One Sunday afternoon, sometimes in March of 1960, the doorbell to our apartment in Prague rang. When I opened the door, there was an impressive figure of man, around 40-years old. He introduced himself as Otto Kudibal and asked to see my father. My father was surprised to see him since they had not see each other since 1948. Kudibal said that he had lived in Australia for the last 10 or so years, and he decided to come back to Czechoslovakia with his wife and 4 children. My father’s reaction was fear because my father had been a political prisoner for 3 years after 1948 and could not understand why anyone would return to Communist Czechoslovakia without working for the secret police. He was afraid that the secret police were trying to set him up. Otto Kudibal was surprised about my father’s situation and explained that he came to see my father to ask for advise and help since my father used to be a high government official. He expected my father to still have a high position and a lot of influence and be able to help him to find a good job.
Continue reading Meeting KudibalKudibal’s Story
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.
Continue reading Kudibal’s StoryThe Plan and What Followed
Kudibal told me many times, after he separated from his wife, that he was planning to “escape” again from Czechoslovakia and go back to live in Melbourne, Australia. He said that if we wanted, he will take my sister and me with him and that after we were in Australia, we would write a book about our experiences in a Communist country.
Continue reading The Plan and What FollowedAn Unexpected Discovery
When my wife and I visited Vera Motlikova in 2018, my wife asked her directly if she and Otto Kudibal ever had any children, and Vera told her no. That is why it came as such a surprise when, in January 2026, out of nowhere, I received a message on Facebook from a woman named Lenka Machackova, who lived in the Czech Republic. She wrote that she had found my story about Otto Kudibal on the internet and that she had a very personal reason for writing to me. She told me she was adopted right after she was born and that only recently did she find out who her biological parents really were: a woman named Vera Motlikova and Otto Kudibal.
The Army
September 1, 1962, I had to report to Prague’s main train station for military transport to the city of Tabor. Every Czech male 19 years old was drafted for 2 years military service. The exceptions were males attending a university – they attended ROTC-like program in the university and after university was completed they were drafted for 6 month military service.
Continue reading The ArmyAfter the Army
After the army, we stayed good friends and we were meeting frequently for drinks, parties and reminiscing about life in the army. I was going through a lot of changes in my life, the death of my father, and making preparations to leave Czechoslovakia. I applied for a group bus tour for one night in Austria and the rest of the time in Yugoslavia and Hungary. Cedok, the government run tourist agency, let me know that the secret service rejected my application. Next day after the rejection, I met with Honza in a restaurant, Na Stare Fare, near where he lived in Prague. After we were served beer, Honza started to visibly shake and he was telling me that the secret police came to him and interrogated him about me. He said that they wanted to know about my feelings on the communist regime, if I became bitter after my father death, they suspect I plan to escape, and stay in Austria during my trip. Honza told me that he did not say anything negative about me, but he is very sure that the secret police knows everything about me and about my intentions.
Continue reading After the ArmyThe Revelation
When I was visiting Prague in 2018, I went to the Archive of Secret Police Files and obtained access to their online files, accessible via ebadatelna.cz web site. Not all files are there, but to my surprise I found the file on Jan Kotva, my friend. He was recruited by Czech army counterintelligence 3 month after we were drafted for the 2 years service to spy specifically on me, and 3 other soldiers. His controlling officer, Captain Josef Uruba, trained him, using his being kicked out of school for the May Day student demonstration, as part of gaining our confidence. He was trained how to watch us to potentially attempt any sabotage. Four of us were specifically named for our “dangerous” political background: in my case, because my father had a high government position and was two times in prison for actions against the communist state; in the case of Ginter Bedrunka, for his uncle being a WWII pilot who stayed in England; in Rudolf (Risa) Wagner’s case, his uncle was thirteen years in prison for actions against the Communist state; and Bohumir Cuhel, for being a Catholic priest. Kotva was reporting on us for the remainder of the two years in the army. He also reported on his own, not ordered to, on one other soldier, Jiri Cerny. The funny thing is, that for his reporting, he received at one point a reward of 50 Kcs, which was like $10.
