelry--a small brooch of gold filigree with red enamel in the center. I treasured it until the day I lost it while passing an examination in the history of philosophy at Charles University in 1937. I still can see the brooch, how lovely it was.

 

From Lisbon we passed the Straits of Gibraltar with its rock. On one side of the rock, the British have built an incline of concrete which catches rain water. Gibraltar has a shortage of water and depends on rainwater to satisfy the drinking needs of the garrison. The next place of interest was the city of Algiers. With a guide we took a walk around the Casbah and saw the Arab quarter. The stores on the front side of the harbor are quite a sight to see, and you need a lot of cash to buy something worth the price. We bought a round leather footrest, died pink and decorated with intricate leatherwork. I wonder: who has it now?

 

The bazaars, the ocean front, the narrow streets, barely wide enough for one person, the spicy food, and the milling Arab population are still in my mind. I would rather not think of the number of houses of ill repute that were scattered here and there. Naked girls watched by elderly women who solicited customers were seen behind doors. The girls were usually young. And all that going on in plain daylight with people walking by!

 

The port of Naples had something in common with Algiers. Similar dirt, commotion, signs of poverty, and at the same time lots of sunshine and the blue ocean in the background. We wanted to see Pompeii with its excavations, its roads for carriages with deep ruts in the stone, villas with decorations, remains of a flour mill, ancient bakeries with loaves still standing but blackened after the eruption, but a dead city deprived of most of its treasures which are now in a museum. Life seemed without real people since the visitors did not "fit in this eerie atmosphere." I bought a coin embedded in lava, just to show my friends what lava looks like after so many centuries. Passing the Straits of Messina, we could see the volcano Etna in the distance spewing fire at night.

 

In the port of Patras, in Greece, there was very little to see. The town seemed to sleep. We saw some soldiers taking a siesta on a shady slope of a hill. They were eating local grapes, which were much larger than the ones we were used to buying at home. The last stop was Genoa in Italy. Except for the port, we did not see anything of the city. After that, we took a train home and arrived in Prague after two weeks of travelling. That was the end of our "Wanderjahr" (year of travel).

 

After our return home, Otík was back at work at the Bureau of Statistics and at lecturing at Charles University. I went back to my studies for a PhD. I worked very hard and there were moments when I doubted that I should ever retain in my memory all the facts about both the English and Czech literatures. Yet I did it and passed with a "good" mark. Only a year later, the senate of the university decided that the requirement to have students be able to retain all was too strenuous, and the material was divided into two halves. You could then pass each half in two separate years.

 

During the time of my intensive studies, I became pregnant. It was complicated by the fact that I needed surgery for an enlarged ovary. The surgery was performed after I passed my major comprehensive rigorosum (examination), but still during pregnancy. This left me very weak. When Pavel was born and I went for a daily walk with him in his carriage, my legs would be wobbly and I felt I could hardly walk far. At the same time I knew if I wanted to get my PhD, it was now or never as things were certain to be more difficult later on. We hired a nurse to take care of Pavel while I concentrated on the study of history of philosophy. This required mostly memorizing. I remember the name of the nurse, Blažena ("Bláža"). Her duties were minimal and her wages were $300 a month, a large sum then.

 

That summer, we all, except Otík, spent in Jihlava at my father's. Bláža, in her nurse's uniform, pushing the baby carriage, became quite a popular sight in my hometown. During the examination, called the "little rigorosum", my examiners were professor Dr. Josef Král and professor Dr. J.B. Kozák. Professor Král had known our family quite well since he was the one who accepted Otík as a candidate for professorship (in college parlance, he "habilitated him"). My knowledge of philosophy did not go too deep, as prof. Král realized from previous experiences. Students who majored in other fields (as I did in the history of literature) usually did not dig too deeply into philosophical problems. Yet I passed, having proved that I knew the essentials. I was quite relieved and in my upset state lost my treasured brooch from Portugal which Otík had bought for me two years back. At other times I would have minded more this loss of a keepsake, but in general elation it did not matter so much. Yet I still see the golden brooch with the red enamel in the center, in contrast to the green velvet collar of the brown woolen dress I had on then. Strange how some little details stick in your mind!

 

About ten of us who were to receive our diplomas were honored at a ceremony at the collegium maximum of Carolinum in May of 1937. Presiding was professor dr: Joseph Pekaø, a famous historian whose birthplace was in Puklice, near my hometown. Each candidate's name and place of birth was announced. When the name of Jihlava was mentioned, Dr. Pekaø took a special interest in me and made a friendly gesture. It pleased me very much. Some friends thought that his interest was due to the fact that I was an especially outstanding student, which was not the case.

 

Dr. Pekaø distinguished himself as a true historian who had never been swayed by any other consideration except his desire to establish real facts. During the time of Austrian rule, under which he had to work, he always reported in his books the historical facts as they actually happened. In those days, we, the Czechs, did not like the Hapsburgs and were inclined to look at them very critically. He published a book on the reign of emperor Franz Josef and it was his great pride that after the liberation of our country from the Austrian rule, he did not have to change one single statement about the old monarch.

 

We were often shown the work of professor Pekaø as an example of true, honest, historical work. Many nations try to portray their own history in a more favorable light than it should be. Not so prof. Pekaø! He was the author of several other books, the most esteemed among them being the "Book about the Castle Kost" (Kniha o Kosti). I am sorry to say that at that time in my life I did not have or find time enough to delve deeper into the book. So many things we expect to "do later" when we shall have more time and that "sometime" does not come. Similarly I am sorry we did not make a concerted effort to visit more of our homeland always expecting that "some day" we shall do it. What we did not know was that happy days for us all in our country were coming to an end, for ever.

 

At the time of Pavel's birth, Otík's parents had moved to their retirement place in Hrabačov. Otík and I, too, had found a larger apartment. Our first one after our marriage was in Nusle, on a hill, in a development which consisted of small villas. Our district was called "Na Jezerce" (meaning near a lake, which implied that originally there might have been a body of water there which had been drained). Our street was called Pod lázní (Under the water). The second, larger place was not too far from the first one, in a newly built apartment house with modern conveniences. It was in the district called Pankrác, which was notorious with the building of a prison, later being used mostly for political prisoners. The courthouse was on the main square, the prison was behind it and could not be seen at all. Many new apartment houses and a small shopping center were built around there. Our street had the name of "U Pankrácké Vozovny" (At the Pankrác Carbarn). Our street often bear names of poets, historians, artists or other famous people. At that time, the name seemed to be only temporarily given for lack of anything better.

 

We had very large rooms on the 4th floor (American 5th) and faced west. There was a streetcar leading along our street to Krè, a place which had a deep forest and was used for outings and picnicking. Our street also led south to Benešov and was used later by the Nazis on their way to conquer other countries. My last recollection of the Nazis is of the street being used by the retreating Nazis when they lost the war.

 

Thinking back about our last happy years, I have to mention what the relationship of our people was to the seat of learning. Otík was habilitated (received his license to teach at the university) in the year 1938. His title was "Docent in Sociology." Let me tell you that the title of "Docent" means much more in Central Europe than here where it is sometimes being used loosely as a title for volunteer "guides" in museums. To become a "docent" you had to write an original work in your field, which would be good enough to be accepted by the professors whose titles were "ordinarius." Between the ordinarius there was a category of "vice-ordinarius."

 

During all the three stages of professorship you had to publish original work, and you had to undergo the scrutiny of your peers. There were only a limited number of chairs in every department, and if these were already occupied, you could not teach. Such was the case of our famous author Karel Èapek, who tried to get "habilitated" in philosophy (his work was in Pragmatic Philosophy). It was the ambition of his life to become a university professor but there were no unoccupied "chairs" in the department. Èapek never got over this disappointment. He became more famous as an author than he would have been as a professor, but such was his love of learning that he never forgot his lack of success in this field. Be it said that in most European countries to become a university professor is the highest of ideals. Professors are in the highest esteem even though not remunerated properly. Physicians and lawyers rate lower than professors. I have no idea whether this is still true under the communist regime. I have my doubts. Yet in the parts of Europe that had the luck to remain free, this is undoubtedly still true.

 

Charles University has a distinguished history. It was established in 1348 by our king Charles the 4th. He was the son of the last Czech queen, Elizabeth (Eliška Pøemyslovna) and of John of Luxemburg, who was part French and part German. Young Charles was educated in Paris and brought many new ideas to our country (then called the Kingdom of Bohemia). The best idea he brought back was to institute a seat of higher learning. In the 14th century, there already existed three universities in Europe: the first one was at Bologna, the second were Oxford and Cambridge, the third was the Sorbonne in Paris.

 

Among Charles' many excellent qualities was his love of learning. On his return to Prague as king he founded the university for "his beloved Czech nation" (I am quoting his own words as they appear in the document called "Zlatá bulla Karla Ètvrtého"). Other nationalities were also admitted to this university. Teaching of course was done in Latin. The school went through a series of turbulent times, especially during the Counterreformation when it was directly managed by the Catholic church with sole emphasis on church orthodoxy. It was closed by the Nazis from 1939 until 1945 so that Czechs could not develop a new generation of intelligensia. What the situation is now under the Communists I am not sure. (Note: since this writing, Czechoslovakia has undergone the fall of the Communist regime.) We are told that members of the Communist Party receive "Doctorates" of Socialist Sciences (R S Dr) whatever that means. Yet Charles University survived some very trying times and will again.

