I was meeting Otto Kudibal approximately every other week, until I was drafted into the army in September 1962. We either met at a restaurant for a lunch or dinner, or a coffee shop for coffee and pastries, or at his apartment for tea and some pastries. He told me stories from his life, which I was very interested in. I told him the story of my life, and the difficulty I had communicating with my father. My father was of a age that he could be my grandfather; he grew up in an era predating the communist society, where he held powerful positions. After my father’s 3-year jail sentence in 1948, he could not grasp or relate to the cultural changes that had happened since Communist take over. Kudibal took interest and explained to me how to understand my father, how to avoid clashes, and how to better relate to him. I looked up to Kudibal and considered him to be my very wise, understanding, and important friend.
Otto Kudibal was born July 8, 1918, in Budapest, Hungary and he grew up in Kosice, Slovakia. After he obtained his high school diploma, he worked at a factory for arms in Brno. In 1939, when Germans invaded Czechoslovakia, he and his father left for France, where they joined the French Foreign Legion. Eventually, they were transferred into the Czechoslovakian Army group based in England. He survived the German bombardments of soldiers at Dunkirk, France, where Germans drove whoever remained into the English channel to be picked up by fishermen boats from England. He also talked about being parachuted into either Norway or Normandy, and shot while parachuting. He ended up in the ocean and being picked up by some boat. I forgot the details. He said that he was a leader of a reconnaissance unit in the Czechoslovakian Tank or Mechanized Division.
After the war, in Marianske Lazne, he was the military liaison between the Czechoslovakian and USA army. He had there an incident, when he and some other soldiers forced entry into the Communist Party headquarters, took down Soviet flag and Stalin’s picture. There was a lot of publicity around the incident and also some legal process. During that same period of time, my uncle, who was previously a doctor at some Slovak village during WWII, had been accused by someone that Nazis had obtained some of his patient’s records, indicating who Jewish. Kudibal said that he had destroyed any records which could have been used against my uncle since he knew him to be an honest person and not anti-Semitic.
Kudibal had 2 children born in Marianske Lazne, Roman Kudibal, born in 1947 and Diana Kudibal, born in 1948.
Otto Kudibal was in an army jail the day of the Communist takeover in February 1948. I think it was related to the Marianske Lazne incident, but I am not sure; it could have been for another unrelated incident. The guards knew him and let him escape. They explained what is happening and recommended he goes to West Germany, since after the Communist takeover he would be in deep trouble. Kudibal crossed the border to West Germany and later arranged for his wife and 2 children to cross the border and join him. From West Germany he emigrated to Australia; his wife and 2 children followed him later, after he made enough money for their transportation.
In Australia they had twins, a boy and a girl, born in 1952. Kudibal said they named them after me and my sister, Marian and Jannetta. At that time, I thought it was really cool, until I emigrated to the USA and found out that Marian is a girl’s name in English speaking countries.
Kudibal had many different jobs in Australia and eventually the family settled in Melbourne where he had a real estate agency.
His wife was not very happy in Australia; her mother was still living in Prague. She wanted to go back to live in Czechoslovakia to be with her aging mother. At the end, Otto Kudibal agreed.
They applied for return at the Czech embassy and in 1959 they received permission to come back to Czechoslovakia. Kudibal was aware that he would need to be willing to provide some propaganda interviews with Communist newspapers, which was the condition for his return and being able to live without going to prison in Czechoslovakia.
After being in Czechoslovakia for a few month, according to Kudibal, his wife was courted by some secret policeman. She ended up having an affair with the secret policeman and gave him Kudibal’s passport so that Kudibal could not attempt to leave the country, back to the West. They lived with Kudibal’s wife’s mother. After the passport incident, Kudibal moved out and lived in hotels for a few weeks until he found a room in a shared apartment near Flora in Prague.