Pepa left Czechoslovakia before I did.
Tag Archives: Boston
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 1966The House on Babcock Street
After 2 weeks at Pepa’s apartment on Beacon Hill, I moved to 170 Babcock Street in Brookline. Pepa had found me the room, since his girlfriend wanted to move in and he only had one bedroom. The room and board cost 50 dollars a month, which was manageable on my dishwashing wages.
Continue reading The House on Babcock StreetFugitive Nightmares
For the first year or so after I arrived in America, I had a recurring nightmare. I would find myself in Prague, walking through familiar streets, meeting friends, everything feeling completely normal — as if I had never left. And then, gradually, the realization would set in. I was not supposed to be there. I needed to get back to Austria, but there was no way out of Czechoslovakia. The borders were closed to me the same as they had always been, and this time I had no bus tour, no plan, no Kudibal to advise me. I had nothing.
Continue reading Fugitive NightmaresLiz
Liz was quite a woman. Whenever I was home and Jeanne was not around, Liz and I would communicate as best we could. Growing up in Czechoslovakia, I had never met a Black person; there were essentially none in the country. But in high school in Prague, an American film came to the movie theaters — I believe it was called Syncopations, or something close to that. It was an old movie about the origins of jazz in New Orleans, interlaced with scenes from the Civil War era and following the music as it moved to Chicago. It portrayed Black musicians and white musicians together, and it had wonderful New Orleans jazz throughout. I saw it many times and for a period I wanted nothing more than to become a trumpet player like Louis Armstrong. That film started a jazz revival across Eastern Europe; dixieland orchestras were forming everywhere, and we learned from our mothers how to dance the charleston. So by the time I arrived in America, I was already very interested in Black history and culture, and I had a lot of conversations with Liz because of it.
Continue reading LizThe Passport
Sometime in 1967, not long after I had settled into my routine in Boston, I noticed something in the wording of my Geneva Convention travel document — the refugee passport issued to me in Austria before I left for America. The Convention was clear on the matter: after emigrating, the holder was obligated to surrender the document to the immigration authorities of the new country, and in exchange, the new country was obligated to issue a replacement. It was not a favor. It was a right, written into international law.
Continue reading The PassportKLH and Honeywell
Mrs. Toy got me the job at KLH because of my language handicap — initially as a laborer, unpacking and setting up record players. KLH made high-quality audio equipment and record players, and it was a real company with real production standards.
MIT
In the spring of 1969 I was overwhelmed with dealing with my mother’s and sister’s immigration problems and could not keep up with taking 4 subjects at Lincoln College at the same time. I could not afford to fail any of them, since I was required to submit my report cards to the Selective Service board and a failure would have ended my student deferment immediately. So I made the decision to stop night school and instead look seriously at becoming a full-time university student. After discussing it with Jeanne and with my mother and sister, I started applying.
The Czech Community
When I arrived in Boston there were not many Czechoslovakians in the area. Most of them were older people who had come to the United States right after WWII and the Communist takeover in 1948, and they had organized themselves around the Masaryk Club. Pepa told me that there were only 2 Czech girls around our age, Marie and Anneta, and that the rule between us was to stay friends and nothing more, since a romantic involvement could spoil the friendship. After my experience in Austria I was not particularly interested in joining the Masaryk Club, but I met with Marie once in a while. She helped me practice for my driver’s test using her car, which I appreciated. I kept the rule Pepa had asked for.
My Sister’s Visit — Summer 1968
In the summer of 1968, the Prague Spring was underway in Czechoslovakia and Dubček had loosened enough restrictions that ordinary people could get passports and travel to the West. Because of that, I invited my sister to come visit me and paid for her trip. I picked her up at the airport in my Mustang — a used one, about a year old, but I was proud of it. The first thing she told me when she got in the car was that she was here only for a vacation and had no intention of staying, since life in Czechoslovakia was much better under Dubček. I assured her I had no intention of trying to persuade her to stay, and I meant it.
Continue reading My Sister’s Visit — Summer 1968My Sister and Mother Stay in America
At the end of August 1968, the Soviet Union invaded Czechoslovakia and my sister immediately wanted to go back to be with my mother. I talked her out of it, and we decided that we would first try to get my mother out to join us; only if that failed would my sister go back. We made the invitation right away, and some friends in Prague helped my mother get a passport quickly and obtain her visa. She was able to come. I do not remember the exact timeframe, but it worked out. After the invasion, even the hardline communist government employees were helping people get out — it took several months for the regime to tighten its grip on the population again and close things back down. We were lucky to get her out when we did.
Continue reading My Sister and Mother Stay in AmericaThe Road to the Shell Station
In the fall of 1970 I realized I had to start making money. MIT was too great a financial burden to continue, and I was 27 years old and no longer subject to the draft. The engineering job market was not strong — there was a mild recession and it was not easy to find work in the computer industry — so I started researching going into business instead.