 

The summer of 1938 is fresh in my memory still. Pavel was two years old. He and I were again guests of my father's in Jihlava. I was pregnant for the second time. The weather was balmy, times seemed to be peaceful and there was no indication of any major changes in the offing. In reality, it was the last time we enjoyed peace. That fall, Adolf Hitler started to move against our country by creating incidents in the Sudetenland, the northern parts of Bohemia where mostly Germans lived. The idea behind it was to create the impression that the German minority was being oppressed. During 1934 when the general elections were held in our country, we got a great surprise. We always thought that a substantial part of Sudeten Germans were democratic. Hitler managed to sway them to his side. There was no noticeable pressure on them, so that when the results of the election showed that about 85% voted for the Sudeten German Party, which was pro-Hitler, that fact was a blow to democracy in our country. And still we hoped that the Sudeten Germans would remain loyal. One lawyer even compared the situation to that in a marriage where the husband and wife bicker constantly yet do not separate. How wrong he was!

 

The Sudeten Germans became a real Fifth Column and proclaimed a motto: Heim ins Reich! (Back to the homeland in Germany!) Another German Fifth Column was around the German University in Prague. Much plotting was done on the premises of the university. This was well known by our authorities, but nothing could be done legally since the police were not allowed to enter the premises. Since the time of the Middle Ages, the universities have had a special position within the state: they were politically independent to the extent that no police force was allowed to enter. So we knew that plotting against the safety of the state had been done there, and yet, being a democracy, we observed the ancient rules and did nothing.

 

It is an undisputed fact that our German population voted for Hitler when there was still no pressure from Germany. What Hitler preached appealed to them. Every dictatorship uses any means to succeed. Germany told the world many lies about the treatment of the Sudeten Germans and for a while, they succeeded, but not for good. Their lies have been exposed and the truth came out. In spite of this, there was no turning back of the tide. The whole world knows how unprepared the West was and how Neville Chamberlain sold us to the wolves. There is no consolation in the fact that by opening the floodgates to the Nazis, by selling us to them, he paved the way to the eventual dismemberment of the British Empire. In those critical days we were very bitter against the British for their shortsightedness and against our allies, the French. For France we always had a special spot in our hearts. From England we expected that she would act according to their often proclaimed principle of "fair play" and were aghast that they did not. Soviet Russia was supposed to help us, too, but stayed in the background. At that time we had no inkling that Stalin already had plans for the conquest of Europe. There was no time to think of the hurt because events rushed on. Within six months, Hitler showed his teeth and occupied the rest of our country. Some of our politicians fled to the West, the leftists went to Russia. Years of anguish began to be later supplanted by actual terror.

 

Up to Hitler's move against our country, Otík's and my lives were happy ones. Thanks to Otík's conciliatory nature, he and I practically did not have any differences. Since we were both from middle-class families, we had the same values and the same ideals. A good family life was important to us. We both knew what was expected of us: to work diligently, to raise our children properly, and not to be aggressive. What a surprise it was to me when we settled in the USA to learn that some form of aggressiveness was expected of you, even if you were a college professor. I still do not accept the notion that aggressiveness is desirable. I would say that it would be better if people were rather "patiently plodding on." Much of the world's problems would be minimized if aggressiveness in any occupation was not tolerated. If we accept aggressive behavior in employment, there is only a small step to accept this type of behavior in matters of public interest and later in political life.

 

Otík and I had few disagreements, but some of them happened during the Nazi occupation when my nerves were taut. We did not know what a new day would bring. For a number of years, we played duets, he on violin, I at the piano. Our favorites were some of the Beethoven sonatas, especially the Frühling sonata in F major. One of our best beloved was César Frank's Sonata for violin and piano in A major. The second movement was hard for me and on my request, we sometimes skipped it. The violin that Otík had at home was a copy of an Italian Amati. Before we had to leave for good, Otík asked a friend of his, a social worker by the name of Božena Myšáková, to take care of his instrument. After a number of years, Otík's nephew, Karel Jung in Jilemnice, and his young son-in-law, are now the men who play it.

 

Otík and I trusted each other. I remember a small incident about this. A friend of ours, a lawyer, could not believe his ears while asking about our financial arrangement, when I told him: "Otík and I keep our money in a drawer and each one of us takes out what he needs; when there is nothing left, we go to the bank." In most families there was a definite arrangement about how much each partner could spend. Both of us knew that the other would not overstep his or her prerogative.

 

Much of the harmony in our family was due to the fact that Otík was 11 years my senior. When we married, he was 32 1/2 years old, I was 21 1/2. He was mature, I still had a lot to learn and he was the best teacher. I have to confess that I did not know how to cook when we married. I joined a cooking class and tried my luck on him. Sometimes both of us had to try to figure out what ingredient could make the dish taste better and what was missing. We have to remember Otík was used to good cooking from home! Luckily, I soon learned.

 

When Hitler made the fatal (for us) move against us and Neville Chamberlain threw us to the wolves, our government made a last desparate attempt to defend itself by mobilizing the army. I was pregnant for the second time. Otík had to go into the army. I still can see him leaving us at home in sadness but knowing full well that if a nation is to survive, it must show determination to fight for her life. After he left, my younger sister Milu took me and Pavel with her to Jihlava where in a few days, Georgia was born. At that time we did not know where Otík was but soon the news came of Chamberlain's and Hitler's agreement to dismember our country in order that "peace be saved in our time." Nobody can visualize to what despair we were reduced. Initially, all our people were firmly determined to fight and showed real enthusiasm. We felt that at last we could speak for ourselves and stand firm against the aggressor. Western democracies showed us that this was not in the cards. Our president was forced to yield to pressure. He was even threatened that if our nation did not comply, Britain and France would fight us themselves! We could not believe it! Not only were our people bitter against our former friends, some people made desparate jokes like this one: On one of the mobilization posters this inscription appeared: "Because of our Allies' non-attendance, the war has been postponed until further notice." This actual inscription proved to be prophetic: the war came less than a year later. Our borders, deprived of their fortifications, made our country open to aggression. We felt naked. In five months, Hitler occupied all of the country.

 

Georgia was born October 10, 1938. The following years were getting gradually worse. Independent newspapers were forbidden to publish, the universities were closed, the official language was declared to be German; listening to broadcasts from the West was forbidden under penalty of death. Numbers of students allowed to take secondary education was sharply limited, workdays were made longer, food was being rationed. For new clothes and shoes you needed special permission slips. People started hoarding food but that proved to be useless after six years of fighting. German soldiers, and especially the secret police, the Gestapo, were everywhere. All children had to learn the German language. Hitler's portraits were hung in schoolrooms. The radio played Nazi songs like "Lilly Marlen." Streets got names of unheard of Nazi warriors. Hitler finally realized his old dream to appear at the castle of our kings but significantly enough, he only appeared to the public at one of the windows and only briefly. Children were encouraged to denounce their parents for listening to foreign broadcasts. Neighbors were encouraged to denounce each other, especially if they had some foodstuff hidden. Hitler especially targeted the working class for cooperation with his regime by giving it special rations and bonuses for work. As a result, not many workers joined the underground effort. The Communist party was told by Moscow to lay low and not to work underground. Stalin believed that his non-aggression pact with Hitler would make his country safe. Not until the German army made deep inroads into Russia did Stalin order our Communists to join in the fight. There were stiff fines for any small infractions. General feelings of helplesseness and despair were everywhere.

 

Underground work started immediately but showed how tragically unprepared we were for this type of work. A whole faculty of philosophy at the University of Brno started a new group. It met regularly in one of the professor's homes and kept a detailed account of who said what. As should have been expected, the whole group was uncovered, their minutes seized, and the members summarily executed. A friend related how a Gestapo man came to tell one faculty wife that her husband had just been executed. He took the opportunity to take from her home anything he wanted, put it in her own suitcases and asked her to carry them to his car. As dejected as she was, she did manage to muster courage enough to refuse to carry the cases. The army and the German police including the Gestapo and the Sicherheitsdienst behaved with brutality, the other Germans sent from the Reich to help Germanize us behaved a little less aggressively. It was not until toward the end of the war when it began to appear that Germany could lose that they behaved normally.

 

From the beginning it was clear that even members of our parties of the right would not escape persecution. My colleague at the university, Marie Beránek-Drbal, lost her husband. He was a member of the Agrarian Party, which was to the right. He joined an underground group that was soon seized, and he was shot. He left his wife with two small children. Some members of the secret German police (Gestapo?) later tried to minimize this tragedy by telling her that her husband was still alive but that he only had been deported to the Ukraine. It was of course not true.

 

With the exception of the Communists, the political parties were not extreme. Parties had a tendency to go either right or left but you could not call them rightists or leftists (again with the exception of the Communists). The Agrarian Party had a tendency to the right because of their economic orientation. They definitely could not be called pro-Hitler! The same thing applied to a strongly nationalistic party, the National Socialists, who definitely had nothing to do with the Nazis (actually the party in Germany that Hitler named the National Socialists and the Czechoslovak one were diametrically opposed to each other). Then there were Social Democrats, who were Marxist oriented, and the Communists. Among the three socialist parties, the difference was mainly in degree of social change they advocated. The Czech National Socialists advocated milder social changes which were definitely non-Marxist. Sad to say, quite a part of our intelligentsia belonged to Social Democrats. These then were the parties turned toward the left.

