Eva Kalinová

“We arrived to Palestine, where English shut us to the terrible camp in a desert; many people had to been carried away from there to a hospital. English gave us mouldy bread in the morning and a watery soup and the same at noon and in the evening. They allowed us to do nothing. We could dry laundry till nine and at nine they snipped off the tie, gave the clothing to a huddle, poured it by petrol and fired it. I made there the only one heroic enterprise in my whole life. When they said, that they will let us go to the cities, where we wanted to go, they had to vaccinate us. We had to step into the line and they started to vaccinate us by the one needle. And people fell to the ground. When the fifth person fell, I came forward – I was small, undernourished, I weighted only 45 kilograms – and begun to shout in Czech: ‘You swine, you motherfucker, if you don’t stop immediately, you will see, what I’ll do!’ And they stopped, gave us to a tent and continued to vaccinate us commonly in the tent. We were there eight days and during that time half of us was carried away half-dead because we already arrived famished and ill. And then buses came and they took us to Tel Aviv and they leaved us alone. The didn’t care, what we will do.”

“When I was in the fifth month of pregnancy, they sent my husband to England to business trip. I went with him and when we were there, communistic revolution of 25th February 1948 took place. All told us: ‘For God’s sake, you shouldn’t return!’ But we replied: ‘We will return.’ So we returned. My husband thought that Bolshevik is our salvation, he was totally idealist in that. He joined the communistic party, because he considered the idea amazing. Then I also joined, because he used to say: ‘You have to learn about that philosophy something, too.’ Me, entirely apolitical. When I saw, who was there and what they were saying, I came home and told to my husband: ‘Otto, it’s tommyrot, what they are talking about.’ But he replied: ‘Don’t worry, that ones are primitives and doesn’t know that so much good.’ And then the primitivism ended up by prison, when my twins were born in 1953. My husband went with my first-born daughter to a bus stop at a square and they arrested him there. They gave the daughter to some woman and she brought her home crying.”

“When I came back, I had nobody here. All were murdered. It was terrible because I listened the Vienna radio, where they announced, who had returned. I couldn’t believe that nobody returned. And that took nine months, until I found out that nobody will return. We had nice artefacts at home and I saw them at the upholsterer’s. And he told me: ‘You should have remained in the pan, too.’” – You spoke with that people, which started to live in your houses? – “I wasn’t interested in them. Why should I be interested, while I don’t want anything? They won’t be happy with it; they won’t live any longer with it. They just fear that they will lose it. What could I envy them? I’m completely free of it. We wanted nothing back. I even haven’t claimed on some restitution because I don’t want anything, I don’t need anything. I haven’t owned anything till now and I’m glad because it doesn’t burden me. I actually think, that what doesn’t have a soul, it’s not worthy.”

“When my husband was general manager of [Czechoslovak] ceramics, the communist revolution of February 25th, 1948 came and he returned [from England]. All was different but thanks to his return, they considered him very reliable and offered him job in Moscow as commercial counsellor. I arrived there in August 1948. However, it turned badly for us because we were quite naïve. We were friends with the British ambassador and nobody liked that indeed. A secret policeman followed me once and I turned and told him: ‘Why don’t you go with me, while you are always following me?’ And he turned away like that he doesn’t hear me. I did that not for fun... I just didn’t understand the whole system. Finally, we bought in the summer a ticket to Georgia without employing services of Intourist and we flew without them there, only me and my husband. You can see, how naïve we were. They heard about us immediately in Tbilisi and some people from Intourist came to do a plan for us. But we told them: ‘No, thanks, we don’t need anything.’ So we travelled by ourselves and when we returned to Moscow, we were called back instantly. It was too much for them. After the callback from Moscow all the things started to get worse.”