Continue reading The RevelationStory of Pepa the Spy
Pepa left Czechoslovakia before I did.
The Erb
The Pliszka family coat of arms (erb)
In our family we always called it the erb, which is the Czech word for a coat of arms. Ours was painted on heavy paper and framed like a picture: a shield divided in two, red on the left with a gold arrow laid across it, blue on the right with a gold curved sword; above the shield there was a helmet, with red-and-gold and blue mantling, and an arm holding a sword and an arrow. On top, in German, it carried the name of the family and on the bottom, a reference to a heraldic-genealogical archive in Vienna, at Krügerstrasse number 1009, and my father always pointed to that line as the proof that the erb, and our noble origin, were filed and recorded in Vienna.
Continue reading The ErbBirth and the War Years
I was born on May 11, 1943, in Prague Vinohrady. My parents were renting a nice apartment at Jana Masaryka 14, which had a large, well-kept private backyard that was not common in Prague. My sister Jana was already 2 years old. My father was 48 and my mother was 37; they had married in 1939.
The Good Years
After the war we returned to live in our apartment in Prague, since it was still ours, and my mother reopened Modni Salon Linie right away. Her sister teta Pisty came to work there too, managing about 10 seamstresses, while my mother did the women’s dress designs and patterns herself. We also had an au pair, I think her name was Ela, who helped my mother with me and my sister.
On the Army Train
I have no memory of my father being arrested.
The Backyard of Our Apartment House
When I came back to Prague after my father had been arrested, the apartment itself was still there, but the life around it had changed. The family businesses and the car were gone. My mother sold what could still be sold. My uncle Antonín Valach liquidated his art gallery and gave my mother the money to help her get through that period.
Away from Home
My mother’s first cousin, teta Maruška — Maria Chalupníková, born Knihová — lived in Tvrdošín. Her son was Milan. I was there more than once. My mother sometimes needed somebody else to take care of me for a while. She sometimes had very bad eczema on her arms and had to spend a few weeks in the hospital for treatment, and I do not know whether that was the reason for any particular stay in Tvrdošín.
Father Comes Home
I do not remember my father coming home.
Výčapky
My mother’s sister, teta Gabi, was an elementary school teacher in Výčapky, and her husband, strýc Štefan, was the principal of the school. Their children were Peter and Danka. The family lived in the same building as the school.
Radošina
My mother’s sister, teta Manci, was married to strýc Lóňa, who was a doctor. Their children were Vierka and Janko. After the war they lived in Mariánské Lázně, where Lóňa had his office. After what happened with Kudibal, which I have written about in his story, they moved to Radošina, and there Lóňa was the regional doctor.
Mrs. Polášková
Mrs. Polášková was my room teacher in those years, and she also taught botany. She was slim, gray-haired, and dressed always in black, with a serious expression that never seemed to change. I think she must have been in her fifties, though I could not say for certain. I have some memory of being told her husband had died in the war, but I was never sure of that either. Before what I am about to describe, she had never paid any particular attention to me. I was just another boy in her class.
Continue reading Mrs. PoláškováNinth Grade
In ninth grade I did not fit in, since all my classmates were new to me. The school itself treated me politically the same as everyone else, so that was not the problem. My school was the 14. jedenáctiletá střední škola in Prague 12, on Máchova near Náměstí Míru, and in the school year 1957 to 1958 I was in class 9.a. It was an eleven-year school, and the last three years — ninth, tenth and eleventh grade — were the high school part, so all of the high school material was packed into those three years.
Slovakia with Pepa
After the examinations were over, Pepa had a proposal. We would work in June to earn money, and then in August we would go to Slovakia and hike and hitchhike for the month, sleeping outside, eating what we could find in the fields, and buying only what we had to.
Continue reading Slovakia with PepaTenth and Eleventh Grade
My friend Vojta (Vojtěch) Štefek was heavyset and collected books and old things. Among the things in his family there was an old Colt .45 revolver.