 

The National Democrats, whose economic orientation was toward the right, were also persecuted by the Nazis. The Chairman of a large Student Union, Dr. Matoušek, was among the first ones to be shot by the Nazis together with nine other student leaders. Any dictatorship tries to suppress all movements by the intelligentsia. Free thought is a great danger to those who would like to have behind them only unthinking mobs. That is why the first move of the Nazis in our country was to close all universities. Hitler promised that the new arrangement in Europe would be for one thousand years. There was not to be a new generation of educated Czechs. They were to be subservient forever to the Germans by having lesser jobs, preferably in factories.

 

There was an atmosphere of fear and terror permeating everything. People disappeared from work. You never knew whether your husband would come home from work that night. One Sunday, the papers brought a list of 150 intellectuals who were shot in recent days. Another way to keep the people from getting too strong was the poor rations of food. Adults got one sixteenth of a quart of skim milk a day, one pat of butter per week with the exception of the first week in the month when there was no butter at all. There was one egg a week per person, and occasionally a few ounces of meat a week. People had to eat mostly potatoes and bread. The German population had better rations.

 

People had to carry identification cards at all times. Some butchers were executed for selling meat at a raised price. There was nowhere to turn for protection. People felt like animals trapped in their lair. With our country lying inland and with Nazis all around us, there was no place to flee to. Peoples' nerves were shattered. Most of us could not sleep. Gone was the easy camaraderie of former times. Gone were politeness and good manners. How we were able to stand it for six years is now hard for me to understand. It has been said that a human being is able to stand a lot provided it is not deadly. But this was deadly. The results of this inhumane treatment are still with us today.

 

It took four years of war before the first signs of possible defeat of the Nazis were seen. Not until then was it possible to resume underground work. One of our friends from early years, Dr. Karel Bondy, had a radio contact with our government in exile in London. He sent in all the information that he could get from Otík about the conditions in our country. He, being a Jew, was in special danger. After the Protector, Gerhard Heidrich, had been assasinated by Czech patriots, a new wave of executions had started. Several thousands of patriots died this way. Dr. Bondy did not escape. He died under torture. He did not disclose any names of his collaborators. Otík would have been one of the first to be a victim, and I could have been included, too, since on occasion, I gave Dr. Bondy the printed information myself. I do not know whether his captors ever realized fully what an important link to our government they had seized and destroyed in the person of Dr. Bondy.

 

A year before the war ended, Hana was born. Times were hard, there was almost nothing to buy. There were no baby clothes to be bought, no baby carriages; there was very little food and what there was, was of poor quality. I had been very worried how I was going to take care of a baby in such hard times, but Otík's mother told me: "The children born in the most difficult of times are usually most beloved and most welcome." And she was right. Hana became the most coddled member of the family. She had blond curly hair, which everybody admired, and she was very pretty. We could not refuse her anything. When Pavel and Georgia before her went out of line, we did not hesitate to point this out to them and if necessary, to mildly punish them. With Hana we could not do any of this. We felt that in these difficult times, just to have a new little girl was enough of an excuse to be tolerant.

 

Both Pavel and Georgia were very protective of her. I remember one day around Christmas time when I wanted to buy a present for Otík. Since there was no household help available of any kind on those days (all women of all ages were obliged to work in factories for the war machine), I had to leave little Hana in charge of both her siblings. I took the streetcar to downtown Prague, bought a painting and started home. But at that moment, there was a signal of an air raid. All transportation had to stop. I was quite a ways from home, but I started on foot anyway since I was worried about my children. It took me more than an hour to reach home. When I came home, I found that in the meantime, Hana had been playing with her glass feeding bottles, banging them against each other and breaking them. But there were no shards visible in her basket. I asked Pavel and Georgia what they did. They told me that they took Hana out, put her on the bed, turned the basket in which she had been resting upside down, shook the shards out, and put her back in. At that time Pavel was about eight years old, Georgia was six.

 

Another raid came on the day when the allies decided to destroy Dresden. The Allied planes flew from the south over Prague. The River Vltava makes an S turn in the middle of the city, much as the river in Dresden does. The fliers mistook Prague for Dresden and started bombing the city. It took them five minutes before they realized their tragic mistake and stopped. During those five minutes, whole streets were destroyed and thousands of people perished. Two of the bombs fell in our vicinity destroying a car barn for trolleys near the Pankrác prison. The impact was so strong that it felt like it was just above us. I was in our apartment trying to put some clothes on little Hana who was in her baby carriage. I sent Georgia alone to the basement. As she was hurrying down the stairs, the bomb that fell nearby created so much pressure that she fell down the stairs. Before she reached the cellar and before I finished putting Hana's baby clothes on her, the bombing stopped. Otík was at that time in his office downtown, so Pavel helped me with Hana. It was shortly before noon. Otík took the first available streetcar to reach us. He was able to see the devastation of only five minutes of bombing. We were elated to have escaped.

 

Another air raid was conducted by the Allies toward the end of the war. It was even scarier than the previous one. The planes circulated for a long time trying to focus exactly on their target, which happened to be a munitions factory in the vicinity of Prague. The span of time before they focused on the target was very enervating. No one knew what the intentions were. Not until it was over did we learn what the targets had been. The war ended only a few days later. Thinking about it, we felt sorry that the munitions factory had been destroyed. We felt that as Germany had by then been almost defeated, the destruction had not been necessary. We felt that we, the Czechs, should have had the use of those factories in the future. We were not sure whether the decisions made during the war were always the right ones. It was assumed later that the destruction of the munitions factory was done to prevent it from being used by advancing Soviets.

 

But to win the war the Allies had had to invade Europe, which had been heavily fortified by the Germans. It was known that the invasion would come, but no one knew when and where. It actually came from two directions: from the south of Italy and from the Normandy coast of France. Hana had not yet been born. Some friends asked me what time I expected the invasion. I told one of them: "The invasion will take place when our baby is to be born." I missed the prediction by only two days. Hana was born on June 4, 1944, the day that General Mark Clark entered Rome. Friends told me that I should call Hana "Romana Invasia." That would have been an appropriate name had such a one even existed. Actually, she was named after the wife of our president, Dr. Beneš, whose return from exile we expected to follow soon. Two days later the invasion of France took place. It succeeded only partly. One more year of fighting was necessary to defeat Germany. As the end neared and the allies were nearing the East, the Czech people realized that one could not expect that the Nazis would give up without revenging themselves on the nations they held captive. We knew from past experiences that before the Germans actually left, they would kill prisoners so as to prevent the "rebirth" of an enemy in the future. Often the retreating armies massacred the populations in the oppressed lands.

 

The general fear of the retreating Nazis and what they might do manifested itself in several cities. In Bohemia, some towns around Prague started to rise against the Nazis. These spontaneous uprisings were followed by a major one in Prague. It began on May 5th, 1945. Our people had no arms and had to fight with the ones they managed to snatch from the Germans. There were several underground groups operating in Bohemia. They found a common aim and got together. Only four original political parties were represented: The Czech (National) Socialists, the Social Democrats, the Peoples' Party (Catholic), and the Communists. From the very beginning, the Communists took a dominant part. Since in the last years of the war the Communists were persecuted quite violently by the Nazis, the new revolutionary groups let them have the dominating role. A non-political personality, well-respected in the nation, was named the chairman. He was Dr. Albert Pražák, professor of languages at Charles University. Otík was named vice-president of this Revolutionary Council for the Czech Socialists. The man who assumed a great role was Josef Smrkovský, a dedicated Communist who, unknown to us, was under strict orders of his party. The whole council had about a dozen members. Although created on the spot, it had good discipline and one common aim. The greatest problem was how to get arms.

 

Radio contact was made with the British government with an appeal for arms, which were promised. However, waiting was in vain at the designated place at Charles Square. Later it was learned that it was at the direct request of Stalin that the arms never reached our fighters. Stalin's plan was to have the uprising fail, to have our fighters be defeated, and to have the Red Army come in the end as the real saviors. That same tactic had been previously used against the uprising in Warsaw, Poland, during the war and it did succeed then. The Poles were crushed by the Nazis. Yet in the case of our fighters, this unholy plan failed because the Germans were ready to withdraw to their country in order to save as much as possible from the defeat.

 

In the meantime, our fighters had to do with what little they had. Vlasov's Army came to the rescue in the most critical moment. Vlasov was a Ukranian general who assembled Soviet nationalists who were sent to Germany for forced labor and who were opposed to the Communist regime. This army fought a successful battle against the Germans and in two days accomplished a lot. After the two days, they retreated. For their help they were cruelly rewarded by the Soviets. The Army was encircled, defeated, and Vlasov and his generals executed. Vlasov's Army provided generous help in our struggle. When later the Soviets came to Prague as victors, the first thing they did was to punish members of the National Council by exiling some in positions outside our country. (All that was done for having accepted help against the Nazis that should have been "their only" prerogative in their plans!)

