12. NEW HORIZON,... BUT WITH MORE DARK CLOUDS AHEAD!

Alexandre Tichy continues his story:

"Right after the end of the war the inflation in Germany was very high; it was actually skyrocketing very quickly. The currency was changed some time later, but I kept a bill of 50 million Deutsche Marks - yes, one single bill that at that time had become nothing but just a souvenir. Unfortunately, years later in Brazil, I forgot it in one of my shirts and it was destroyed when the shirt was washed.

I remember that during those days my father, mother and my sister went on a one month trip from Czechoslovakia to Germany, and my Dad took only 2 shirts with him because he intended to buy a few shirts in Germany taking advantage of the exchange rate, which was very advantageous at that time. But it didn’t work well, because he was significantly overweight, and there were no shirts big enough for him. So he ended up having only the same two shirts for the whole time of their trip; they were washing one shirt every day for the whole month. He had bought many goods in Germany and on his way back he gave them all to a man who supposedly would smuggle them through the border without paying custom taxes. But, apparently, it didn’t work very well because the man just stole everything and my Dad never saw his goods again. We made fun of him for that for a long time, always reminding him what a “good deal” it was to buy all those inexpensive things in Germany…

During the war, I had been very successful with everything I did, and I always found some good business to make good money. It seems that after the war things changed and making money became more difficult. I remember that one time I had an opportunity that could have been a gold mine. A friend of mine told me that Skoda, a Czech car manufacturer, was having difficulties and would probably be forced to stop their production of cars because they could not find a supplier for a certain type of parts. I knew that probably those parts could be found in Germany so I contacted a friend who actually found out that SKF in Germany had 2 million of those parts still hidden from the Americans. In those days the allies had confiscated all factories that could produce any type of parts used in weapons, but many of those factories had hidden part of their stock and were selling it to different places in small quantities. We were still in Belgium, but I was sure that I could make that transaction work and make good money.

I had bought a brand new Dodge truck at that time, and my friend Debuson was driving it, transporting all kinds of goods. So I decided to send him to Germany to get those parts at SKF. Unfortunately something really bad happened, an accident in which a German man was killed when Debuson was backing up. The man was trapped behind the truck and Debuson didn’t see him. Nothing happened to Debuson because the area was still controlled by the Belgian police and everyone was still mad at the Germans for what they did during the occupation of Belgium. Therefore, they didn’t care about the incident that killed a German and just let him go back home without any charges being pressed against him. In the meantime, however, the Americans found those parts and confiscated them all. That was the end of a business that could have been very profitable.

The War ended in June of 1945 and we stayed in Belgium until November of that year. Our trip back to Czechoslovakia was in a truck so that we could take all our belongings with us. I had a couple of trucks but kept only one, powerful American MAC. We knew that it would not be an easy trip due to shortage of gasoline; based on prior experience, I took several bottles of cognac with me, which was the best thing to have with me in case I needed some help. So we loaded the truck, and started our trip back to Ostrava. Every time I needed gasoline to continue the trip, I went to an US Army station and asked them for gasoline. The soldiers would say that they didn’t have any gasoline available - until I showed them a bottle of cognac. When they saw the “miracle bottle,” they immediately became very friendly and did the impossible to help me out - even making gasoline miraculously appear.... In some instances they took gasoline from the tank of their own trucks and gave it to me - just because of those bottles of cognac. I was very short of cash at that time, so getting free gas was very helpful. The trip was difficult due to road conditions, weather, shortage of food, etc. But after a few days we arrived in our beloved town, Ostrava. Back home again, ready to resume the business, and move on with our lives.

Like everywhere else, our town was looking horrible due to the bombardment by the allies against the Germans who were controlling that area during the war. The situation was devastating but we reopened our store and restarted our activities. Unfortunately my Dad passed away before we made it back, so I had to do everything by myself now. I had brought many shotguns with me from Belgium in the truck, and that was a good starting point since there was a shortage of everything, including special merchandise like ours. It was at that time that I hired Maria, a young girl who was about 17 years old and who, 45 years later, I would meet again when as a widower I returned to my country after spending all those years in Brazil. My wife, Marie, passed away in January of 1990, and later on that year my son Alex took me on a trip to Czechoslovakia for a couple of weeks. Then, in 1991 I went there again by myself, and it was then that I met Maria during a casual encounter of a few people. She reminded me that she worked for me right after the war when I restarted my business. I was 86, she was 62 and also widowed… so we decided to spend a few years together. But this is a story for later on.

We had a good and peaceful life for a while after returning home. Our children were going to school again, I was back in business, so we thought that, from then on, life would be normal again. What did we know, though? Unfortunately, the political developments in the country took a really bad direction. Supported by Russia, the communists soon took our government after assassinating our President, Jan Masaryk (Sep/14, 1986 - Mar/10-1948) who, inexplicably, “fell” from the 5th floor of a building. The Communists got the power and started taking people’s businesses and properties. People were incarcerated for no reason and terror was popping up everywhere.

In 1947 we suffered a horrible loss. Our 4th child, Jan, died at age of 3. He was a very happy child, always full of energy. On one occasion, he went with her Grandma (my mother in law) to spend a few days up on the mountains. While there, he developed suppurating appendicitis; there was no physician in town in that small village on the weekend, and Jan succumbed to the terrible condition. We were devastated. There are some pictures of him below."

Jan (with hat) and brothers (from right) Gustav, Ivan, and Alex (1945-46?