Karel says that the idea to leave Czechoslovakia had been germinating for a while, due to his treatment at university and his hope for his daughters to have a better life. But, he says, he was waiting for a ‘safe chance’ to move his family. In January 1968, he traveled to San Antonio, Texas, with the western touring company of Laterna Magika for HemisFair ’68. Following the Warsaw Pact invasion in August 1968, Karel traveled back to Prague for a short visit, during which time he and his wife made a ‘quick decision’ that the family would leave the country. After he returned to the United States, Karel sent his wife an affidavit and she began securing visas and passports. In late December 1968, his wife and daughters traveled to England to stay with his sister for one month. They arrived in Dallas, Texas, on January 25, 1969. The family found a small apartment in the Highland Park neighborhood of Dallas and Karel found a job in construction. In 1971, he found employment at the Venetian Room in the Fairmont Hotel as a light and sound designer, while also working nights as a janitor. After 12 years, he became head electrician at the Hotel Anatole, also in Dallas. In 1999, Karel and his wife retired and moved back to Prague. Vlasta died in 2005 and Karel returned to the United States. He currently lives in Chicago with his daughter Yvette and her husband, Tim.
]]>Karel Kaiser was born in Domažlice in 1932 and grew up in nearby Kdyně. In 1938, he moved to Prague with his father and two older sisters – Karel’s mother had died shortly prior to the move. Upon graduation from high school, he studied architecture at Charles University for one year, but was then expelled because of his father’s position as a self-employed tailor. During a brigáda [work brigade] in Ostrava, where he was employed as a builder, Karel met his future wife, Vlasta, who was working as a secretary. The couple moved back to Prague, married and had two daughters, Miroslava and Iveta (who later Americanized her name to Yvette). Karel began his career in theatre as a writer, but soon transitioned into the technical arts, working on sound, lighting, and set design. At Divadlo Na zábradlí he worked with Václav Havel and, while at D 34 (now known as Divadlo Archa), Karel met Josef Svoboda, a renowned architect and scenographer. In 1959, Svoboda invited Karel to join his Laterna Magika project, a non-verbal theatre which had enjoyed great international success the previous year at Expo ’58 in Brussels. Working as a theatre technician for Laterna Magika’s eastern touring company, Karel traveled extensively throughout the Eastern Bloc, visiting Hungary, Poland, and the Soviet Union.
Karel says that the idea to leave Czechoslovakia had been germinating for a while, due to his treatment at university and his hope for his daughters to have a better life. But, he says, he was waiting for a ‘safe chance’ to move his family. In January 1968, he traveled to San Antonio, Texas, with the western touring company of Laterna Magika for HemisFair ’68. Following the Warsaw Pact invasion in August 1968, Karel traveled back to Prague for a short visit, during which time he and his wife made a ‘quick decision’ that the family would leave the country. After he returned to the United States, Karel sent his wife an affidavit and she began securing visas and passports. In late December 1968, his wife and daughters traveled to England to stay with his sister for one month. They arrived in Dallas, Texas, on January 25, 1969. The family found a small apartment in the Highland Park neighborhood of Dallas and Karel found a job in construction. In 1971, he found employment at the Venetian Room in the Fairmont Hotel as a light and sound designer, while also working nights as a janitor. After 12 years, he became head electrician at the Hotel Anatole, also in Dallas. In 1999, Karel and his wife retired and moved back to Prague. Vlasta died in 2005 and Karel returned to the United States. He currently lives in Chicago with his daughter Yvette and her husband, Tim.
“All this time, 40 years, theatre was a hiding place for people like Havel. Matter of fact, I worked with Havel. We worked together in a little theatre called Na zábradlí.”
What kind of work did you do together?
“We did everything, because this was a little theatre and it was funny, this theatre was founded as a co-op. They didn’t get any money from the state or the government. We did all the manual [labor]. Actors did it. Everybody worked at what had to be done.”
“I started working in the D 34 theatre [today’s Divadlo Archa] which was a Communist theatre, highly Communist – the repertoire, but not people. I met architect [Josef] Svoboda. He was the main designer for the National Theatre and he created Laterna Magika. So he asked me if I wanted to go work with him; this was ’59. I was probably the first technical employee practically in Laterna. I worked with the directors [Alfred] Radok, Miloš Forman. After a few years, theatre was popular, so State Film took over, new management, new Communist management. So Radok got fired, Miloš Forman got fired…”
“For me it wasn’t too bad because I was traveling. I spent with theatre, from ’58 to ’68 – I was most of the time out of the country. I was in Poland twice, in Russia twice. In Russia, I was there a year and a half. To Bulgaria; I was in Hungary twice. Paris, one month in ’67. Paris was a jump to Miami.”