 

The remainder of the German occupation army was ready to surrender to the Czech council. General Toussaint, in charge of the German Army, met with three representatives and signed an agreement in which he agreed to leave, provided he was allowed to keep the army's weapons and provided the retreat was allowed to be orderly. This happened to be on the Friday of May 8 in the hours of the afternoon. Immediately after the signing, the army began to leave. As soon as Stalin heard about the surrender, he ordered his Soviet army, stationed in eastern Poland, to make a dash to Prague. He still hoped to be the "liberator." His army came a day late, on Saturday, May 9, in the morning. Only two or three pockets of member of the Gestapo were still holed in Prague, ready to fight to the last man. The Soviet Army fought those Gestapo strongholds and a few of their soldiers were killed in battle. The Soviets tried to claim that they liberated Prague even though the German Army was already gone. One more lie by the Soviets was added to many others during the war, like about the Katyn Massacre in Poland. As I said before, by then we still thought of the Russians as our brothers. We were very sorry for their suffering during the war, and we did not dispute their claim that they came in order to liberate us. In three years, we were to learn through the worst of experiences how treacherous they were.

 

In their fury about the escape of the German Army, the Soviets made it imperative that no member of the Revolutionary National Council was made a member of the new government. All of them were made members of the regional government of Bohemia. Dr. Kotrlý, who together with Smrkovský, signed the agreement with the Germans, was sent to Canada as consul general. This was to look as a reward, but in reality it was an exile. Smrkovský was not punished; he was too valuable to his Communists leaders, but his turn came later. He lost his position after a few years, too.

 

Taking part in the uprising was full of physical danger. The Council had to keep moving as their place of work was again and again discovered by spies, both Nazi and Soviet ones. During the last days of fighting many cruel things happened. The Nazis murdered and mutilated young and old in the basement of a house in the block next to ours. As soon as the fighting was over, Otík rushed home from his work with the Council to find us miraculously unharmed. All the windows in our house were broken. There was a big hole in the middle of the house where a shot from a big gun hit it. There was very little food but, worst of all, there was no water. But we were all alive and we were certain that peace had finally come. From the president of the Republic, Otík and his co-workers received the Order of Merit and Medal for Bravery.

 

Otík, made vice-president of the Bohemian Government for his party, had his hands full. Later when the work eased a little and he was put in charge of personnel, he resumed his university teachings. He was full of energy, as were most other people. He and Dr. Rouèek established a new branch of the university, called the School of Political and Social Sciences. After the original universities had been closed by the Nazis for four and a half years, many young people were thirsty for knowledge. At one time, at this new school, Otík had seven thousand students in his class on social psychology. The lectures were conducted in a regular circus arena and for examinations, new graduate students had to be hired to grade the papers. It was a time of high hopes, and yet there was a certain feeling of uneasiness.

 

On paper we were a free nation. All four political parties were supposed to be equal. Yet the Communists made fast moves to grab the important positions: They held the ministry of foreign affairs (i.e., State Department), of internal affairs, and the police. The others were given such posts as transportation, post office, and so on. And still we did not suspect much, although we did not agree. The Communists started to get rid of possible opposition. They abolished the Agrarian Party, the National Democratic Party, and a few others. They started expropriating property of people whose opinion was to the right. They did not force farmers to collectivise yet (remember, we were still considered to be "free"). Collectivisation and the other Soviet inventions came three years later when the Communists had staged the putch, and took the whole country.

 

During those three years of 1945-1948, we lived hoping for the best. There were five of us now. Pavel and Georgia were at school. Theirs was an English teaching school which later proved to be an advantage when we had to flee. It helped, too, that Otík and I had known the American way of life.

 

 

Otík was very busy during those three years. He worked at both places as the personnel director for the Bohemian Government (called the Czech National Committee) and as a university professor. On Sundays, he indulged in his pastime--hunting. He was able to hunt in the best provinces' hunting grounds, being invited there by the official keepers. Several trophies of his hunting days hung on our walls before we had to flee. Even though he was invited to these hunting preserves, he and I were never invited to various parties organized by the government and sponsored (or ordered) by the Soviets, who had a secret hand in most of our dealings. People who were judged to be friendly to anything the Soviets organized were frequent guests. These were people who were never critical of what the Soviets did and who could be counted on to be quiet even if they did not necessarily agree. Otík stood firm, and in his mild way, he never budged from the position of what he considered to be just. His quiet but steady inflexibility in matters of principle was the thing that the Communists could not tolerate. Today it is to our great credit that he and I were never invited to those parties.

 

When he had some time, he indulged in his favorite violin playing. He and I still occasionally played the César Frank Sonata and some of the Beethoven's Sonatas. But there was less and less time to indulge in pastimes. Otík's lectures at the School of Political and Social Sciences were to be published in print so that the students could better follow them. Usually, if a professor publishes a textbook, he is given a certain honorarium for his work. Some of his students were Communists. They decided to make it appear that Otík was not fair. They started haggling with him over his honorarium, creating lots of confusion over the proceedings. In disgust, Otík told the ones in charge to have the printing rights for free. That settled the question for awhile, but what was not immediately evident was the effort to smear his name. It was part of a drive against an opponent of Communism. There was more to come. There was a case of a family of mentally and physically severely retarded people who had a lot of children on welfare who were unable to take care of themselves even in the smallest of details, and who became a great burden on the community. In one of his articles about the case, Otík was wondering whether sterilization would be the answer. That proved to be the meat for the Communists' grind. They turned the case around, printed several articles against him and claimed that Otík wanted to sterilize the manual workers, although nothing of the kind had been said. They even published some obscene intimations about what Otík would like to do to the workers in order to "sterilize" them.

 

Even though their campaign was discredited by some courageous souls who took Otík's defence in magazines and showed it to be a lie, the Communists never let up. To them he was the man who was going to "sterilize the workers" and prevent them from having any pleasures in their sex lives. To this day, the Communists press and television in our country periodically refer to him in these terms, although he was been dead for almost 20 years. They have to whip up hatred, otherwise they would run out of steam. Like any fanatical religion, they have to keep drumming even lies if they are to keep their adherents in line. They depend on an unthinking mob, and in the absence of such a mob, they want to prevent people to think for themselves. They also have to whip up the class hatred that Marx advocated.

 

Later, we realized that there was a sustained effort to discredit Otík. We of course could not anticipate that it was all geared to the day when they would have a chance to get rid of him. And their chance did come. They must have been planning it from the beginning. When they staged the coup d'état (the putch), they had all the material ready for a trial. They were going to "prove to the people" that intellectuals had failed. The first to be put on trial was the history professor dr: Slavík, who never failed to point out the crooked ways of Communists as they tried to toe the Kremlin line. The second to be tried was to be Otík. All materials had been collected over the three years of our so-called freedom. In actuality, the Communists had been pulling the strings all the time. There was no doubt in our minds that if we wanted to save our lives and prepare a decent future for our children, we had to take the hard decision to leave home forever.

 

How does a small nation defend itself, especially if it wants to live by certain ideals? Our nation's history is replete with instances when to stick to an ideal was a certain road to peril. That happened during the wars for freedom of religion. Our religious reformer, Jan Hus, was burned at the stake 100 years before Martin Luther preached his doctrine. Severe penalties for all followed. Freedom was lost. In the late 16th and early 17th centuries, our politicians wanted to reform on two fronts: Religious freedom was again demanded and the absolute power of the king was challenged. We lost again. Formerly we lost to the power of the Catholic church and its complete domination of all forms of life. The second time we lost to the strength of the Hapsburg royal house which dominated us for three hundred years. Again the nation was forcibly Catholicized, and to make certain of the results, the nation was Germanized. We lost again to the Nazis as did almost all European nations. The results of these, for us, six years of domination are well known. And the Communist empire won again.

 

It has been said that ideas cannot be suppressed and that eventually the "pen is mightier than the sword." That may be true after a few centuries elapse. But how many of us find this as a consolation? It is natural to wish to live decently in one's lifetime. It takes a strong character to be content with the hope that some day, in the distant future, people will enjoy the liberties we struggled for. How does one fight the aggressors?

 

To make the fatal decision to leave one's homeland for political or religious reasons takes courage and determination, which is hard to visualize for people who never faced this tragic turn in their lives. It is probably easier to make a similar decision if one cannot make a living in one's homeland. Such people probably do not face the same agonizing questions. Otherwise, you keep thinking that maybe it will not be so bad, or that you may be able to cope. Finding excuses to postpone the fatal decision is one reason why some people do not survive. Many Jews in Germany in the 1930s could not make this move. Some thought that "it cannot possibly happen here." Their fate is well known. There is a saying: "If you cannot fight them, join them." Nothing is more dishonorable. Some fearful souls did just that, to their detriment. Many did not survive, either. For an honorable deed there is a price to pay. You lose everything: your family, friends, your country, your possessions, your work and its rewards, your memories, your ancestors' place of burial, your family photographs, family letters and innumerable little things which make life attractive. You may never see the rest of your family again. You are suddenly poor and depend on the charity of others. You jump into the unknown. You do not know where you are going to sleep that night and whether you are going to eat. All these things go through the mind of the person who wants to leave, who finds life has become intolerable. No wonder some never make this decision.

 

We did find the strength to make the decision. A detailed account is provided in a separate chapter. Briefly, after a painful leave-taking of one's dearest, we managed to flee in three groups. First my husband was helped by my younger brother. By paying a professional smuggler a large sum of money, he reached Germany, where the policy of the occupying American Army made it certain that refugees could not be sent back, as had been happening in the beginning. Then our son, Pavel, age 11, without his parents, was helped to cross with some other adults, to follow his father. Then, I followed later with my two daughters, age 9 and 3. My brother, Jiří, was courageous enough to help me personally. Many friends helped, too. College students of my husband's and even people who had not known me before, took the risk. I had to pay a lot of money to a man who claimed that he was taking funds to help the underground (which he did not). One of my first cousins, who had nothing to lose, refused to help. On my husband's side, the only one who might have helped at least partly was my husband's brother, Vladimír, but he lacked courage even to contact me. The grain was being separated from the chaff. There were many more who helped than those who did not, or those who asked for money for their work. Belief in human nature was restored. As a matter of interest, let me tell you that in July, 1948, the five of us landed in NY City with $96.00 cash.

