THREE WHO FLED A REVOLUTION
Richter, O. H.
Three Who Fled A Revolution By O. H. Richter r ~ > Ota H. R;chter has fled Czechoslovakia for the second time in a decade. A Prague University law student :n 1939. he escaped to England...
...Two days later the invalid husband hanged himself...
...IN 1940, Dvorak got a job at the transport Ministry...
...That was only the beginning...
...lie cave order-, light and left, and i.ft' n didn't oven know what 'lis wiirlii !'-' \\ ere producing...
...During the war, he often spoke of his country's future...
...The two ex-convicts took both...
...He won the Distinguished Flying Cross and eventually was in* valided out of the RAF...
...The others went without them...
...i JAN DVORAK was 22 when the Nazis marched into Czechoslovakia...
...Last March two men, freshly returned from prison (where they'd served a term for larceny), went to the Cpunty Council's Action Committee...
...After the war, adventurers and social climbers by the scores flocked to its ranks...
...Or else they were "sent on leave to be employed later in places where they could be of more use to people's democracy...
...As a "political unreliable," she can buy no clothes, underwear or shoes for herself or her daughter...
...But in February, 1948, the Communists took power...
...He preferred to move in with his sister, a lady who lived with an invalid husband and a daughter of 11 in a Northern Bohemian town...
...A thorn in the llesh of the local Communists, that's what he was: o Western airman, a possible traitor, an ( nemy in th'-m midst...
...Ho tells the story of three of his fellow refugees in this article...
...Ilaendel tried to keep out of politics...
...There was very little to sell...
...When the department icieived a special Inline, the new mastei picketed most of it...
...He left the country to join the Czechoslovak Legion in Poland...
...In the' camp for Czechoslovak Democratic Refugees in the American zone of Germany, Dvorak said grimly: "People's democracy is really the enemy of the people...
...With his wife and baby, he Jimped across the frontier...
...But what will be the fate of the other 25,000 refugees — workers, managers, doctors, engineers...
...They told the committee that Dvorak's sister had insulted Stalin...
...After working eight bard hours, he would rush home for dinner and then hurry back to a meeting hall...
...Those who accumulated the largest number of points were allowed to buy shoes, textiles or other rationed goods for themselves and their families...
...a department Head, was i1 placed by a man whom he and his fellow-workers thought incompetent...
...Prochazku would hear how wicked the West was and how miserable its working class wa/i...
...Min k hoped to marry, to have ,'i • luld, to settle down, lie married and had a child, but...
...X CRAY MARKET sprung up...
...After the war lie returned to his small provincial town in Mor.ivi.i...
...Like thousands of others, Dvorak was instantly dismissed by the Action Committee, even though he bad civil service tenure...
...Work conditions did not improve...
...Mirek had to close his small shop...
...The action committees became the masters of all property, and of the lives and fate of all people under their control...
...She now works as a farmer's helper and is allowed a meager ration...
...When he was discharged from the Army, however, he began to have his doubts...
...Distribution centers" replaced them and directed four-fifths of the available goods straight to factories anl large concerns, to be sold to workers on the spot...
...His sister gone, Dvorak decided to try to escape...
...A staunch supporter of President Benes, he hoped that six months after the war's end, Czechoslovakia would be back to prewar standards...
...Prochazka could not understand why the factory was producing 16,000 pairs of military boots a day for the Soviet army, and many other thousands of shoes with good leather soles and heels for the Russian civilians...
...In the refugee camp they looked at him with envy...
...Naturally you could only get these goods in Government shops...
...It's all over," he told his wife...
...Dvorak's sister took her daughter to the country...
...The rest had to buy what they needed on the "free" market...
...The managers and foremen, said the Communists, were either German collaborators or "anti-social" individuals...
...they reported the Committee chairman to his superiors...
...Prochazka heard the workers' wives, with half-empty shopping bags, shout back: "We want food, not percentages...
...The Czechoslovakian Communist Party had already swollen to several times its prewar size...
...Those cold words generally meant the coal and uranium mines...
...Sometimes there were films, but most of the "political education" consisted of two and three hour speeches...
...At the end of the lecture, everyone had his book stamped with "attendance points...
...Quiet and reticent, his only interest was his, family and small shop...
...There he married a Czech refugee girl and had two children...
...It was no use...
...Only certain classes of people could get clothing coupons...
...The retailer could only* sell rationed goocli in small quantities...
...he escaped to England when Hitler occupied Czechoslovakia...
...Denounced as a "British agent...
...If these allegations were true, the Committee's chairman pointed out, the woman would be ruined...
...He will eventually get a British visa...
...It would bo better if witnesses could back up the charge...
...Workers, clerks, managers, government employees — sometimes with 30 years service — were fired...
...Once Prochazka heard Prime Minister Zapotocky speak from the balcony of the Town Hall, boasting of the percentages by which the Two-Year Plan had succeeded...
...Most of its 35,000 inhabitants work m the Bata shot' factories, the largest in Europe...
...And where lie had spare time after work in the prewar days, now he had "political education...
...The Party, greeting all newcomers with open arms, was swamped by these elements...
...Prochazka never forgot hotV th • people's police" used truncheon, against these women...
...He knew the home market only had cheap synthetic rubber soles...
...NOW AND ORDINARY WORKER again after ten years, Procliazka found other things to his di taste...
...He joined Benes' Liberal Earty, and didn't care if his co-workers knew his sharp disapproval of the Communists...
...I -ball have to try getting another job...
...They were all replaced by the new upstarts of the Communist part v. Procha/ka...
...Wo can't put percents into pots...
...he left Czechoslovak'n again last May, and spent six months in the Camp for Czechoslovak Democratic Refugees <n Western Germany...
...MIREK HAENDEL was a Battle of Britain pilot...
...Taking his family with him, he was one of 26,000 lucky people Who managed to cross the border...
...In the days before Munich, the Czech CP consisted of cranks, a few intellectuals, and a handful pf unskilled Workers...
...Two laws later, a neighbor, by now a local Communist boss, came to see Dvorak, lie brought, a notice from the town council, ordering Dvorak to give up his apartment and furniture at once...
...And what is in store for millions of other common men and women in Czechoslovakia,' learning each day that their standard of living goes steadily down...
...After the war the Communists took possession of the factory, expelled what was left of the Bata family, and dismissed nearly all the managers and most of the foremen...
...Finally he came to England with the Czechoslovak Army of Liberation...
...After all, he had served with the Royal Air Force...
...VACLAV PROCHAZKA comes from Zhn, now called Gottwaldov, after the Communist Premier...
...Sad and despondent, Dvorak came home...
...When his father, a loth men haul, died, Mirek took over his business...
...DVORAK WAS oll'ered one room in the damp cellar of a dilapidated suburban house...
...Perhaps a greater enemy than Fascism...
...The two crooks didn't wait for witnesses...
...After serving in the Czechoslovak Army, he became a newspaperman, and was the author of a popular Czech biography of Winston Churchill...
...More than twice that number were arrested, and many shot while trying to cross the frontier...
...The owner of a perfume shop, she worked late nights and had no time for politics...
...Sharply reprimanded, the chairman ordered confiscation of the woman's shop and flat...
...Last year all the wholesale shopn were closed...
...But there nn overcoat wus $200, a suit $200 to $350, a pair of shot's $50...
...At the end of 1939 he went to France...
...They could smell the boom earning to anyone who would' wear I red star In his lapel...
...Though the Nazis were beaten, most of the key positions were taken over by Communists...
...he could never settle 'town...
Vol. 32 • March 1949 • No. 10
