As told by my Dad:
“I was finally in Belgium and safe from the Nazi danger. But now I had to find a place to stay and reorganize my life. I was only 34 years old, thus full of energy to keep moving! As I was walking on the street, I saw two elderly ladies and I asked them if they could refer me to an inexpensive hotel, because I didn’t have much money. They took me by the arms and took me to a place that I thought was a hotel, but it wasn’t. There was only a couple of people in that building; later on I figured out that it belonged to the Salvation army. This is an organization that helps people in difficulty. I told them my story and said that I was looking for a place to stay, and they told me that it was not a hotel but if I wanted a little bit of soup and something to eat, I could have it. When I was about to leave, the man told me that they had two rooms in the building that they were renting to two people each. There was only one person in one of the rooms, and he told me to talk to that person and if he agreed I could stay with him paying half of the rent. The rent was probably only 5 Francs per day, which was very affordable.
I waited there for that person to return and soon I saw him coming; he was a tall, thin young man. I tried to talk to him in German and in French but he could not understand me. He would speak English, but then I could not understand him. Finally he said, in English, “I am Czech” so then, finally, we could communicate. I explained my situation and he quickly agreed to share the room. I noticed, however, that he looked somewhat suspicious of me, and even scared. But soon I figured out that his behavior was due to his situation being similar to mine. He was a Seventh-day Adventist and had also fled away from our country.
He went to England at first, but when he arrived there he was asked if he had someone to support him; he said that he would be working to support himself, so, unfortunately he was told that England was not admitting foreigners and he was sent back to Belgium, where the police took him and drove him to the border with Germany where he was supposed to go on his way back to our country. Since he didn’t want to go back, he stayed at the train station for a while, trying to figure out how to handle that problem.
Later on the clerk who sold tickets at the station came to talk to him asking, “you don’t want to go to Germany, do you?” and he said that he didn’t. Then he was given a train ticket to go back to Liège, the city where he had just come from. The guy in charge of that room told him to be very careful and to hide himself as much as he could. This is why he was so scared and suspicious when I first met him. He was happy living in that small room because basically nobody would disturb him. He was the first 7th-day Adventist that I ever met with whom I was interacting on a more personal basis. His name was Emil Just.
A few years before I met another person who was also a 7th-day Adventist, but at that time I could not understand his beliefs. He was a mechanic, and I needed my car fixed which would require him to work on a Saturday to finish the job. He told me that he couldn’t do that, that he would not work on a Saturday. I was very unhappy with that and told him to fix my car on Saturday and then he could rest on Sunday. I explained that I was in a hurry! He asked me how fast I used to drive, and I told him that I would drive as fast as the car he fixed would allow. Then he asked me a meaningful question, “Where are you going in such a hurry, Mr. Tichy, to heaven or to hell?” At that time I could not understand what he was talking about. It sounded crazy to me.
Only later on, during my interaction with Mr. Just that I could understand better some of the 7th-day Adventist beliefs. Mr. Just never pushed on me, never tried to convert me to his faith. He knew the Bible very well, and was a type of person who would preach at any time if asked to.
There was a room in that building where people came to eat in the evening. One day I was with Just in our room talking when one of those people eating downstairs came to our room looking for Just, and asked him if he wouldn’t give him some money to buy medications for his wife who was ill. I told Just that the man didn’t want the money to buy medications because he was there playing cards! I was surprised with Just’s answer saying, “Mr. Tichy, I am giving the money for the woman’s medications; what the man does with the money is his business, his responsibility.” Just had only 20 Francs on him but he took half of it and shared it with the man. In about 30 minutes the man came back, knocked on the door, and said, “Mr. Just, the medication is more expensive than I thought, don’t you have some more money to help me with?” And guess what? Just took his last 10 Francs out of his pocket and gave them to the man! I became angry at Just, because I knew the man was not buying any medication for his wife. But that was how Just treated others who asked him for help.
Soon Just told me that he could cook vegetarian meals, and that we could buy some pans and cook our own food in the room, without telling anybody. I still had some money left so I used to buy the ingredients and he cooked. Thus we could save precious money for both of us. This is the way we lived for about four months. Just made friends at his church as he used to go every Saturday to the worship service. Sometimes I accompanied him but I never attended the service. I stayed around and when he was done we just went back home.
At that time we had the feeling that bad things were about to happen; we learned that the war would very soon hit Belgium, too. I used to call my home often and wrote letters to them, too. On April, 1939 Ivan was born, and now my wife wanted to leave and come to Belgium to be reunited with me. At that time I was in trouble because I was running out of money and didn’t know how to bring the family in. But I had to find a solution because my wife started being impatient. She wanted to come to Belgium right away.
One evening I was sitting in a big room where people used to hang out when I was told that there was a phone call for me. It was my wife calling me. She and the children had left Czechoslovakia and were now in Germany at the border with Belgium. She had bought a car, put the family in it, got several cans of gasoline, and drove across all Germany by herself - and it was a time of war. I can’t even understand where she got the necessary courage and strength to do that - she was only 28 years old! She told me that I had to find a way to take them to Belgium no matter what. Which was a very difficult thing to do because they had no passports.
The authorities in Belgium would not allow them to come in, and I didn’t know what to do. I knew that there was no border inspection between Belgium and Holland, so I went to Holland in an attempt to have her come through that way, but it was not possible either. I was very discouraged with the situation at that time. I told the authorities in Holland that my plan was to immigrate to Canada, and that I needed my wife to come to Holland for that. But they would not authorize it. I was stuck in Holland, and my wife and the three children were stuck in Germany! So, what now?”
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