 

Thinking back on the tragic days, which continue today [note: this was written before 1989], one has to bear in mind that our country had a strategic position in the middle of Europe. Warring parties from the west and the east often find it imperative to have this central position firmly in hand. And since time immemorial, our people have fought for ideals and were not swayed by dictatorial regimes. The probability of being a battleground was greater than in any other country for two reasons: the strategic position and the unwillingness of our people to be swayed to the side of the aggressor. Had we been willing to take the side of our neighbors, we might not have been treated as enemies. And yet we would have, eventually, had to fight on their side against our beliefs.

 

European nations, whether large or small, have a long history of border disputes, complicated by questions of religion and language. Sometimes it seems to me that religion divides people more deeply than nationalities or the language, although the language question is a very important one. The large nations, usually the aggressors, first make sure that the defeated nation is obliged to accept the aggressor's language. This might seem strange to English speaking nations. They believe that it is not such a burning question. Yet for a small nation, this is of prime importance. To be free and able to speak your mother tongue is an important sign of a certain degree of independence. Even though the small nations all learn the major languages, French, English, German, and others, they still believe that their own language means too much to be discarded. Take the case of a small group of Slavs, called the Lužician Serbs, in the neighborhood of Berlin. They are a remnant of a once strong clan of Slavs which has been almost totally annihilated. And yet the language still exists to this day.

 

This may be hard for Americans to understand. After all, the USA is a conglomerate of many nationalities. How come the individual nationalities accept the fact that there is only one nation with one language? An explanation could be in the fact that, at least until WWII, the immigrants all came with one idea in mind--to improve their financial lot. And many of them succeeded. That, it seems to me, is also the main reason why the various nationalities in the USA are working and living quietly side by side. There is no question of disputed borders. Religious intolerance is not permitted. Civil liberties are the same for all. In Europe, we still see the old struggles going on. A typical example is my own country. During the present century, she has been invaded first by the Nazis, then by the Communists. Both regimes were after the domination of Europe. After a long and bloody struggle, the Nazis were defeated. Will the same happen to the Communists? I would like to live long enough to see the day. (Written in early 1989--the Communists fell in November, 1989.)

 

The Escape (1948)

 

 

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, Jiří, 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. 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 Národní 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 had 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 placed 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 ot 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 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, 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. All this I learned from Otík later.

 

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 to take care of me. Saying goodbye to them was very hard. Except for my two sisters, I never saw my family again. Otík never saw his mother again, nor 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 pupil 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 easily detected at night in the woods). The knapsacks could contain only a few necessities, not too heavy for them. I would have 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 Jiří, 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 safer 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 had 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, whom I mentioned earlier: Dr. Karel Procházka, who was about 40 years old at that time. 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, Mary Kabelka, 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 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, Frank Haloun, came to visit me and to help Dr. Klouda in any way he could. Haloun was very fond of Otík, 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 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 named Štefan Blaško who was also a member of Parliament, 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 two people he was to escape with went to the station called Wilson's 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 what turned out to be a similar route to Pavel's. 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. steep). 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 host and 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 be having a good night's sleep. Instead we were all groping our way uphill 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 hours until 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 in complete 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 a while 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 awhile 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 some time 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 a long 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 the 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 the 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 some 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 cat food 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 Bradáè, 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 a 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 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 lad 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 by the local people, but also by 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 heavy sacking 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 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 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 Zátopek, Vilém 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, Jáša 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 just one 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 by 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 proceedings of 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 Lucius 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 Clay 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 a certain long-term jail. As soon as Americans became aware of this, General Clay ordered an immediate end to this practice. He gave an 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, Otík 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 the loss of everything, but also 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 took him, for a lot of money, across the border and who failed to carry his suitcase, 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 visitor visas 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 my husband 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 children 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, in those days, one thing was in favorof our being admitted: Otík was a bona fide professor, and as such a non-quota visitor (that meant we did not have to wait). That privilege was later abused by many who claimed they were professors while they had a different occupation and the 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 the feeling we were not equal to them anymore. 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 primary destination, Chicago. Since 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 after the 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, has kept the genealogy alive herself.

 

Our Life in the USA

 

 

When we landed in New York City at the end of July, 1948, we had only winter clothes. We were also proud possessors of $96.00 cash. One advantage we had, though: Otík had a job waiting for him at the University of Chicago. Due to a miscalculation on the part of an American Army investigator, we arrived in Chicago late in the semester. But the administration was patient and Otík was allowed to present his lectures in three weeks instead of the originally planned six. The summer in Chicago was a very hot and uncomfortable one for us all. We were not used to such heat! We visited the places Otík and I had known in 1934 and had trouble locating them. The children loved to swim on the shore of Lake Michigan and found much interest in visiting the Museum of Natural History. (When, four years later, Pavel came to study at the University, his first visit was to the Art Institute.. The visit shaped his later life.) We found some old friends among the college professors and made new ones. Pavel's contact with Professor Everett C. Hughes lasted well into the 60's.

 

After our Odyssey through Europe ended in Chicago, we found that our very good friend and sponsor, Professor Ernest W. Burgess was still teaching. Prof. William F. Ogburn was there, as was our "old" friend, Edward Shils. We met a new friend, Prof. A.B. Hollingshead. Prof. Herbert Blumer still taught at the University, but soon afterwards he accepted a teaching position in California, at Berkeley. It was not exactly like coming home, because we had the feeling that we came not as our friends' equals. I realize we should not have felt that way, but we could not help it.

 

The summer school ended fast and the question was: what next? Prof. Burgess took it upon himself to find something for Otík for the next school year. After many contacts with several universities, he was able to secure for him a teaching position at Syracuse University. We took leave of our friends, and in September, we took a night train to Syracuse, again in our winter clothes. After a more or less sleepless night, we took a taxi to the University where we were given names of possible landlords. We then settled on Ackerman Avenue in the home of a certain Mr. and Mrs. Miller, who were spending nine months out of town

.

 

Our first friends and sponsors were the Lehmans. Professor Lehman taught sociology at the University. He and his wife were friendly souls and we became friends with their two children, by then already young adults. Otík's lectures were appreciated by students and professors alike, but there were quite a few Marxists among them who were not sure what our motives for fleeing from home really were. In those days many professors believed that the "change" in our government was an overdue one. They had no idea about the social conditions that existed in our country before the putch. In vain did Otík point out the fact that a land reform had been in existence in ÈSR already since 1919, that we had medical insurance which worked well, that wages were appropriate for a small nation with limited resources, and so on. I shall never forget what a young instructor said in wonder: "Here are two evidently honest people who have fled!" To them, only the less honest ones had to go! We were blissfully unaware of the extent of the professors' agreeing with the radical changes in Central Europe. To this day, there are some who believe that "there was some justification in what the Communists were trying to do."

 

Our state of mind was anything but peaceful. Otík and I were very disturbed by the events and could not get over the fact that we had to flee. We did not wish to listen to our favorite music, and we could not even go to the movies. Everything seemed to us "empty", of no significance, useless. We just had to try to survive until the time when we would be able to return home. That was what we believed in those days. We were quite certain that conditions must change, that things could not remain as they were at that time. The injustice of it all! We even believed that the US government would exercise pressure on the Communists to retreat! How naive we were! As the time passed, and it was evident that nothing would change, we had to rethink our position and what we should do.

 

I was at home taking care of our needs. The children went to school, Pavel to junior high, Georgia to fifth grade. Even Hana was allowed to enter kindergarten after six months of our arrival. To help Hana overcome her shyness and lack of knowledge of English, I was in charge of her kindergarten room for a full month. While there, I helped the teacher and learned how things were done in the USA. Hana learned fast and my familiarity with the system helped me later on.

 

The children loved school in spite of initial problems. Pavel told me once how pleasant American schools were in comparison to the European ones. When we told friends about this impression, they had doubts about the real meaning of it. They thought that the schools were too much on the pleasant side and not on the side of learning. Pavel's and Georgia's knowledge of English improved. That was an advantage other newcomers did not have. Our children had learned the language at home. Hana made fast progress; so fast that after one month in kindergarten, she started correcting my pronunciation!

 

Winter of 1948-49 was a hard one in Syracuse. For the first time, our children were exposed to the harsh American climate. Europe's is definitely milder. Already they were familiar with a bad summer in Chicago. They were to become used to many changes. Yet they enjoyed themselves very much. Part of it was due to the very fact that much was different from home. In the matter of learning, there were some advantages, too. At home they had firm discipline. Now they were exposed to such freedom as they had not known before, and it worked very well. They did not misbehave because they knew where the limits were!

