Svatava Vynal

“My father was very lucky to be tried by a normal judge. He was not like these ‘people’s justices’ who imprisoned them all, caring about nothing. This one was a real judge. After five, six months or even a year he came with my father’s so-called concession. It included all of what he had signed but some of its parts were erased. My dad said: ‘I didn’t sign that, it didn’t go like this.’ The judge had a closer look and said: ‘Well, it really looks somewhat weird.’ Eventually he let him go which was a great thing. Naturally, the judge himself got fired immediately after that. My dad later found him working as a runner for a removal firm.”

“Finally, we made contact with those two and then marched for five days. Actually, rather five nights because during the day, guards were passing on the roads. In the border strip which was about 20 kilometers wide there was a zone which was illegal to enter. It was very dangerous because there was a guy on a motorbike with a large lamp shining towards all directions and behind him there were two other men on motorbikes, one of them peeking to the left, the other one to the right. They were looking for any motion, someone jumping out of the bush or something like that. It was really difficult to cross the road; we would need to wait for hours for the moment when nobody would be passing. It was very dangerous and we therefore mostly marched at night. We would sleep on small trees placed down on the snow. Obviously, it was nothing comfortable. My legs were freezing. Once we had to cross a large log which served as a bridge but was round and terribly slippery. We had to pass it to get to the other side – it was no piece of cake. But eventually, after five days, we managed. We marched for another while as if there were no border there. We couldn’t tell; there were no signs. When we got through, we immediately headed for the first police station. There they welcomed me: ‘Du Tsechisches Schwein.’”

“Did I say that my dad was on the Asinara island during WW I? It was interesting because back then he saved himself by lying. It is okay to lie if one then lives up to what they had lied about. They asked about who spoke Italian. He didn’t know Italian, only French, German and English but he said that he did and volunteered. They then spent some three weeks there. They were teaching them because most of them were uneducated Italians from Istria who spoke lousy Italian and did not know to read or write. So they taught them how this and that was spelled. In the meantime, my dad had learned it so by the time this was over he spoke Italian well enough to be just fine. Isn’t this beautiful? We are allowed to lie but then have to live up to it.”

“When I got to know Mary Quant I thought that I would let her produce her stuff in Italy because up until then she did it at home. At that time it was not a world-wide thing. So I told her that Radici would produce it and I would promote it. And so Mary Quant had flown over. There is a palace next to Milan’s cathedral and next to it is Terazza Martini where classy meetings are being held. So I had it organized for her up in there. When she arrived it was crammed because all the journalists came to see her. We couldn’t even move. She flew in with her husband, a nobleman, and she herself got later promoted to the nobility. So we made the first presentation for her and later at the fair they assigned me a stand with Mary Quant. I took the girls, dressed them in the short thing and let them run around the fair. Back then everyone was still wearing long skirts so everyone was surprised about who was running around there. It was very nice and a great success.”

“When I had been doing the radio broadcasting training, they told us: ‘Write something for the radio, something entertaining and short.’ So I did… It is short. Do you want to hear it? I may not remember the exact words but I do remember what it was about. ‘Oh, dear. Look from the window! Did you realize the weather was beautiful? It is spring already! Can you see? The birds are singing, wow, beautiful. This reminds me that I need to buy a new hat.’"

“I was working in Bancroft back then. I would like to quote an interesting thing here. About a month after I started there, Mr. McCantire, managing director of the company, paid us a visit in Paris. He said something rather interesting: ‘Svatava, there will be plenty of things around here which you will perhaps find badly executed. Be so kind, write them down and send it to me. I ensure you that I will read it. What will I do about it, that depends on how good it will be and what will be the content. But I will read it for sure. Do that, it is your chance to change things for the better.’ This was something amazing because naturally, one is motivated to change things but usually struggles with how to do it and what to change. I actually never wrote to him because I always changed my mind beforehand. I always tried to push the changes through on my own, to spare him the need to say: ‘Okay, so order these people in there…’ No, I made and executed my own decisions back then.”