Immediately after the end of the War in 1945, Joseph was drafted into the Czechoslovak Army, which he says was ‘a joke,’ as there were neither guns nor uniforms for any of the troops. He was told he could train for the police force instead, which he duly went to Prague to do and was accepted into the police academy. He rose through the ranks of until he became a deputy chief of unit, and was sent to Domažlice (on the West German border) to work as a border guard there. Around the time of the Communist coup in 1948, Joseph says he was asked to join the Communist Party, and when he refused he was demoted. He subsequently received an anonymous phone call saying that orders had been issued to arrest him the following day. He escaped while on duty at the border, in April 1948. Joseph spent over a year in refugee camps in West Germany; he was housed in the Goethe Schule in Regensburg before being shipped eventually to Ludwigsburg.
In 1949, he was sponsored by some distant relatives on his father’s side to come to South Dakota and work on their farm. He did that for less than one year before moving to Chicago, where he found work in a factory making fire-proof doors. He was drafted into the U.S. Army in 1951 and sent to Heidelberg, Germany, for two years. During this time, says Joseph, he competed on behalf of his unit (the 62nd Anti-Aircraft Division) at the ski championships at Garmisch Partenkirchen. He says he has ‘fond memories’ of his time in the Army, but was eager to return to Chicago to marry his wife, Rose. He was married in 1954 and has four children, all of whom speak Czech. Joseph worked as a superintendant at a number of factories in the Chicago area until his retirement, and has presided over a number of local and national Czech organizations, such as the Czechoslovak National Council of America and the District Alliance of Czech Catholics. He hopes to visit Europe with his grandson in 2011.
]]>Joseph Pritasil was born in Miřetice, eastern Bohemia, in 1925. He was one of seven children raised on a farm by his father, Antonin, and mother, Anežka. Joseph says he had to walk three and a half miles to school on a daily basis and, on Sunday, the family walked the same path to the nearest town to attend church. After receiving his basic education, Joseph attended metal-working school and, from 1942 until the end of WWII, he worked in a local factory as a machinist.
Immediately after the end of the War in 1945, Joseph was drafted into the Czechoslovak Army, which he says was ‘a joke,’ as there were neither guns nor uniforms for any of the troops. He was told he could train for the police force instead, which he duly went to Prague to do and was accepted into the police academy. He rose through the ranks of until he became a deputy chief of unit, and was sent to Domažlice (on the West German border) to work as a border guard there. Around the time of the Communist coup in 1948, Joseph says he was asked to join the Communist Party, and when he refused he was demoted. He subsequently received an anonymous phone call saying that orders had been issued to arrest him the following day. He escaped while on duty at the border, in April 1948. Joseph spent over a year in refugee camps in West Germany; he was housed in the Goethe Schule in Regensburg before being shipped eventually to Ludwigsburg.
In 1949, he was sponsored by some distant relatives on his father’s side to come to South Dakota and work on their farm. He did that for less than one year before moving to Chicago, where he found work in a factory making fire-proof doors. He was drafted into the U.S. Army in 1951 and sent to Heidelberg, Germany, for two years. During this time, says Joseph, he competed on behalf of his unit (the 62nd Anti-Aircraft Division) at the ski championships at Garmisch Partenkirchen. He says he has ‘fond memories’ of his time in the Army, but was eager to return to Chicago to marry his wife, Rose. He was married in 1954 and has four children, all of whom speak Czech. Joseph worked as a superintendant at a number of factories in the Chicago area until his retirement, and has presided over a number of local and national Czech organizations, such as the Czechoslovak National Council of America and the District Alliance of Czech Catholics. He hopes to visit Europe with his grandson in 2011.
“We were drafted into the Army. Three of us [two friends and I] were eligible so we went to the Army. And we went to the Army, which didn’t have any guns, any uniforms or nothing, it was just a joke. There was one sergeant up there, who woke us up in the morning and we ran around – but that was just for one week. Then they told us that they are forming some police force in Prague, and that we would be eligible to join that. So I says ‘okay,’ so I offered to join. But we had to go to Prague and I was the one who passed, the other two didn’t pass, I had the highest education.”