 

Later on, when I became a teacher, I realized how wise was my first school principal when he advised, not only me but the other teachers as well, to first instill in the children the idea of self-discipline and after that has been partly established, to let up on the discipline. The idea was that such teaching then had more probability of success. In Europe, we take if for granted that without discipline, no teaching can take place. Everyone accepts it. Yet when you confront the amount of freedom everybody here has, there is no wonder that some people misinterpret it as license. European children know, for instance, that they have to learn. If a teacher is dissatisfied with the child's work or behavior, the parents take the teacher's stand. Very rarely do parents defend the pupil's misbehavior. Most of us back at home know how important learning is for the child's future. Teachers have a high standing in the opinion of parents. If one wants to achieve the highest of ideals in employment, he will try to become a university professor (not a physician or a lawyer or a businessman). Be it said that in spite of the high standing of the teaching profession in Europe, the financial renumeration is still low. Whether things have changed under the Communists I do not know.

 

To make my family feel more at home, I cooked Czech dishes. The problem arose especially at Christmas time when I wanted to bake our traditional cookies. When we fled, we had only the bare necessities. I could not possibly have taken a cookbook with me. To bake homestyle Christmas cookies, I had to figure out the amount of ingredients each type of cookie required. Your memory is not good enough to tell you how much of what goes into the particular concoction. In Europe we weigh our ingredients and we use grams and decigrams. That was a further difficulty. In the long run, I solved the problem by trying to remember how each cookie tasted and guessed how much that would be approximately in the amount of each ingredient. I am happy to say I succeeded to a great extent.

 

Immediately, I wrote my own recipes using cups as measures and later improved on them. But our first Christmas was a success. (When my sisters visited me a few years ago, they brought with them an original Czech cookbook. It gives me pleasure to read it, but I cannot very well use it since I cannot weigh the ingredients! Again, I have to guess.)

 

Gradually we became less depressed, to the extent that we could go to a movie. I found that having to struggle with the lack of many things which in former times provided us with comfort, gave me a respite from thinking about our loss. When you have to figure out how to stretch a budget, how to save to buy new heavier winter clothes, how to get the children at least the semblance that they are like the other children in worldly goods, there is not much time left to brood about. One advice I gave my children: "Even if you still cannot have what the other children possess, there is one thing in which you can be equal: You can have excellent marks at school." And our children took my advice. They became aware that dictatorships can take almost everything away from you: They can take all your possessions, your home, your job, your future. The one thing no dictatorship can take away is your education. What you have learned is yours forever, even though you may not be able to use it in employment. You may just preserve it in your memory, but what you have learned and remembered will give you pleasure and consolation. Such is the value of knowledge. Our exile only reinforced our values, the ones we had most dear.

 

During the first years in the USA, Otík was able to secure a teaching job provided another professor had taken a year's leave of absence. So it was in Syracuse and later at Cornell. By the end of May of 1949, it was evident that Otík would again have to go around looking for a job. At the same time we became Americanized to such an extent that we bought a car before we even possessed any furniture! It so happened that too much of Otík's income had been withdrawn for taxes, and in April we learned that a full one thousand dollars were due to us. Like every other person, we wanted to have an easy way of locomotion. Our first car was a four-year old Plymouth in very good condition. We immediately made a few visits to the State parks. Later the car proved to be indispensable in our frequent moves.

 

The question arose: How to find another job? For a newcomer, it is one of the hardest things. Professor Lehman had an idea: He arranged for Otík to go to Cornell University to give a lecture. It met with success. Otík was, in spite of his accent, an eloquent speaker both as a professor and before that as a politician. (In his political party, he was considered the second best, the best being Adolf Stránský, member of the parliament.) And as there was an opening at that time at Cornell in the department of Sociology, he was hired for a year. That proved to be a turning point in his career. On the strength of his Cornell appointment he later got his job at Harpur College which turned into a permanent position at the State University of New York, as Harpur was renamed later.

 

Life in Ithaca brought us a lot of joy and some disaster, too. Otík enjoyed teaching at Cornell. The quality of students was high. I continued taking care of the family although I began to think of getting an appropriate employment. I got information on what had to be done in order to get a license to teach. Pavel entered Boynton Junior High and scored an immediate success. During a test conducted by one teacher eager to find out how many students could properly spell the word "psychology", Pavel was the only one among several hundred who did it correctly. On the strength of this he was elected the head of the student's representative body. He very much enjoyed attending his new school as it was geared in his particular class to the gifted and had consequently been very stimulating. Georgia had a new teacher in her sixth grade. He introduced a lot of new ideas to the teaching process. Among other things, he taught his pupils how to enjoy Shakespeare's plays. Hana was supposed to finish the second half of kindergarten but upon my request, she was allowed to enter first grade and learn the beginnings of reading. All three children made a lot of friends and remained friendly with them even after we had to move to the next place.

 

The catastrophe struck during the vacation. On an evening when we attended Pavel's Boy Scouts camp, our house on Fairmount Ave. was burglarized and everything of value was stolen. Most tragic of the losses were the documents. Among them were all personal records from schools including my PhD diploma from Charles University, Otík's diploma from the Ecole Libre in Paris, identification cards and other papers. All of Otík's clothes were gone, two suitcases were taken full of men's shirts, underwear, socks, and on top it all, a sum of 200 dollars that we withdrew from the bank the day before, was gone, too. Several watches and all of my personal jewelry, presents from my family over the years and from my husband, were lost forever. A few unimportant documents were later found scattered near a gas station in Gillette, Pennsylvania, but the really important papers were never found, just as the rest of the loot was not.

 

There might have been a design in this theft since the important missing documents included my PhD diploma, two identification cards with photographs, and Otík's diploma from Paris. Investigation did not bring any light on the subject. At that time at Cornell there was a group of vocal Communists who might have tried to make life difficult for us, opponents of Communism. The FBI rejected this idea but later investigators thought of this themselves as a possible explanation. It was a terrible blow to us. To be robbed of the last bit of property which we had managed to save from the Communists and to have this happen in the USA, a land to which we came for protection, was hard to accept. Since these events of August 1950, nothing has happened to clear this mystery. Even now, in 1989, these things are on my mind. I still feel that Communists have a long reach and that fanatical adherents could help in such a case. Communists everywhere accept blindly the dictates of their party.

 

As the school year in Ithaca drew to a close, it became necessary to look for another job. Things looked bleak again, yet chance saved us. In the nearby village of Endicott, there was a "dependence" school, an extension of Syracuse University, called Triple Cities College. For years this area had been sadly lacking in college instruction. The new one was meant especially for returning GIs. The Syracuse extension existed for three years until the State of New York decided to step in and fill the void. The state took over the extension of the private school and made it part of the large State University of New York which had many campuses all over the state.

 

It was the ambition of the then governor, Nelson Rockefeller, to make this an excellent school. In charge of organizing the new state college were two former Syracuse University professors, Glen G. Bartle and Joseph Van Riper. Dr. Bartle became Provost and he took it upon himself to find new good material for the staff of professors. Cornell students told Otík about this possibility and arranged for him to be interviewed. He had one advantage on his side--he had been teaching at Cornell. Otík came to Endicott full of expectations. He saw an imposing Tudor building near the campus of the local high school. The college was in fact temporarily housed in prefabricated shacks nearby. (The rooms were too hot in the summer and in the winter the melting snow seeped in.) On the strength of his ability, Otík was hired with a salary of five thousand dollars a year, a sum large enough in those days to keep five members of the family in good shape.

 

Finding a place to live in Endicott proved to be the next problem. Conditions so soon after the war were not easy. No new buildings were yet available in sufficient numbers. We found a furnished apartment on Monroe Street, no. 1004. The apartment was on the ground floor of a small house which, however, proved to be good enough for us, the beginners. It was close to the college. The childrens' schools were also within walking distance. Pavel was enrolled in junior high school at Henry B. Endicott School. Georgia was too (in seventh grade), and Hana's school was the Broad Street School. All children found new friends. Henry B. School held a kind of tradition for all three: first Pavel, later Georgia, and finally Hana received honors in Latin.

 

Pavel stayed at Henry B. one year. After that he went to the Union-Endicott high school, and within a year he received a scholarship to college. At the outbreak of the Korean war, the government established college scholarships for high school students who, if inducted into the army, would face the danger of not being able to finish their schooling. The title of the grant was Pre-Induction Scholarship. Each student had to be recommended by his guidance counselor and had to pass a series of four tests. The first three were especially made for the selected students. The fourth one was the regular college entrance test (SAT). Authorities were especially interested by Pavel's high score in the last college test. He was accepted to study at the University of Chicago right after his sophomore year in high school. He was back at the city where we landed in 1948. He did not go through the last two grades of high school, but the first year in Chicago was the equivalent of that plus some more courses. In four years of study, he received his B.A. and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. As his intention was to become a college professor, he applied for the Woodrow Wilson scholarship and was awarded that one, too. He went from Chicago straight to Harvard.

 

I, myself, was thinking what I could do to help financially as the other two children were soon to be of college age. My first job was offered to me in a social agency for the foreign-born. A wife of a local physician, Mrs. Betty Klimow, suggested to Mrs. Lee that she hire me. Mrs. Lee led the agency called not too appropriately the American Civic Association (that name did not say anything about being for the foreign-born). The work was part-time, five afternoons in the Binghamton office, and one Saturday morning in the Endicott office. My duties were to provide and coordinate programs for the members. The programs were partly educational, partly entertaining. Members were to show their skills, for example, in playing their native instruments. Other times I was to arrange the ceremonies while applicants became citizens of the USA. Other programs included the local, non-member talents, like the Italians performing excerpts from their operas. Yearly dinners showed the skills of foreign-born in the preparation of their native dishes. The yearly Folk Festival showed their dancing skills. Much good food was sold during those festivities.

