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Our Family In Australia 1970 – 1975

Published on February 19, 2018 by willmelnykLeave a comment

Tom’s Family in Australia, 1970 – 1975

We Were Heckled at the Airport

In 1970 we arrived in Australia at the Sydney airport, where we met our hosts, and were taken by a yellow airport transport bus to our initial housing. As we got off the bus, we were met by a group of five or six men and women shouting at us in Czech, telling Rose and me to go back to Czechoslovakia. They told us we were making a big mistake by coming to Australia! We all assumed these hecklers were workers from the Communist Czechoslovakian Embassy, probably paid maybe $5.00 each to harass any arriving Czech citizens. Our hosts quickly led us away to our new housing. This new housing was in American built military dependent housing, then run by the Australian immigration Office, and it was quite nice

A Nicer Welcome, and Helen’s Birth

Suddenly someone called out “Welcome, Tom!” It was a young architect I knew from Prague, a younger engineer and architect from my school. It was fun, as we walked about later, to meet a number of other young people, old friends from Prague. Here Rose and I met neighbors and families, people we had known from old times and places. A while later we moved to a new apartment, near some Slovak engineers. Rose was about to give birth to our second daughter, Helen. When the time came a Slovak engineer family drove Rose to the hospital, and Helen was born.

Working in Australia

As new immigrants to Australia we were all treated well. Each new immigrant had some welcome skills, such as engineering or architecture. Immigrants with technical skills were arriving from all over. As well as Czechoslovakia, they came from India, England, Russia and Poland. As they were being processed,, they met a nice woman who worked at the bank from Europe and she helped them quite a bit. New immigrants also got unemployment and free food. Tom got a job right away working for the City of Sydney, and sometime later Rose got a job at the Sydney University.

Some of my jobs included building a gravity fed water aqueduct. All so much new construction, and repairs and infrastructures.

I reported to a city office in the morning every day for work, arriving by public transportation. Others I worked with included immigrants with technical skills from India, England, Czechoslovakia, Russia, and Poland. There were a few locals, but not that many. The Australians were mostly in charge of the office. Everyone I worked with were engineers and technicians. There were no computers in use in those days, and this type of engineering had to be calculated manually by slide rule.

During my four years there, computers were just coming into use in the workplace. One of the projects we worked on were the calculations to establish how heavy a fully loaded to truck could be based of the weight bearing calculations for the roadway.

We later moved to a new apartment that a British engineer had vacated. This apartment had nice ground, but it also had snakes. (And not just any snakes, but Australian snakes!)

(An Australian Eastern Brown Snake, one of the most dangerous in Australia.)

Stopover in Germany, 1969

Published on December 13, 2017 by willmelnykLeave a comment

III. Life In Germany

Getting Ready to Leave Germany for Australia
“Nobody Can Give You What I Can Promise To You!”

As I have talked with my brother about our departure from Germany after three months, on our way to Australia, I was reminded of the saying, “Nobody can give you what I can promise to you.” Promises are easy, giving is not.

This phrase comes from a Jewish person from Ostrava who had become a Communist

before the Nazi invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1939. The day after the invasion he left his wife in Ostrava, and fled to Russia. When he crossed the border he was happy, and showed them his Communist ID papers. He told them he was ready to help win the war. The Communist officials thanked him very much, and put him on a train to go further east, to a concentration camp. The promise of freedom was far bigger than the giving of it!

Every morning he told the camp commandant there had been a serious error, that he was on their side, and should not be in the concentration camp. As a Czech, he was an ally. Perhaps he did not realize that as a Jew he was an enemy, As far as the Russians were concerned, freedom was not the same for everyone. The commandant told him to get back to work, and the authorities would “work” on the “error.”

Then, after the war, in Ostrava, he worked for my father in the textile factory that had belonged to the Germans. He finally ended up in Jerusalem, selling children’s clothing, using a better version of the rule had had learned in Russia, in the far East: “Nobody can give you what I can promise you,” meaning his goods were the best of all.