“I – as the officer of a unit – I was immediately suspended and put down among the troops. And there was a new guy who took my place, Fred Kužel, who didn’t know how to write a služební lístek [office memo], if you know what that is. I did all the administrative jobs myself. So, we went around and around, and everything continues. And then one day, one day I got a telephone call from I don’t know where, and a voice says ‘Pepík, is that you?’ I said yes. He said ‘Tomorrow morning at 8 they’re coming to arrest you.’ So that sort of jerked me up a little bit, you know?”
“At night we went on duty. And there was a little hill, and down at the bottom there was a creek and a flour mill. And so I says ‘You know, you guys, I want to go down and see if there is somebody, if I can catch somebody, down by the mill.’ So I went back there, nobody followed me, nobody looked where I was going. Well, I came to the mill, I looked around, nobody was following me, nobody was calling. So I just – being a good Christian – I made my cross on my forehead and crossed the border.”
“When I was in the Army, I also joined the ski troops and I wound up in the 1953 Olympics [sic. International Ski Championships in Garmisch Partenkirchen]. I was not that good, you know. Because I went down the hill, in Garmisch Partenkirchen, and something came into my ski and I flipped over and they carried me out of there.”
So while you were in the Army, you also went to the Olympics?
“Oh yeah, that was in the Army. I was representing the Army there. So they took me to the hospital and there wasn’t anything broken, just a sprain. So they took me in and patched me up, and the next day, there were games going on, so they took me in an ambulance and drove me right to the field where they have the exercises for the Olympics. So, I had a beautiful, beautiful view up there.”
Bruno crossed into Germany with two friends near Klenčí pod Čerchovem, western Bohemia, on October 20, 1951. His group was escorted by German police to the town of Cham, where they spent several nights in prison. Bruno and his friends were subsequently sent to Straubing for five days and then on to Valka Lager refugee camp near Nuremburg. Bruno remembers the bedbugs in particular at Valka Lager camp and says of the whole experience: ‘You have no idea how bad that was.’ After almost immigrating to Brazil in 1952, Bruno decided to join the U.S. Army. He served between 1952 and 1957, completing basic training at Fort Eustis, Virginia, and then traveling to Austria, where he was stationed as a member of the 516th Signal Company. Upon discharge from the Army in 1957, Bruno settled in Cleveland, where he knew some people from his time in German refugee camps. He became an American citizen the following year. Bruno met his future wife Zdenka Necasek on a trip to Czechoslovakia to see his family in 1972. The pair spent a couple of weeks together before deciding they would marry and that Zdenka would come to live in Cleveland. Preparations for their wedding were complicated when Zdenka was refused an exit visa to visit Bruno in the United States, and Bruno was repeatedly refused permission to enter Czechoslovakia. In the end, the process took four years and the pair were married by proxy, with Zdenka’s lawyer standing in for Bruno at the wedding service. Today, Bruno and Zdenka have two children, who both speak Czech. Bruno is now retired from a career in telecommunications and lives with Zdenka in Seven Hills, Ohio.
]]>Bruno Necasek was born in Semily, northern Bohemia, in July 1932. Both of his parents, Marie and Karel, worked as laborers in textile factories in the region. His parents got divorced when Bruno was still very young, and he was assigned to his father’s care, which he says was somewhat unusual at that period. During WWII, Bruno’s father left home to work in Vrchlabí, and so his paternal grandmother took charge of raising him and ‘making ends meet.’ Growing up, Bruno says his home had no electricity, and he remembers completing his homework by carbide lamp-light and making battery-powered radios to listen to at home. In 1949, Bruno moved to Liberec to study at the town’s textile school, where he says he got into trouble for hanging pictures of former Presidents Masaryk and Beneš on his dorm room wall. Upon graduation two years later, he began working as a statistician in a cotton mill, where, among other duties, he was involved in working on the mill’s five year plan. He emigrated in October 1951 when his supervisor at work warned him that, on account of his ‘political unreliability,’ he may be sent to a mine should his employers find someone else to fill his position.
