Jirka had a wife and a young child back in Prague. She was able to get a permit to go on a CEDOK bus tour to Yugoslavia in August 1966. The secret police let her go since her young son stayed behind in Prague with her parents, so they assumed she would come back. Through Martin, we knew the places the bus tour would stop and on which days.

Jirka did not have a Geneva Convention passport, since he had only economic asylum. In such cases AFCR held the refugee’s Fremdenpass — alien’s passport — in their safe and only gave it to them at the time of final departure from Austria to their emigration country. Jirka, Emil, and I went to see Dr. Adamek and asked him to loan Jirka his passport so he could drive to Yugoslavia and bring his wife back to Austria. Dr. Adamek reluctantly agreed, on the condition that on the same trip Jirka would also bring back a woman Dr. Adamek knew who was in Yugoslavia at the time.

I made false visa stamps into Jirka’s passport for Yugoslavia and a transit visa stamp for Italy, in case he needed to cross into Italy first. I learned how to make stamps from my good friend Pepa Brozek, who was about 5 years older than me and was an architect, very skilled at drawings and lettering. Jirka also had an acquaintance in Austria who was the son of some very wealthy Hungarian, and the son loaned Jirka his Mercedes for the trip.

We expected Jirka back in a couple of days, but 5 days passed and there was no sign of him. After a week we went back to see Dr. Adamek to ask if he could do anything, since he had indicated he had connections with the CIA. Dr. Adamek was very nervous and did not want to have anything to do with it. After a little more than a week, Jirka finally showed up with his wife.

The story was that Jirka had relied on information from young Yugoslavians in the camp about where to cross the border on foot. He parked the Mercedes and they tried to cross on foot, but Yugoslav border guards caught them. They kept his wife in a local jail for a few days and let Jirka go free since he had a passport and pretended to speak only German. At the end they released his wife with a warning that if she was caught again they would hand her over to Czech authorities. That was apparently how Yugoslavians treated Czechs trying to escape in general.

So the next attempt, Jirka put his wife in the trunk and drove through a regular border crossing. The Yugoslavians let him through, but the Austrian border police turned him back since his passport was valid for only one exit from Austria. On the second try at a different crossing it was raining and Jirka told the Austrian border guards he was running out of gas and somehow distracted them enough that they did not pay close attention to his passport and let him through. Because of all this commotion he had no way to retrieve Dr. Adamek’s friend from Yugoslavia.

Jirka and his wife came to stay with me and Emil and another friend, Bohous Fiala, in our apartment in Vienna until they emigrated to Canada. Dr. Adamek was relieved to have them back and get Jirka’s passport locked up in the AFCR safe again. One of his promises for having agreed to loan the passport was that he would arrange emigration papers and a charter flight to Canada for Jirka and his wife within one month. After one month nothing happened. When we confronted Dr. Adamek about the delay it came out that he was afraid to take the passport to the Canadian Embassy to get a visa stamp, since they might notice the false stamps I had made. We spent a week trying to buy another passport of the same type on the black market so we could replace the pages with clean ones, but we did not succeed. At the end, Dr. Adamek did get the Canadian emigration visa stamp by holding the passport open at just the right page.Jirka had a wife and a young child back in Prague. She was able to get a permit to go on a CEDOK bus tour to Yugoslavia in August 1966. The secret police let her go since her young son stayed behind in Prague with her parents, so they assumed she would come back. Through Martin, we knew the places the bus tour would stop and on which days.

Jirka did not have a Geneva Convention passport, since he had only economic asylum. In such cases AFCR held the refugee’s Fremdenpass — alien’s passport — in their safe and only gave it to them at the time of final departure from Austria to their emigration country. Jirka, Emil, and I went to see Dr. Adamek and asked him to loan Jirka his passport so he could drive to Yugoslavia and bring his wife back to Austria. Dr. Adamek reluctantly agreed, on the condition that on the same trip Jirka would also bring back a woman Dr. Adamek knew who was in Yugoslavia at the time.

I made false visa stamps into Jirka’s passport for Yugoslavia and a transit visa stamp for Italy, in case he needed to cross into Italy first. I learned how to make stamps from my good friend Pepa Brozek, who was about 5 years older than me and was an architect, very skilled at drawings and lettering. Jirka also had an acquaintance in Austria who was the son of some very wealthy Hungarian, and the son loaned Jirka his Mercedes for the trip.

We expected Jirka back in a couple of days, but 5 days passed and there was no sign of him. After a week we went back to see Dr. Adamek to ask if he could do anything, since he had indicated he had connections with the CIA. Dr. Adamek was very nervous and did not want to have anything to do with it. After a little more than a week, Jirka finally showed up with his wife.

The story was that Jirka had relied on information from young Yugoslavians in the camp about where to cross the border on foot. He parked the Mercedes and they tried to cross on foot, but Yugoslav border guards caught them. They kept his wife in a local jail for a few days and let Jirka go free since he had a passport and pretended to speak only German. At the end they released his wife with a warning that if she was caught again they would hand her over to Czech authorities. That was apparently how Yugoslavians treated Czechs trying to escape in general.

So the next attempt, Jirka put his wife in the trunk and drove through a regular border crossing. The Yugoslavians let him through, but the Austrian border police turned him back since his passport was valid for only one exit from Austria. On the second try at a different crossing it was raining and Jirka told the Austrian border guards he was running out of gas and somehow distracted them enough that they did not pay close attention to his passport and let him through. Because of all this commotion he had no way to retrieve Dr. Adamek’s friend from Yugoslavia.

Jirka and his wife came to stay with me and Emil and another friend, Bohous Fiala, in our apartment in Vienna until they emigrated to Canada. Dr. Adamek was relieved to have them back and get Jirka’s passport locked up in the AFCR safe again. One of his promises for having agreed to loan the passport was that he would arrange emigration papers and a charter flight to Canada for Jirka and his wife within one month. After one month nothing happened. When we confronted Dr. Adamek about the delay it came out that he was afraid to take the passport to the Canadian Embassy to get a visa stamp, since they might notice the false stamps I had made. We spent a week trying to buy another passport of the same type on the black market so we could replace the pages with clean ones, but we did not succeed. At the end, Dr. Adamek did get the Canadian emigration visa stamp by holding the passport open at just the right page.