 

It was an interesting type of work but the job was only part-time and did not develop into a permanent employment. I decided to look into teaching. Remember the time when I was to sit in Hana's kindergarten for a month while she was getting adjusted to a school and a new language? At that time, I spent a lot of time helping out the kindergarten teacher. While doing this I learned a lot about the techinque of teaching little ones.

 

By making visits to Albany to learn what would be required of me to qualify for a teaching certificate, I presented proofs of what education courses I had at home. It had been decided in Albany that I study for another Master's degree. It was true that I already had a PhD, but American Universities want their teachers to have degrees from their own colleges. It was pointed out to me that soon all teachers in New York State would be required to have a Master's degree in order to be able to continue teaching. On this advice, I started to take courses at Syracuse University to begin my certification process. That first course took two months. I lived with the Lehmans, our old friends. In those days, it was believed that it was not necessary to have factual knowledge, but to cultivate in all children attitudes to life and to learning. I remember seeing a poster on the wall of the school. This poster showed a schoolboy who had been overloaded with learning facts and whose head, in consequence, was bloated out of proportion. Stress was not on what to teach but on how to teach to make a "well-rounded person".

 

Having not so long ago come from Europe where learning facts is held in such esteem and where a well-educated person was supposed to be exposed to a lot of knowledge, this point of view was hard to understand. It did not take too many years to see that trend reversed. It just took the Sputnik to change educators' minds. The generation of well-rounded personalities had to be shown that other nations had outrun them. In our old country we believed that in order to be able to make generalizations, a certain amount of acquired knowledge was necessary. To run for an encylopedia whenever one needs information was inadequate. You should have some information at your fingertips, all ready for use.

 

After the first two months of learning teaching methods in Syracuse, I got my first teaching job in Union Center. It was a rural school situated north of Endicott. For transportation, I depended on other teachers whose homes were in Endicott. On my way home I was allowed to use the school bus, which took me to the town of Union from which I proceeded home on foot. At that particular time Otík had some heart trouble and was not allowed to walk much. He was told not to walk up any steps. We did have a car then but it was imperative that Otík use it.

 

Teaching the kindergarten class in Union Center was pleasant work. At the age of five to six, children still think of you as a second mother. After a while the superintendent, Mr. Andersen, arranged for me to have a piano in my room, and the children and I had many happy hours singing together or doing exercises to music. The children were to be at school all day. We ate lunch together and the children had to take a nap afterwards. Most were cooperative. Yet there was also a boy whose father was a religious fanatic and who was not allowed to take part in any pleasurable activities. Another boy came from a different religious sect which forbade the children to have their hair cut. By mistake I once wanted to stroke his head to show him that I was pleased with him. His hair was unbelievably greasy. I had to withdraw my hand fast. I came across this particular boy's name years later. He had been incarcerated in the Attica prison and during the uprising there, he had been killed.

 

I stayed at this school for three years after which I applied for a position in Endicott as I had some problems with getting transportation to Union Center. It seemed much easier to be able to teach close to home. I did receive an appointment at the George H. Nichols School, first as kindergarten teacher, later for three years as fourth grade and finally as fifth grade teacher. Teaching fourth graders was the easiest of the three. At the age of 10, the children still mind you and at the same time are able to do some independent work. In kindergarten, there is the problem of children's adjustment to being away from home. The following two summers I took further educational course work at Cortland State Teachers College. I graduated from Cortland in 1957 with a degree of Master of Science. That was 20 years after I received my PhD from Charles University in 1937.

 

It did not seem too strenuous to do the work at school. I liked the children and I made some new programs for them, e.g., urging them to do mental arithmetic. This idea of mine caught on and the principal urged the other teachers to do the same. I asked the fourth graders to write a short resume of the books they borrowed from the library. There were no demands that the resumes be long or all-embracing. The idea behind it was that the children think of selecting wisely the books they would really like to read and that they could understand. That decision had a beneficial result: the children stopped borrowing whole large volumes of material that would never have been read anyway. They looked at the books as something which would give them real information, real interest, and usefulness.

 

I also made them enjoy some homework in arithmetic and it became a privilege to be selected to make up homework for the classes. One "free" soul even wrote poetry. The children really enjoyed being in school and doing their work. Be it said that most of the students were rather talented, although they were not selected on that principle. G. H. Nichols School was situated in a new development of homes whose owners were middle class people with a good income. We did have a few who were exceptions, but they were a small number and could be managed.

 

My work pleased me but I did not realize how much energy it took out of me. At the age of 50, all that I had been through came back complicated with physical problems. Beginning with Christmas in 1960 and continuing especially in the winter of 1961, I collapsed and had to stop teaching. Two years before, I had a complete hysterectomy, which exhausted me. I was in my middle years. I was exhausted from strenuous teaching, doing more for the children than the others had done. And as my physician, Dr. Václavík, told me, the fact that we had to go through the trauma of having to leave home forever had finally caught up with me. I had to spend four months in bed at home and, to my grief, was not able to return to teaching.

 

Otík's work was probably even more strenuous than mine. Besides his regular teaching hours, he also took it upon himself to teach evening classes at the college. Our daughters were about to attend college and we needed more funds. He thought he could manage it. On top of it all, he had been working on an idea which originated already in Prague and which interested him very much: He was intrigued by the idea that so many actions and thoughts of people are done unconsciously. His preliminary work had been started at home, but when he submitted it for publication, his work roused much opposition. Troubles in publishing were mounting. He did not want to think of it until much later. Marxists of the Communist persuasion were very much opposed to any studies done about unconscious workings of the mind. This was the prerogative of the extreme left, notably the Communists. They exert a lot of influence over their subjects by working on the unconscious and subconscious themselves. Even such preliminary studies as Otík had been conducting were to be suppresed. The subconscious was to be influenced by themselves!

 

In the USA, Otík finally had the time and opportunity to continue this work. He had previously taken with him a few of his ideas on paper and started working on them again. Yet he found that this required more and more study as social psychology was greatly advanced in the USA. He had to read a lot of books new to him. That took a few years. Doing research on the workings of human memory took additional time. All in all, Otík spent ten years working on his favorite subject. This took a tremendous toll on his strength. He was getting weaker and weaker and finally developed TB. He had to be cured. He had to limit himself to teaching only day courses and to take shots regularly. He was allowed to teach by the Health Department, provided he adhered to a strict regime. Within a year he was cured. No TB bacillus was found in his lungs.

 

The publishing company, The Philosophical Library, published his book under the title: The Unconscious in Social Relations. The book almost cost him his health but it did bring recognition from authorities. It also brought a better financial remuneration. It gave us all a lot of satisfaction but also an apprehension about what a price he might eventually have had to pay.

 

Let me add here that most of the book dealt with theories which needed statistical confirmation. When Otík was better, he continued on this problem. It took another two years but by that time Otík was not under pressure and could work more slowly. He had already been much weakened, but he continued working on this subject. By the spring of 1970, he was able to finish the statistical proof of his theories. A week before he died, he finished typing his work, at last satisfied with it. By that time he felt he would not be able to see it published, but he did not have to tell me anything. He knew that I would see to it that it was published, which I did a year later. Pavel helped me by editing it.

 

Let me explain what kind of relationship a European wife has to the scientific and other work of her husband's. The "Three Young Sociologists", Ullrich, Mertl, and Machotka, met often to discuss problems of "Empirical Sociology" (based on experience, not on theorizing). They became fast friends, personal as well as scientific. On a couple of occasions, they discussed what would be an ideal wife for them. They came to the conclusion that she would have to be like the widow of the German sociologist, Max Weber. An excellent lecturer and a brilliant mind, Weber never bothered to write down his ideas in full. In continental Europe some professors have been able to have their lectures published. Not so Max Weber. All that he allowed himself to do to help his memory was to put down brief points in his material of the day to follow while lecturing. After his death, his pupils clamored to have access to his lectures but all there was were the titles of chapters. Yet the devoted wife, Mrs. Weber, was so familiar with her husband's thoughts and opinions, that she was able to write down all his ideas as fully as possible and have them published.

 

This was an ideal wife for our three sociologists. None of us wives were near that ideal. Bláža Ullrich was an anthropologist. Helen Mertl had no scientific ambitions, and I myself was trained as a literary historian. We were knowledgeable of our husbands' thoughts, but not to the extent Mrs. Weber had been. Even though I was not able to do more, I at least had my husband's unpublished work brought to life posthumously. I owed him that much. The title of the book was very similar to the first book: Unconscious Processes in Social Life. It was sent as a supplement to the first book to the 200 University Libraries that had bought the first book.

 

The last years of Otík's life meant that he had to take better care of his health. He tried to work as usual, but it became more of a strain. Not until later did I realize what an effort he had to make to be able to work as usual. Also for the last 20 years he had been writing short stories dealing with his observations of life both at home and in exile. In 1968, he published, in Czech, some two dozen short stories of events as he remembered them. They dealt partly with events back at home, with our life in Prague, with some unforgettable characters, with some events during World War II, with problems immigrants face, with some human follies, observations of animal life, nostalgia and homesickness, followed by socio-cultural comments on general and personal topics like his deeply felt grief about losing the mastery of his mother tongue. In all these stories he proved to be a tolerant and humanistic observer of human nature. The book gained great admiration among our fellow exiles. After his death, I decided to publish an English translation adding two stories he wrote after 1968. The book was published by Vantage Press in 1985.