Bruno crossed into Germany with two friends near Klenčí pod Čerchovem, western Bohemia, on October 20, 1951. His group was escorted by German police to the town of Cham, where they spent several nights in prison. Bruno and his friends were subsequently sent to Straubing for five days and then on to Valka Lager refugee camp near Nuremburg. Bruno remembers the bedbugs in particular at Valka Lager camp and says of the whole experience: ‘You have no idea how bad that was.’ After almost immigrating to Brazil in 1952, Bruno decided to join the U.S. Army. He served between 1952 and 1957, completing basic training at Fort Eustis, Virginia, and then traveling to Austria, where he was stationed as a member of the 516th Signal Company. Upon discharge from the Army in 1957, Bruno settled in Cleveland, where he knew some people from his time in German refugee camps. He became an American citizen the following year. Bruno met his future wife Zdenka Necasek on a trip to Czechoslovakia to see his family in 1972. The pair spent a couple of weeks together before deciding they would marry and that Zdenka would come to live in Cleveland. Preparations for their wedding were complicated when Zdenka was refused an exit visa to visit Bruno in the United States, and Bruno was repeatedly refused permission to enter Czechoslovakia. In the end, the process took four years and the pair were married by proxy, with Zdenka’s lawyer standing in for Bruno at the wedding service. Today, Bruno and Zdenka have two children, who both speak Czech. Bruno is now retired from a career in telecommunications and lives with Zdenka in Seven Hills, Ohio.
“You know, I always had a knack for it because I built… we called them crystal sets, I guess they had them here too. The place where I grew up, we didn’t have electricity, so crystal doesn’t require electricity. And I built my own battery – you can take a beer bottle and wind a piece of string around it dipped in, it had to be dipped in alcohol, and you burnt it off, after you burn it off you have to pour cold water on it and snap it, and that thing would be perfect, so that’s how I made my own batteries. And from there I could power something a little more powerful than a crystal radio, but yeah, I always monkeyed around with this, it was my forte, so to say, my cup of tea.”
“I do remember bananas before the War came. And I didn’t see bananas again until I got to Germany in 1951. The first thing I bought there was bananas, honest to god! Because I remembered the taste, I remembered what they looked like, but we couldn’t buy them. They were not available during the War and after the War either. So, six years after the War I ended up in Germany and I still remembered the bananas from 1938, before the War.”
“Domažlice is about three or four stops from the border, but we figured that that was what they call the border zone. And we figured we didn’t want to risk it because in order to get in the border zone you had to have a special permit, okay? This is before the border was fortified, the border zone in some places would be pretty wide. In some places it was narrower, but then when they fortified the border, meaning they put the barbed wire fence there and plowed the fields, then they didn’t care, they could let you go up to the border or pretty close. But up til that time, no they wouldn’t. So, in ’51 we were pretty lucky, they didn’t have the barbed wire fence up, they had a guard with a dog, that would be one guard and one dog, but we were lucky that the wind was coming from Germany to us, so the dog didn’t sniff us. Every once in a while they would leave the place, we were sitting there about two hours, right on the border before we crossed. Because then, I think it was about 1:00, 12 or 1:00, I’m not sure which, he left his area of patrol, so to say, where they went through the motions of changing the guard, so right behind their backs we went down, it was just downhill, you know. So we were in Germany.
“But even there, because we had heard stories that sometimes that sometimes they put the border ahead of it or that the Germans would return the escapees back to the Czechs, you know. So we were looking through the paper that was there on the road and it was German. Okay, so we’re in Germany, we knew that. But the Germans when they interviewed us – and that interview, mind you, that took a long time – I remember from, it was dark already when we left the police station. But they were nice, they offered us cigarettes and they fed us, and the guy took us to the restaurant for supper. He had a rifle, and I couldn’t speak German, not that well, but my buddy spoke almost perfect German. Anyway, the guy says ‘You’re not going to go anyplace are you? I would have to shoot.’ ‘No, we’re not.’ So, he put the rifle in the corner, you know, and just sat down with us.”
“The bedbugs, one guy could lie amongst them and they wouldn’t bother him – that was Lukeš, with the glass eye – the other one, Fišera, he would scratch himself so bad he had open sores. And I tell you, they know where to attack, like where your meat is soft over here. My ears in the morning would be like this, except I didn’t scratch myself as much as he did. And we had tepláky, which is like a sweat suit, sweats – we’d tie it here, tie this, and powder our faces and hands with DDT powder. Well yeah, that’s the only thing there was. And bedbugs, it didn’t bother them, they must have been used to it.”
“Well that was funny too, we would talk sometimes on the phone and all of a sudden you could tell the volume going down and… nothing! And letters, there was a couple of letters that got out of the country by a person who was leaving, okay, those letters you could write what you want, otherwise you had to be careful what you wrote.”