A Stopover in West Germany
Our Old Jailor Became Our New Refuge

On our way to Australia we spent about 3 months in Germany in 1969, arriving first by airplane from Prague on Lufthansa Airlines. When Rose, Hana, and I arrived by plane from Prague to Frankfurt we asked people at the airport how to find the train station and get to Munich by train. The directed us to the rail yard, and we arrived in Munich the next morning. Peter met us at Munich when we arrived.

Munich-Germany For the short time in Germany I had a small series of engineering jobs. I learned of them through various technical work solicitation ads and Industry newsletters. During that three months in Germany I had two or three jobs. One of them was working for a gentleman who had an engineering background, but also had been an SS officer. I needed the job, so I accepted, and I shook his hand. As I did, I remembered that my own father would not have shook a man’s hand who was previously an SS officer.This said that he had been stationed in Paris for the Nazi occupation there, and he had not been in the Czech lands, or at Terezin or Auschwitz. He said he had good relations with the French and that he still had contact with them after the war.

One of the projects I remember was building a large dome and it had a lot of mathematical calculations to support all the concrete. I used to slide, which was all we had before computers were invented! Fortunately, one of the projects that I worked on was exactly the same as the exercise we did at the University in Prague, learning how to do this type of engineering calculations.

Another thing I remember from the time in Germany was weekend trips over throughout Europe, with Peter sometimes, by car. Peter also was a very fast driver and often got speeding tickets. He later he assigned those speeding tickets to his brother (me!) who had left the country for Australia. When returning to German to visit, they had a record of these speeding tickets, but I did not get in trouble.

Before even getting to Germany we always knew that we wanted to go to America. We tried to go directly there, but found that there was a long waiting list and it was very expensive. Through another friend we found out that Australia would gladly welcome us. Then we learned that Australia said they would pay for everything, and help us pay for the tickets. With one little girl (Hana) and a pregnant wife (Rose) we made the very long and crowded flight, stopping in Singapore and Karachi on the way. All of the flights and travel arrangements were at no cost to us, because of Australia wanted us to immigrate there. This was because we had promised to a two year commitment to work for the Australians in order to have them pay for all of our travel there. Our biggest priority was that Rose did not want to have her second baby girl be born in Germany, so getting out quickly was important

Prague Spring 1968

Published on November 21, 2017November 21, 2017 by willmelnykLeave a comment

Escape to Freedom
Posted 21 November 2017

At the beginning of Part II

Prague Spring

Prague Spring 1968
Conditions Improve for Our Escape

The citizens of Prague woke up to the sound of rumbling tanks through their streets. It was August 21, 1968. Still, I went to work in the morning as usual. But when I saw people lining up at the food store, I knew it was the first signal that spring was over, and our dreams of freedom were gone.

Some Historical Background

To be able to understand the happenings of the Prague Spring of 1968, it is necessary to understand the geographical and historical background.

Prague is now the capital of the Czech Republic, since the country divided itself in 1992 into the Czech Republic and the Slovak Republic. But in 1968 it was the capital of Czechoslovakia. The country was located next to Germany on the west, and the Soviet Union on the east, among others, two giants that had played conflicting roles in our land during World War II. Lots of people outside of Europe used to mix up Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia, which was in the south of Europe, next to Italy. Two different countries, but with somewhat parallel histories.

Czech history goes back to about the year A.D. 600. The late Senator Henry Jackson, of my home state of Washington, once surprised me by pointing out the modern history of Czechoslovakia could be quite simply summarized in major events in twenty (or so) year increments, beginning with 1918 and the end of World War I. So:

* Czechoslovakia was established as a sovereign nation at the end of the First World War in 1918, when the treaty of Versailles ended the Austrian-Hungarian Empire.

* In 1938 Czechoslovakia was occupied by Nazi Germany, disestablished as a country, and split into the German Protectorates of Bohemia and Moravia, ancient territorial names. With liberation in 1945, Czechoslovakia again was free. But it quickly became a satellite of the expanding Soviet Union.

