02. THE LAST TRAIN TO PRAGUE

As told by my Dad: 

“Our business  was not very big but was more than sufficient to support the family.  Many of our customers were rich people who loved hunting; and they always had “fabulous” stories to tell others of how great they did with their shotguns...  Like with fishermen, their stories were sometimes so “impressive and fantastic”  that they were hard to believe.  I remember one time a customer telling us how satisfied he was with the shotgun he purchased from us; he said that he had killed a 250-kg wild pig.  I couldn’t believe that one, but later on I actually saw the animal at his home. I learned that sometimes they may actually tell a true story…

We usually sold around 300 rifles every year.  Most of them were imported from Belgium and some from Germany.  We also bought some main parts from England, for those rifles that we were manufacturing ourselves (the Gustav Tichy brand).  On a certain occasion one of our suppliers came to visit us from Belgium, and told us that there was a new method of hardening the metal parts used in rifles, using a certain product which in Czech is called “cyankáli” and could be bought at the pharmacy.  So I went to the pharmacy and asked for two kilos of it.  The pharmacist told me that he had to call the warehouse for that, because he didn’t have that much in stock, but he could have it in about an hour - so I decided to wait. I had told him that it was for “personal use”  so he actually called the police and reported me.  Within half an hour there were two officers in the store looking for me and to interrogate me about my purchase and everything else.  I didn’t know it, but the product I ordered was a very strong poison (it was actually potassium cyanide (...) and two kilos of it was in fact enough to kill the whole population of our town. When I identified myself everything was clarified since we were well known by the police because we serviced all their firearms.

Now, back to the prior story. A few weeks after the incident that happened at the border with Germany, one evening we were already having dinner at home when I heard something hitting the window. Thinking it could have been a bird who got disoriented, I didn’t pay much attention to it. But a few seconds later another object hit the window. Our apartment was on the second floor, and when I looked through the window I saw one of our employees waving. He lived across the border in Germany, and came every day on his bicycle to work in our shop. I took him in and he told me that the Germans were about to cross the border, that the tanks were already lined up close to the border in a position just waiting for instructions to invade; which could happen even in the next morning. I was laughing at him for that, saying that it would not happen, that it was only a joke, that he was making up the story. 

But he was very serious about it, saying that he heard the German soldiers talking about it. Then suddenly I remembered what the commander told me a few weeks before at the border. That really scared me so much that that very night I took the last train from Ostrava to Prague, where I planned to stay and see what would be the development of that situation. And sure enough, three days later, on March 15, 1939 the Germans indeed invaded, occupied our country. I saw their army coming to the streets of Prague as well. 

I then realized that my situation was indeed bad and complicated. My life was in jeopardy. Many things were going to change now - and drastically.  I haven’t realized yet that  the most amazing adventure in my life had just started. I went back to the student campus where I was planning to stay in Prague, took my suitcase and left. I wanted to be on the streets while making my plans for the day. My next move had to be quick, effective and safe. 

 Later on I learned that when the Germans came to our town, Ostrava, the first place they went to was our store and our house, looking for me. I am sure that they were bringing me a meaningful gift with Hitler’s compliments for my non-cooperation with them. That General’s finger sliding across my neck was a chilling memory... The Germans were actually very cruel and mean to our people.  If they were not happy with some people, they would just point a machine gun toward the crowd, shooting randomly at them.  Sometimes they would kill everyone in a small village. Real Monsters! Hitler hated not only the Jews but the Slavs as well. There was an instance in our town when they packed 900 people into a church, locked the doors and set the church on fire, killing everyone.  I don’t know more details because I left our town immediately and could not actually learn every single detail of what happened.  Yes, I am glad I took that last train to Prague that night…

Then, after a few days I went to the train station and bought a ticket to Belgium. The train was about to leave in a few moments when it was announced that that train would go only to the city of Plzeň, and would not go to Germany or Belgium. People started to get off the train, but I thought that being in Plzeň would be still better than staying in Prague; I could at least be closer to the border. So I stayed in the train and we went to Plzeň. To my surprise, though, it just made a short stop in Plzeň and left again going further than the announced destination. But at the first train station in Germany the train was detained and the German police came saying that we had to go back to Plzeň. I knew then that things were not going well. I spent the night in a hotel, and in the morning I went to a friend’s store - he had the same kind of business as we did - and I asked him to borrow 50 crowns. I had no Czech currency left, and couldn’t even pay for the hotel. He gave me 100 crowns, and said that I didn’t have to pay him back. He wished me a happy trip, too. 

On my way back to the hotel I met three Jews who were also in the same train I was the night before, from Ostrava. They were walking very fast, and I followed them. We finally came to an old school  where there was a sign indicating that it was now an office of the German “kommandatura”  (command). Inside the building I saw many people in a line and a German officer stamping their passports authorizing them to go to Germany. So I just got in the line to get the authorization. When I was just the third in line another officer came and told something to the officer in charge, who then told us that unfortunately the authorization process was just suspended by the authorities and nobody else could leave the country. Then he left. People started to leave, but I just sat down on a bench close to the same window and waited for a few minutes to see what would happen. Then the officer came back, called me and stamped the authorization in my passport. I ran to the hotel, picked up my suitcase and rushed to the train station. And sure enough, after a couple of hours the train arrived and I was on my way to Germany and then to Belgium. It was a very peaceful trip, and I was glad I was alive and out of occupied Czechoslovakia.

Of course I now had a new concern regarding work and survival. There was a company in Belgium that supplied our store with their merchandise, and I had a credit of 12,000 Francs with them. We arrived in Belgium very early in the morning, when businesses  were still closed, so I just sat down in a small “cafeé”  waiting for the businesses to open.

At 9 o’clock I went into the office, talked to them about the money and asked them to make a phone call to my family back in my country. My wife answered the phone and told me how things happened there during the invasion. The Germans actually invaded Ostrava before Prague. They had come to our town on the 14th in the evening, and at 9 pm they came to my home and were eagerly looking for me. Since I never showed up, they went to our store (which was close to our home) and broke in taking all the merchandise we had. They just piled up everything into their cars and left. It was a miracle that they did not kill the whole family since they didn’t find me. 

My wife could not come with me at that time because she was pregnant with Ivan and didn’t have a passport either. Considering the circumstances, my only option was to leave quickly myself, even leaving the family behind - to bring them out later on. They were in no real danger at that time as I was. 

I received my money from the company in Belgium and started looking around for a place to stay. I had to figure out how to restart my life in a new Country. I had to plan how to bring my family, including Ivan who would be born in about four weeks… 😱  “

 

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