My Dad’s narrative continued:
“The city of Liège is a big town and there are many firearms manufacturers there. We used to buy from many of them, and that helped me when I went to live there. We kept good relationships. One of those manufacturers was a good friend of mine, who supplied us with good and inexpensive rifles. I remember talking to him very often. After the war I learned that the Germans killed him because they accused him of supplying rifles to the resistance. It was sad, because he was a good man.
After my family came we were living close to where Emil Just lived, and our friendship continued. He used to visit us very often. He was a good religious man. My wife didn’t like him much at first because he told us that, if needed, a true believer should even abandon his own family for the sake of God, i.e., following God would be above keeping one’s own family if a choice had to be made. Of course my wife didn’t like those ideas (neither did I) and she fought him on that. But along the way they made peace because, after all, he was a good person who often came to help us at home when needed and sometimes helped her to wash some clothes, too. At one time I was a little bit mad at him because, a few days before, he had given his last money to a man who I was sure used the money to buy alcohol. I told him about my madness, but he told me not to be concerned about him, that he had someone who has been taking care of him for many years - God. But now the man had no money left, and I told him, “Fine, let’s see how you will buy food and other goods by tomorrow.” For my surprise,the next day the mailman delivered him a letter from Switzerland containing $1,350 Swiss Francs. A certain lady, who he didn’t even know, used to send him some money once in a while, to help him with the expenses. I was impressed with his faith in God and how things would always work out when he was in trouble.
I didn’t make many friends in that place, but there were two brothers also from Ostrava who lived close to us who I knew, so we kept in touch.
I was concerned with my wife’s situation since she was an illegal alien living in Belgium. Thus, one day I went to the immigration service to try to fix the situation. I explained it all to the clerk, but after a while he went to the exit door, opened it and waited for me to leave. That was the best answer and help I got from him. But very soon all Belgians would understand us better, when about two months later Belgium was in the same situation as our country, i.e., invaded by the Germans.
We were in Belgium for over a year now. I had made some money during that time and I wanted to buy a car from my Country, a Škoda. So I sent a person, named Tertz, with the money and he brought the car and drove it back to Belgium. We paid all the import taxes, and I was happy to have a less expensive car than those made in Belgium. After a while I wanted to sell the car and the same Tertz said he had a buyer, which was a bank manager. I signed a receipt for the amount and we went to the bank to get the money. After waiting for a couple of hours, I realized that the bank manager had gotten the receipt and left through the back door. The next day he called me and asked for the car saying that he had a valid receipt and that the car was his. I was shocked. But, according to the law I had actually stated that I received the money and thus the car was his. However, the war was now too close to Belgium and he was called to serve the army, and in the middle of that confusion he couldn’t do much about the case. The car had only 2,000 km, and later on I sold it to a lady who was disabled and needed a car. When I was counting the cash she paid me with I realized that she had given me 1,000 francs in excess. I asked her if she had counted the money before paying me, to which se said that she was a businesswoman and she never made mistakes when dealing with a business. I kept thinking of what to do, because I needed money very much at that time, but I decided to keep being an honest person and told her that if she wanted she could check it out again and count the money again. Which she did, and of course she gladly kept the excess money. It was a great temptation for me because it was Christmas time and I needed some more money badly.
Thinking that my wife was illegally in the country, we kept changing our address, trying to always live in a way that our presence would not be noticed by the authorities. It was not easy to find a place to live because people would not rent when they realized that we were hiding from the police. On a certain occasion we were living with an elderly lady. As Christmas was approaching, one day I was looking through the front window and saw that the small store across the street was selling Christmas trees. I decided to buy the tree later on that Christmas eve day, so that the children will not see us decorating it. But when I went there to buy it I realized that it was too late, they were all sold out. I went to other places in town and could not find a single tree. All were sold out. Then I went to a hill close to our home where there were some trees and I thought I could cut one fresh from that park. As I drove uphill I found a small store with many trees for sale and as I talked to the owner he told me that he was already closing for the night and I could take as many trees as I wanted, for free. It was too late to sell them, it was already Christmas eve. Our kids were very happy with the tree. Years later when I went to visit that town again I went to that place looking for that store, to thank the man again for his kindness, but I could not find him. There was no store at that place and nobody in the neighborhood knew about such a store. Till today I wonder what had happened that night on that hill.
