“I went to formally announce that I had come for my wedding. And [for] help – because they had confiscated my suitcases. Then we were invited by a console, or a deputy, I don’t know which, invited us… I can’t remember his name right now, I could look it up. He thought that I was insane, too. Brody was his name. Brody. And he said: ‘You can never tell anyone what I’ve said,’ or: ‘It doesn’t work that way, blah blah blah. If you buy a carton of cigarettes and go to the train station and set them on a table on the sly, I think you’ll have a chance of convincing [them]… they won’t give you back your suitcases because they are evidence, but you could at least ask for your winter coat, winter boots, and wedding dress back.’ Which I did.”
“I want to get from you some kind of impression of an American who decides when they’re about twenty or so to move to a totalitarian country to live.” – “I was in love. It was faith. It was… I was just convinced that it made sense to live here. And work in that congregation. And be free. And… what was America supposed to offer me? Comfort?”
“There was… a show on first evening, where people – or youths – were supposed to go from one side to the other, dressed in national costumes, and say a sentence aloud in their own language. It was: One world, one God, one Testament. It went in alphabetical order, I think, there weren’t any Albanians, but, so Australia of course, Austria, I don’t remember it all, and then came CZ – and here comes Petr Macek. He didn’t have any costume, he was just wearing a coat. He came and said it and then left. I said to myself: ‘Ah! A real-life Czechoslovak!’ It was so… the next day I introduced myself, got to know him, saw him when he was waiting for a tram. So, I went up to him and said – In English we don’t use formal forms of address, we speak informally with each other: ‘You’re from Czechoslovakia?’ – ‘Yes.’ – ‘So, what’s going to happen, what’s going to happen?’ – He said: ‘What do you mean? – ‘There’s going to be a big meeting in Slovakia now, and then what?’ He said: ‘Who are you? How do you know?’ I explained it to him, and then we spent some time together, and then, of course, at home I got the news about the invasion and so on. I wrote to him, without response, a long time.”
Harriet Macková, née Gilbert, was born on 22 January 1950 in Georgia in the USA. Both of her parents came from families of Baptist preachers. She started to become interested in Czechoslovakia in high school and in 1968, while participating in the World Gathering of Baptist Youth in Bern, she met her husband-to-be, Petr Macek, a Czechoslovak. In November 1973, they married. They stayed in Prague, where the witness helped Petr with the work in the Na Topolce Baptist congregation for whom Petr served as pastor. They found themselves involved in the dissident scene and in 1975 they took part in an Evangelical meeting in Libštát, which was broken up by the State Security. Harriet was monitored by the secret police not only for the mark of her origins but for keeping contact with a foreigner in Prague and sending various things to the West via the American embassy there. In 1988, the began providing space in “their” group for an underground university of Czech studies, which was attended by dissidents. In 1990, they moved to America, only to return to Czechoslovakia a year later. She died on August 21st, 2022.
Hrdinové 20. století odcházejí. Nesmíme zapomenout. Dokumentujeme a vyprávíme jejich příběhy. Záleží vám na odkazu minulých generací, na občanských postojích, demokracii a vzdělávání? Pomozte nám!
