I first glimpsed Czechoslovakia in 1970.
My father loved history and he determined we should see the ugly parts of history, not just the art museums.
He took us to Dachau to understand the Holocaust and one day we drove out into the Austrian countryside.
He wanted us to catch a glimpse of Communism and Czechoslovakia was the handiest spot.
Catching a glimpse was all we could get–without visas, we drove to the border and stared at the young guards holding machines guns and keeping the west at bay.
The countryside on both sides of the razor-wired fence looked the same to me.
I couldn’t quite grasp the concept of a nation that entrapped their people and refused to let them go–even on a vacation.
I still don’t really understand.
A visit
Several years later during the bicentennial of the United States, I traveled with Swiss relatives to Prague, Czechoslovakia for a long weekend.
The iron curtain still shielded those of eastern Europe from the influences of the United States, but cracks were opening and I slipped through.
I was the only American on a tour bus where the stories were told in Italian and German. As a college journalist, I wanted to glimpse a society different from my own.
The first thing I noticed was my inability to read.
The Czech language was written in cyrillic letters and I had no clue other than the obvious “Coke.”
It was the first time since my toddlerhood, sixteen years before, that I had not been able to read. Being functionally illiterate threw me more than anything.
I walked through the gray city filled with turgid-faced people and somber clothing without any understanding other than what I could take in with my eyes, ears, nose and mouth.
(Ah, the bread was delicious. I didn’t try a tomato.)
I visited in August and the sun must have shown because I’m wearing short sleeves in the photos, but in my mind all these years later the sky is dark, the buildings dirty, the people downcast. Other than the bread, the food tasted miserable.
Liberated?
We stood in the old town square one afternoon, the tour guide chattering away to her attentive European tourists.
This guileless American stared at the walls, noting the bullet holes remaining from the 1968 uprising. To my surprise, I could read the words on a brass plaque.
It spoke of the date in 1945 when Russian forces “liberated” the city of Prague from the Nazi aggressors.
I called my cousin over and pointed it out to her. “What a curious choice of words, “liberated” to describe what the Soviets did in taking the city.”
My twenty-year-old Swiss cousin sputtered (in English). “Don’t you know what happened here? The Americans were coming from the west, the Soviets from the east. Whoever got here first got Czechoslovakia.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t know.”
“You should know,” she spat. “You should have gotten here first.”
I stood up straighter. “Wait a minute. We’re criticized because we go in to help the Vietnamese and then we’re criticized because we don’t help the Czechs. That’s not fair.”
“I don’t care. The Americans should have gotten here first.”
I shook my head.
We walked across the Charles Bridge, visited the Jewish cemetery, and ate dinner in a gypsy restaurant (improving food, lots of spices).
We toured the splendid St. Vitus Cathedral sited on a hill above the spired city.
Meeting a native
The last day, we climbed aboard a street car and my cousins sat together, leaving me seated alone.
A middle aged woman wearing a gray headscarf climbed aboard, paused and–somehow–knew I spoke English. “May I sit here?”
“Sure.”
She asked me where I was from and as I watched a hammer and sickle flash by the window, I laughed. “Los Angeles, California, which is a very long way away.”
We smiled at each other as she tried to find words to share.
When the streetcar came to a halt, she glanced around, then stood. “I get off here.”
“Goodbye.”
The woman leaned forward and whispered. “We all wish we could be in America.”
She got off the streetcar.
“Did that woman say something to you?” my cousin asked.
I relayed the conversation.
“No. She would not have said such words to you.”
Ah, but she did.
When I returned home, I learned my boyfriend had sworn to defend the constitution of the United States by enlisting in the US Navy while I traveled in a Communist country.
During the twenty-one years he served, many people in the former Czechoslovakia gained the freedom to cross their borders without having to climb a concertina fence.
Many came to America.
What do you remember about the Communist countries? Were you ever afraid of them?
Thoughts? Reactions? Lurker?