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 KudibalTag Archives: Family
Kudibal’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 StoryOn 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.
Tenth 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.
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
Martin 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.
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 TonaThe 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 StreetThe 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 AmericaJeanne and the Move to Sherborn
The house on Babcock Street had been owned by Geoffrey’s father — Alan’s grandfather. Geoffrey had been paying Jeanne alimony and child support since the divorce, and his father had covered certain other expenses — use of his car, Liz’s wages as housekeeper, and the house itself, since Jeanne paid no rent. In 1970, Geoffrey told us that since we had been living together for 2 years we were in a de facto common-law marriage, and that under Massachusetts law at the time that entitled him to stop paying alimony. He also told us he wanted us to leave the house.
Life in Sherborn
We enjoyed living in the house on Maple Street. The Shell station was considerably closer than the Texaco had been, which made the long hours more manageable. Jana and Milan married and took the master bedroom. I married Jeanne, which made my mother very happy. When I went to the immigration office in Boston to obtain my citizenship it was the first time I had ever been treated pleasantly there — the employees were kind and welcoming, as opposed to every previous experience I had in that building.
Separating from Jeanne
At some point I told Jeanne that I wanted to have my own family. She did not want more children. Together with everything else that had happened over those years, we decided to separate. I moved out and rented a room in a house in Weston, not far from the station. We stayed in touch and the parting was without bitterness.
Passing the Station to Jana and Milan
At the station I was paying Milan good wages, and Jana helped part time with the bookkeeping, for which I also paid her. I covered my mother’s health insurance as well. Milan was an excellent mechanic and a reliable worker, but he had no interest in the headaches that came with running a business. He was strictly 8AM to 5PM.