 

Otík was also subject to frequent bouts of the flu. He managed to overcome them but they became more frequent as time went by. At one time he even came down with meningitis. Frequently, he was on a diet, often of different kinds, as different illnesses attacked his system. Twice he recovered from a bout with TB. He had recuperative strength. His fragile health did not dampen his spirit, though. He was very imaginative and his mind was always full of new ideas. That is what made life with him so very interesting. He was always able to tell me something new which came to his mind. Although he had minor pains most of the time, he did not complain. That is how we did not know when he became fatally ill. As he had had back pains most of his life, he did not pay much attention to the last one. Most of the time I knew that he was not feeling well, but now, in my old age, do I realize how much he must have been bothered by his frequent illnesses.

 

On July 4th, 1970, he felt that his pains were getting worse. His physician sent him to the hospital where tests taken the same day (a holiday) did not show any major problems. Yet the pains persisted and he was asking for more and stronger pain killers. I asked his doctor to conduct more tests. The new ones showed an enlarged liver which proved to be cancerous. Soon it was evident that cancer spread to other organs and that there was no hope of recovery. I was allowed to take him home with me. Although he was not told of his condition, he guessed it. Three days before his death, he finished typing his manuscript about Unconscious Processes. The next day he told me: "I think that this is the end!" I tried to convince him it was not so, but he did not say anything. He had been given strong pain killers which made him drowsy.

 

The next day, July 29, he woke up at 5 AM and mumbled something. I asked whether he wanted a drink of his favorite camomile tea and he said yes. He lay down again. I thought he fell asleep. Soon after I did not hear him breathing. I got up, turned the light on and saw he had passed away.

 

Many of his colleagues came to his funeral. Pavel and Hana flew in from the West, Georgia and her family flew in from Germany where Will, Georgia's husband, had been teaching. His body was cremated in hopes that some day, when the usurpers are gone, the ashes will be brought home to our country. In the meantime, his ashes have been placed in a niche at the Bohemian National Cemetery in Chicago. (Editor's note: his ashes were transferred to the Slavín Cemetery in Prague on May 5, 1995, on the 40th anniversary of the Prague Uprising.) Many of our friends from our country are interred there. All bore the same hope of someday their ashes will be taken back home. My ashes will be there, too, some day.

 

Because of Otík's good looks and good mind, he was thought to be in good health most of the time. Such was not the case. Since I came to know him, I was aware of some of his problems. He had arthritic pains early in life. His digestion was not good due to a nervous condition. Both his parents had problems digesting food and fought against it by drinking bitter teas. What most of them did not realize was that this inability was directly connected with a nervous condition. Outwardly the family was keeping their problems under wraps. Some people react by letting the others know of their nervousness; others keep it within themselves. Many such people suffer with a "nervous stomach." That was Otík's and his parents' cases. His brother Mírek gave frequent vent to his nervousness. Only his sister Lída seemed to have had good nerves.

 

What kind of a man was Otík and how different were we from each other? By training, Otík was a very polite and considerate man. I was more unconventional. He approached everything with deliberation. I was more impulsive. He knew how to avoid mistakes and how to "do things right." I made plenty of mistakes. He worked at a steady pace, I was just the opposite. With his penchant for logic, he usually came to the right conclusion. From his mother he inherited a tendency to perfection. I lacked that quality. And yet, we had a lot in common. We had the same goals. We wanted to prepare a better future for our children; we valued good education above other possibilities for our children; we had an unbounded admiration for good scientific work; we both loved music and each of us played an instrument; we loved poetry and good literature; we started collecting books for our retirement. After Otík's death, I continued and now my library is my most beloved possession. We were not bigots. We believed in hard work. We did not spend money on needless entertainment. We had great respect for a strong family life. We even resembled each other in that we were not physically strong.

 

Of all Otík's qualities, three had the deepest influence on me. His ability to think strictly in logical terms was of great benefit to me. Before I met him, my thinking was a little haphazard. Because of his power of self-control, I was able to stop being irritated by minor problems and to save my anger for important events, if they were of such nature. And I drew a lot of comfort from his innate optimism. Even during the desparate times of Nazi occupation he was able to show some degree of optimism while everyone else was despairing, and there seemed to be no reason to hope for a change. Otík believed in the final defeat of Nazism and usually reacted to their acts with outrage or deep disgust.

 

From me Otík learned something, too. He accepted enjoyment of certain things which his strict Protestant upbringing took to be unnecessary. Where he put stress on proper form, he accepted my stress on the content. He loved to draw, although he did not have time for it. I have no talent in this area. Pavel and Hana inherited this gift which originated on Otík's father's side. He loved to play the violin, I played the piano. Sometimes we played duets. Unfortunately, none of our grandchildren,and of our children only Pavel, take any musical instrument seriously. Georgia inherited Otík's ability to organize things well and efficiently without anyone being aware of the directing. The Protestant ethic is noticeable even in our grandchildren, especially in their willingness to study hard and to achieve something. Never did we mention this to the children directly as our family's value. They learned by example. Vladimír's carefree, careless and sometimes foolish ways are, luckily, not present in our offspring. Yet we must not forget that necessity is a great teacher. We came to this country when we were pushed by a dictatorship to the very bottom and had to work ourselves back up. The children learned to work hard along with us.

 

Otík's slight figure was that of his father, his good looks that of his mother. Who of his father's ancestors had the talent to draw? And who of his mother's ancestors, besides her father, was so good-looking? Who had the moral courage that Otík inherited? Who loved music? Who, besides his father, loved to walk long stretches? Who was conciliatory, who was humane? Who, before his mother, like to do things just right? We know so very little about our ancestors. Did anyone of them have Otík's real gift of elocution and writing, as he had shown so well in his short stories? His political party valued his speeches so highly that he was considered to be the best speaker. Any of his books, articles, and stories are testimony to this particular talent. He could describe human emotions better than some other authors. In his scientific work, he was very precise. He always could find the right word, whether in science or belle-lettres.

 

He did a lot for people who asked for his help and although he had sometimes been taken advantage of, he never abandoned his principles. He could not be corrupted. That was why both the dictatorships, which in our country had twisted some characters, hated him and tried to get rid of him. The Nazis tried to imprison him, the Communists were preparing a court action against him, as an "intellectual who has failed." He did not always meet with gratitude. Because of his well-known good nature and because there was no fear of retaliation, some of his critics twisted his work so that they could unjustly accuse him. Some were small enough to stick to their unfair opinions, yet some later apologized. He never expressed any grudge.

 

Many of our offspring can rightfully be proud of his courage during the Nazi regime. He truly risked his life then. He very nearly came close to being sent to prison and possibly tortured or even losing his life had his real activities been known. Dr. Oberschall, a Sudeten German, who was in charge of the Statistical Bureau during the war, had serious doubts about Otík's "loyalty" and denounced him to the Sicherheitsdienst. This service interrogated most of Otík's coworkers and one day an agent came to interrogate me. This was done in our home in front of the children. The agent asked many questions which went as far back as our trip the USA in 1934-35! Evidently the Nazis had been keeping dossiers on certain people whom they did not trust even before Hitler made his move against Europe. This interrogation took place in 1943. The agent came to the house personally to see what kind of household it would turn out to be, what could be seen there and what I, as a wife, might "blurt out." There were some American Indian artifacts all around, pottery, a small totem pole, rugs, arrows, and such. The agent, a Sudeten German, who could speak good Czech, especially wanted to know about Otík's membership in IOOF. As that is a secret society I did not know almost anything about it. In any case, the Sicherheitsdienst man did not learn much from me due chiefly to the fact that at that time I knew nothing about the significance of this particular secret service which was more important than the dreaded Gestapo. Otík and I discussed his visit later and assumed that the charges were probably dropped. What the Sicherheitsdienst was not aware of was Otík's contact with our London Government through Dr. Bondy, who was later seized and executed. Otík had a very close call. When I asked him how would he be able to stand real interrogation, he said that he would rather accept a death penalty but that he could not stand torture.

 

In the early years of our relationship, even before we were married, Otík very much liked and appreciated my attitude toward new challenges. He loved the way I approached every new opportunity with a lot of enthusiasm. He coined a new name for me: He called me "Huráš" (pronounced Hurrash). He continued to call me this until the arrival of our children when more "dignified" names had to be used. European parents do not call each other by their first names in front of the children. They call each other "mother" and "father."

 

As one comes to the end of one's days, one likes to think of both the good and sad things in life. Otík and I had many good days. The greatest tragedy for us and for our friends was, of course, having to live under two dictatorships. When we had to make the decision to leave home forever, we experienced the greatest shock of our lives from which we have recovered only partly. No matter how hospitable your new country, we never could feel again "at home." We never really did adjust 100%. We occasionally looked for the way of life we had known and which did not exist any more. As the years went by, Otík's optimism slowly disappeared. Our fellow expatriates were dying and there were fewer and fewer of us. Otík was getting physically weaker until the cancer took his life at the age of 70. I had to go on without him. Yet I had his work to remember and my memories of our life to sustain me. What he had been hoping for during all these years of exile, freedom in our country, never came in his lifetime.