Dušana
Dušana was in a parallel class. We really got to know each other on a ski trip in tenth grade, when Vašek and I ended up with two girls — the other one interested in Vašek, and Dušana interested in me. The four of us joked around together the whole trip.
The Ball and the Maturita
Every high school held a formal ball in the winter of the last year, and mine was no different. Ours was at the Municipal House, near the Powder Tower. There were three ballrooms — two of them had proper big-band orchestras, and a smaller room had a student orchestra playing Dixieland-style jazz. Students from other schools came too; we sold tickets to friends of ours who went to other schools around Prague.
After the Maturita
By the time I had my diploma in hand, Mrs. Uhlířová had already told my mother and me that university was effectively closed to me because of my father’s political record. There was no graduation ceremony like an American one. I had the diploma, and the next question was what I was going to do with it.
My Father’s Second Case
They came for my father a little before four in the morning, and the search that followed went on for hours. I do not remember hearing them arrive, only waking up to the fact that they were already there, moving through the rooms and going through everything we owned.
Jana Kolembářová and the Letter
I met Jana Kolembářová while I was still at AŽD. Pepa had arranged a small party with two girls. Jana was supposed to be part of that evening, but instead of becoming interested in Pepa, she became interested in me.
Leaving Czechoslovakia – April to October 1965
My father was in a bigger room with several beds, but his bed was isolated from the rest so we had some privacy to talk. He was bedridden and visibly frail, but alert. He was almost 70 years old. When the Communists released him from his second imprisonment in 1962, they brought him home on a stretcher. The doctors were predicting he would die within 3 months. He had serious heart and lung damage from tuberculosis he contracted in prison. He had very strong will and he lasted until 1965, even if he was most of the time very sick.
Continue reading Leaving Czechoslovakia – April to October 1965
The First Days in Vienna
The bus departed from Prague around 1 or 2 in the afternoon on October 27, 1965. There were around 30 passengers on the bus, most of them in pairs or small groups who knew each other. I did not know anyone on the bus. My jaw was still swollen from the tooth extraction that morning and I was not very sociable. The whole group traveled on a single collective passport, which was the standard arrangement for these CEDOK bus tours. The only exception were 2 middle-aged doctors on the bus who had their own individual passports.
Traiskirchen
The Traiskirchen camp for refugees was an old army barracks complex, fenced off with a guarded entrance. There were 3-story barracks buildings alongside the street and inside the complex there were other single-story houses. We were taken under guard to the 3rd floor of one of the barracks buildings. The majority of the people who had been interrogated with me in Vienna were placed in the first half of the 3rd floor. Myself and a couple of other new arrivals were taken to the second half, which was isolated from the first half under lock and key. I was assigned a cot in one room and there was a common bathroom for our half of the floor.
Continue reading TraiskirchenAFCR and Dr. Adamek
Everyone in the camp was unhappy with AFCR — they were not very helpful. Mr. Trcka retired or left not long after I arrived. Some Czechs who had emigrated to Canada complained about AFCR operation in Vienna and in January or February 1966 Dr. Jan Adamek came to the camp, introduced himself as the new head of AFCR, and told everyone how he would change everything and make life easier for everyone. He explained that he was a veterinarian — not a medical doctor — that he had been very successful, and he showed us pictures of himself with his Cessna airplane and told us he was closely connected with the CIA. He was basically trying to impress everyone.
Continue reading AFCR and Dr. AdamekFinding Work
The camp wanted everyone to find work outside the camp and not need the food coupons. I was lucky, since one of the guys about my age from the isolated section of the 3rd floor was married and both he and his wife had the same occupational training as I had, as a radio mechanic — which today would be called an electronic technician. His wife, before we were released to the free camp, had somehow found a Czech speaking owner of a small factory in Vienna that assembled radios. The owner offered them jobs and also hired me.
