Robin R. Zoufalík

* 1958

  • “Well, I thought that, ‘Gee, Dad, the thing you thought it would never happen, happened’, because my father and I used to argue about this all the time. I told him that I thought that the technology, the free flow of information, videotape, all [of that] was going to take down the... the wall and get end of communism. Because, before videotape, you can censor the printed form, you can censor what people hear, but once videotape came and you could see on a video, freedom, then all of a sudden people, you know, decided ‘Hey, we've got to change things.’ So, the other thing that I thought was that the protesters, the dissidents, you know, what motivates those people to suffer so that other people can benefit? And I think if you saw the funeral for Václav Havel, that was an example of a normal person willing to suffer for the benefit of a nation… and when you look at the misinformation today and the pure ignorance of some people, you just, you wonder, you know, are there enough people like those dissidents? To make sure that democracy stays, because it is not a given thing.”

  • “So, the plan was to find a way with a car and go through Yugoslavia because my mother had been to Austria the year before and everybody kind of told her that the Yugoslav borders were the easiest to cross. So, we arranged to go to Yugoslavia with another family, and that was a pretty famous doctor in Prague. He was a pathologist. And so that was kind of a cover, that my dad was driving him to Budapest and Yugoslavia so that we could all get out. And they really took just enough, clothes, some pictures, and a couple of toys for us. And then we tried about 14 things to try to get out, which, none of them worked, and luckily none of them we got caught, and the last day before having to go back we went to a border and waited for something to happen. An Austrian, I mean, a German car with a camper trailer came to the border and we were parked next to them. They opened the gate and my dad just cut right in front of them and raced across the border.”

  • “...What I remember was walking to school and sitting with the school with my hands tied behind my back, well, not tied, but you had to hold them back. I did have one friend that I, by circumstance and chance, when I went to school in the US the first time, he was in the same class in Houston that he was in Prague and the chances of that are pretty amazing. So then, my biggest memory about school is going back and forth walking to school, and I remember one day, I didn't show up back from school and I was gone for about two hours and my parents were, you know, trying to figure out where I was and we were not religious, because you were either Catholic or Communist and so I wandered into a Catholic church and everybody was looking for something. They were down on their knees with their heads down. And as a little kid, I was thinking they were looking for something. So I got down and was looking for whatever they were looking for. And finally, I didn't find anything, so I went back home and of course, my parents were pretty mad at me. But when I told them what happened, they pretty much laughed and explained to me that they weren't looking for something, they were just praying, which was not something that I was familiar with.

  • Celé nahrávky
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    Pittsburgh, USA, 16.12.2023

    (audio)
    délka: 50:12
    nahrávka pořízena v rámci projektu The Stories of Our Neigbours
Celé nahrávky jsou k dispozici pouze pro přihlášené uživatele.

“I found out after we jumped the border and got out of the car and everybody was celebrating, and they said ‘you’re free, and you’re never going back.’”

Robin R. Zoufalík, 2023
Robin R. Zoufalík, 2023
zdroj: Post Bellum

Robin R. Zoufalík was born on 28 March 1958 in Prague, Czechoslovakia to parents Václav Zoufalík and Hana Zoufalíková, née Křišťálová. Both his parents and his grandparents were also born in Prague, with his grandparents being born there when the city was still a part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. He also has a brother, René, who is six years older. Zoufalík lived in Czechoslovakia until the age of 8 when his parents decided to escape the country to give him and his brother a better life. The family eventually settled in Houston, Texas, where the witness continued his primary and secondary education and, after graduating from high school in 1977, enrolled in Southern Methodist University (SMU) in Dallas, Texas. While at SMU, Zoufalík pursued a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering, working every other semester to afford the tuition. Additionally, he played hockey, joined a fraternity, and met his now-wife, Katie. Following graduation, he worked several jobs in several different places; First with an oil service company in Texas, then as a gauge engineer, and then as a sales engineer for a train company on the East Coast. Today, Zoufalík lives in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, working in consulting and business development with an architect, organizing and leading tours in the Czech Republic, and also working as an honorary consul for the Czech Republic. In his spare time, he runs a group for Czechs in Pittsburgh and he loves to travel, play golf, and learn about and experience new things.