“We had there big congress in 1959 and we ought to have go to similar congress in Bulgaria. But a letter was delivered to me three days before the departure, that it is not in the interest of the state. And in 1964, my sister was with her husband in Argentina, but I knew that I couldn’t visit her, because till that time, I couldn’t go anywhere. But my friend told me: ‘You are in parent-teacher association in the primary school.’ – In that association, there was Mrs. Janulík and general Janulík occupied some high office at Interior Ministry. – And my fried said: ‘Why don’t you ask Mrs. Janulík: »Mrs. Janulík, please, ask your husband, why I can’t get an exit permit.«’ And I did it so and I got the exit permit in fourteen days. Then I used to go to congresses.”

“We celebrated only Seder; that was the only feast, that we celebrated. We celebrated also whatever, that we could celebrate, of course: Easter, Christmas. But from Jewish feasts, we celebrated really only Seder because it was a big fun. It was far from kosher. Nothing there was kosher, pork and beef laid there together.” – How did Jews feel like Jews? – “Not a bit. I didn’t know, that I’m Jew, until Hitler. I had only Czech schoolmates and only Czech friends. I was apolitical so much, that I didn’t perceive, when Jews from Germany escaped to our republic. I’m ashamed for that now. I’m ashamed for that, because it’s terrible. I simply didn’t perceive it: Hitler in Germany, persecution of Jews. It wasn’t so known in that time.”

“I had to look for a job, because we were without any money; they gave us only 300 CSK for the children. They employed me at orthopaedics. I looked after the children during the day, then I put them to sleep, I had to left them alone and I cleaned halls in the orthopaedics till two at night. They made me various problems. It was five-storied house and they didn’t give me key of the lift, because “wife of the traitor of socialism” can’t use the lift, indeed. Finally they excreted not to a toilet but next to them and I dared to tell to the cadre-man that I think that it’s quite too much. But he told me: ‘That all is not enough for you, Comrade!’ So if not enough, than not enough. But nature started to defend itself and I got an inflammation of the spinal nerves. After that, my friends proposed me to work as a secretary at Faculty of Arts at institute of history. There was a communist, Saláč, and he wanted to know, who I am. When I spoke, he sat there with mouth opened like a child, which you are telling story to, absolutely quietly. I narrated to him three hours about my illegal journey, how I got to Palestine, how from Palestine, how it was during the World War II and what all I lived through. And they employed me.”

“I had one friend and she told me: ‘One travel agency has been opened there, its name is Black Rose and it organises transports to Palestine via Danube and by some another ship via Mediterranean Sea.’ It was possibility to get away from there, because I already knew that it wouldn’t be wise to stay here. So we paid, each of us had only one rucksack and we went by train to Vienna to Reichsbrücke. Two pleasure boats were waiting there. There were 630 of us, not only Jews but also socialists from Germany and people like that. We sailed down Danube and that two Slovaks, that leaded the transport, intended to unload us on some desolated Greek island and to go to Paris to draw there their money. But it didn’t come off to them. We arrived to Sulina, it’s a narrow canal to Danube Delta and we stayed there. And one day, our next ship came. Its name was Flossula, it was twelve tonne ship, it had not wooden but iron floor. The whole ship’s hull was customised for sleeping and there were criminals in the ship’s company. A murder also happened there... So we went by this ship. It was terrible. But finally we managed to get to Palestine.”

How should we face up to the communistic history of our nation? – “My solution is to flush it away. What can I do with it today? I must take it as a fact.” – But there are people, who were communists once and they are successful businessmen today. – “Fine, but that’s their business. Do I have their conscience? No, I don’t. That is their business, that the society accepts them.” – And should the society do so? – “No. I wouldn’t accept them. They were dedicated communists, they were against others and they are dedicated democrats now. How can anybody be dedicated communist and dedicated democrat? Only because it is advantageous to him. In that time, in the time of Germans, in the time of Russians, now. It is in fact big nobody, who wants to be in good nick. And he doesn’t care in which regime it will be so. He will conform to any regime. He wants to have a good time, that is the principle. Well, what about it? I just know, that people like that doesn’t know, how to live. They doesn’t know, that you can be happy, when chestnut-trees come into flower. When I see chestnut-trees flowering, I’m happy and pleasured by that; that I’m in the world, that lived to see it. And they don’t now, how to be happy from the things around them.”