Continue reading Finding WorkMr. Konir
The gas station was owned by a man named Mr. Konir, who spoke Czech fluently. It was near the center of Vienna, though quite a walk from the Baden train station — we called the train to Traiskirchen in Czech “Badenka”, since Baden was the end station. The gas station was in the courtyard of a building block that had 2 exits. There was a room where the gas station attendants waited, and there was an office where Mr. Konir sat in a white coat greeting customers. Next to the office was a car bay with an underground area where the mechanic could do oil changes and work under the car, and next to that was another bay with a drive-on lift and pressure water hose hookups on each side. That was where we washed cars. Most of the time we washed the outside of the car and also lifted it to wash the underside. Some cars we had to wax and sometimes we had to apply an oil-type undercoating to protect against road salt in winter. The courtyard had enough room to park about 24 cars and on average we washed 1 car every half hour. Mr. Konir had one supervisor, Hans, who did not speak Czech and who kept everything running smoothly. All tips were shared equally between all of us. On Saturdays around 2PM, when there were no more scheduled cars, we had to clean everything spotlessly. Mr. Konir called this “Zammaramma” — supposedly a Czech nickname for the big household cleanup, from old Czech households.
Continue reading Mr. KonirThe Volkswagen and the Alps
After starting the gas station job, life was improving significantly and I stayed in the camp another 3 or 4 months before moving out. I bought a car, a very old Volkswagen with a non-synchronous transmission, even though I did not know how to drive. We pooled our money together and Jirka drove and taught me. Mr. Konir also found me a Pony II moped through a contact of his, which gave me independence for shorter trips around Vienna. On Sundays we took trips to the mountains outside of Vienna and I finally had enough money to buy clothes and see movies and such.
Continue reading The Volkswagen and the AlpsMartin the Courier
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.
Alice
Sometime in April, there was an older couple in the camp living in one of the separate rooms in the single story buildings. I was visiting them and they told me about a girl about my age named Alice Pelcova. They explained that she was in a difficult situation — she had been married to some Czech guy working at the Czech Embassy in Paris, and her old boyfriend from before the marriage had found out she was there and went to Paris to see her. She left her husband and came with her boyfriend to live in Vienna. The boyfriend had been her boss at a ski resort near Karlovy Vary and was 20 years older than she was. After she moved in with him he became very possessive and started beating her. She planned to leave him by emigrating to Australia and had already filled out an emigration application at the AFCR. Since I was also emigrating to Australia, the older couple wanted to introduce us so she would have some known company. They invited us both over to their room to meet. She was beautiful and I fell for her immediately.
Jirka’s Wife
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.
My Cousin Tona
My cousin Tona Valach was 20 years older than me and was a doctor, an internist and cardiologist. He was also the sports doctor for the national Czech rowing team. After high school he had gotten me to join the Slavia rowing club in Prague, so we had that in common. There was a world rowing competition in Vienna at some point during my year there and Tona came with the Czech team. He did not want to meet me at the races since someone from the Czech delegation might recognize me, so I picked him up somewhere in Vienna on my moped and we went to a restaurant at the main railway station.
Continue reading My Cousin TonaBohous Fiala
Bohous Fiala had gone to the same high school as me in Prague. He was one year older, very charming and athletic. He was not strong academically in math and sciences but was very good at languages. I once went hitchhiking with him and some other friends for a month through Slovakia and I tutored him in mathematics and physics along the way. We became good friends until I left for Austria. When Martin went to Prague to deliver messages, he tried to reach Bohous, but Bohous was very suspicious and would not trust Martin enough to talk to him.
Continue reading Bohous FialaLeaving for the USA
By the summer of 1966, 3 things had come together that made me decide against Australia.
Arrival – October 1966
I left Vienna on a flight to Zurich, and from Zurich on a charter flight to New York arranged by AFCR. It was the first time in my life I had been on an airplane.
I felt better equipped for this journey than I had been for the last one. When I left Czechoslovakia a year earlier I had almost nothing. Now I had two hundred and forty dollars in cash, my original briefcase, and a large new suitcase filled with clothing I had accumulated during my year in Vienna. It was not much by any measure, but it was mine, and it felt like wealth compared to where I had started.
Continue reading Arrival – October 1966