After a while we moved to another place in South Belgium, close to the French border. We lived in a cozy home there, which also had a nice backyard. Close to us was a big house where many Jewish families were living. They were refugees from many parts of Germany and Austria;they were all good neighbors. Unfortunately there, too, I was considered a spy at least once. One morning someone knocked on the door, and when I opened there were 4 individuals pointing guns at me. They searched our home thoroughly, looking for something everywhere. Having found nothing, their commander asked me what financial resources I had, what was my living made of. I told him that I had cash. He wanted to know in what bank the money was deposited, and I told him that I had the cash in my own home. Which according to him was impossible because the guards under his command had just searched the house and found nothing. We had a can where we kept coffee in and underneath the coffee I had a packet with the money. I had sold the two cars I had, so there was a substantial amount of cash. He became very mad at his subordinates, telling them that they should have been able to find the microfilms they were looking for, and that they were not doing a good job because they couldn’t even find that money which was very well hidden. I asked him why they were searching us, and what microfilms was he talking about?
He told us what happened. Our house was a one story building and people could see from the outside what was happening inside. There were some blinds on the windows when we moved in, but they didn’t work, so I had to fix them to have some privacy. As I was working on them, a neighbor had seen me doing that and immediately told the police that I was installing a radio transmitter on my windows, that I was a spy for the Germans. So after he apologized all of them left and everything was back to normal again.
A few days later, however, I looked through the window and I saw a French tank right in front of our house. I called my wife to look at it, and we immediately knew that the war was coming to our town very soon, too. The war actually followed us and found us. One day I was working in my yard wearing old shoes and old clothes when the police came and told me to accompany them to the police station. Once we got there I was told that because my country was under the control of Germany, I was considered now being a German, and all Germans had to be imprisoned immediately because of the war. My wife didn’t go with me because two of our children were sick, so she had stayed at home with them. Actually, when the police officers came to our home they wanted us all to go with them but just at that moment the doctor had arrived to see our children and told the police that the children could not go because of their illness, and that they needed their mother to stay with them. Those were difficult days, where terror was everywhere. At night all lights in the homes had to be turned off, and there were no lights on the streets - thus, the planes from the enemy could not target the city.
Some time before that, when we still lived in Liege, we had made several friends and there was one person, an engineer whose name I forgot. He had suggested that we enrolled in the Czech voluntary army in France. I didn’t like the idea but I did enroll and I was told that because of my background I could serve working in a warehouse repairing weapons. Then when the war hit Belgium, I went to the French Embassy and told them I would serve in the army, but my family had to be taken to Paris. Which they would not agree to do. So I told them that I would not go into the army to fight, but they immediately told me that then I would be considered a defector and would be imprisoned. I said it was fine, that I would not fight unless my family was taken to France. But nothing happened after that, and nobody came to take me to prison either.
So now, when I was interviewed at that police station, I told them that I was enrolled in the army, but they told me that it didn’t matter, that I was still considered to be a German. I was then locked up along with another three people, some German Jews who lived in that area, and in the afternoon of that very day we were transferred to Manseau, a nearby city. When we got there we could see probably another thousand Germans and other Czechs who had been arrested for the same reason. Those people in charge were completely confused with the situation, because they had no clear understanding of why that was happening and they didn’t know what to do with us. I told one officer that it was obvious that they were going to arrest us all, and he said he doubted because there were no reasons for that. But sure enough that very evening we were taken to jail.
Later on that night the Germans attacked the city with heavy air strikes. I was in the corner of the room that we were at, just praying asking God that no bomb would hit our building. I thought that it would be a very bad way to end my life. But nothing actually happened to us that night, and in the next morning we were taken out and while standing in a line, they were handcuffing us. I am a very calm person, but I would never ever allow myself to be handcuffed (I thought...). But before the officers came to me they ran out of handcuffs, and I was left without them. They put us all in a truck and drove us to France. I had just become a prisoner - with no reason, but that was a fact. My main concern was with the family. My wife had some money and I thought that soon everything would be back to normal and I would be able to go back and provide for them again. I had no clue of the disgraceful life I would have in the next few months.”
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