Since we could not freely communicate with our families in Czechoslovakia — correspondence with someone from a Western country was enough to attract the attention of the Czech secret police — we found another way. One of the Austrian workers at the gas station was a man named Martin. He was married to a Slovak woman who lived in Bratislava and he drove to Czechoslovakia once in a while to visit her. We paid him to deliver messages to our families and friends in Prague on those trips. He had a beautiful and powerful 4-door MG. When he was driving my sister somewhere in Prague one time, he had to brake suddenly and someone behind him could not stop fast enough and ran into his car. He was not happy about it.

Through Martin we were able to communicate things that could not be put in a letter. For example, Kudibal asked me through Martin to buy tie rod ends for his girlfriend Vera’s old Opel car, since he could not find them anywhere in Czechoslovakia. I bought them and sent them back with Martin. One time my mother sent me a Svickova dish through him. Martin was an important connection to everything we had left behind.