MUDr. Marie Krausová

"The other benefit from Africa, I want to say, was the nature of the blacks. I grew very fond of them. At that time, there was this reversal of apartheid. When somebody got into a high position... I fought with a civil servant in the ministry there, where he wanted to show me his superiority. But basically, the people there were terribly grateful. Even when they had big losses, when, for example, these children were dying, the mothers there were really very heartfelt. They could cry it out. Black people can live in the present because of their life experiences. And that's very rare because they can rejoice even when they have nothing, even when they're hungry. They celebrate everything by dancing, by singing. That was really a great insight. And I must say that, unfortunately, I don't keep any correspondence with them because they are not used to writing letters. I remember it very fondly. I wasn't afraid to go anywhere in that community when we went on a trip, for example. I was handicapped by not having a proper car. Other than that, I loved going out into the countryside. I'm glad I was able to show that to my child at the time."

"As life went on, time passed. We had the year '68, and in that year, a lot of people emigrated. I tried to emigrate too, but my mother couldn't get over it, so I returned from England. That was adventurous, too. I got on the train and had no ticket, no money, nothing. People helped me on the train, they invited me to join them. I was in Bremen for a while, then they took me to England. I went to Essex, and I stayed there for a while. My mother wrote me desperate letters. I was an only child, so eventually I came back. And when I came back, there were vacancies because many people were missing, especially in the faculty, so I got into the children's faculty and worked as a research assistant. I wanted to do, at that time, it was a CSc., which is now a PhD."