* And then there was the happening of the Prague Spring in 1968, which was in fact a movement to re-establish a free and independent Czechoslovakia. But the movement failed when Red Army tanks invaded.

* Finally, twenty-one years later, the Soviet Union would collapse, and Czechoslovakia would be free again.

The Political Situation in 1968

It was a hot year in the history of the Cold War between East and West. There were demonstrations all over the world. However, the significance of demonstrations in Czechoslovakia was especially outstanding. A massive demonstration of truly democratic ideas was highly unusual within the Soviet Union’s hard fist of dictatorship. This was due to the past experiences of those who tried it, if they survived at all.

The Communist world was expanding after Leonid Brezhnev consolidated his power in the Soviet Union after the toppling of the previous leader, Nikita Khrushchev. So the Governors of all the satellite countries had to be changed as well. This was a practice proven as a survival necessity for dictatorships. There was an internal struggle for power in the Czech Communist Party leadership, and Alexander Dubcek emerged as the leader.

With such changing of the guard, it had been customary to seek the approval of the general population, and to loosen the screws of dictatorship a little bit. However, things got out of hand. The common people got involved in politics, even those who had no association with the Communist Party governing on behalf of the Soviet Union. There were discussions in the streets, and some changes were promised. These changes mainly involved the policy of governing, the economic system, and basic freedoms.

Several individuals established a new citizens independent organization in an effort to assure permanency of the promised reforms. The organization was named the Club of Non-communist Advocates, and it was growing fast. Under the rule of the communist government, the establishment of a new opposition party was unthinkable. So a club trying to help foster popular support for needed government reforms seemed to be unacceptable. This club would probably be recognized today as a grassroots democracy movement.

The leaders of the Soviet Union saw quite well what was going on in Czechoslovakia, and understood that what was happening in one of their colonies was not in their best interest. There was talk that Czechoslovakia would separate from the Soviet Union as a free country, and maybe as a member of NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) as well. In addition, if this were allowed, other satellite countries would follow.

So, in August of 1968, the Soviet Union, with the token help of other satellite countries, invaded Czechoslovakia with an overwhelming force. They took Dubcek and other Czech communist leaders to Moscow for a frank discussion.

And that was the end of the Prague Spring of 1968.

After the Invasion

There were hard times after the invasion by the “friendly” armies under the Red Army command. A new “loyal” government was established. A “normalization process” was initiated to finalize the fight against all those who had promoted the reforms. They were branded as “counter-revolutionary” forces, and the new loyalists were called “conservatives,” or “conserves” for short.

There was also an organized effort to make the troublemakers disappear. This was so the newly established “conservative” government would not have any difficulties with the real government, in Moscow. It is said that 10% of the population, some 140,000 people, emigrated; however, not all of them permanently.

There was some resistance within the means of unarmed citizens, after the invasion. A free underground press, radio and television for maintained for a while. But there was no hope for a democratic government once the Red Army had settled in.

I believe that the realistic struggle, with all the hope attached to it, was during the several months from the start of the Prague Spring in 1968 until August 21st of that year. Perhaps also the year before, also, leading up to those events, to a limited extent. Meaningful reforms had been planned and promoted, new politics were fostered, and dreams of independence seemed closer to reality than ever before.

Conclusion

When speaking of the Prague Spring, I am talking about events that happened nearly 50 years before our present time (2017). But I believe that what happened in Prague at that time has substantial significance for today. It was a struggle for democracy, specifically the struggle for freedom of individuals to be able to control their own destiny. We probably all agree the struggle for democracy, for the personal freedom of individuals, is a perpetual struggle. So it is important to remind ourselves that we have to guard our freedom with everything available to us.

In September of 2001 (just a year before I wrote this presentation in 2002) the world was shocked by a massive attack upon civilians of the United States. In the eyes of those who have fought for freedom, the United States has always been the world symbol of democracy, and its defender. This, I think, was one of the reasons for the attack. The terrorist organizations which instigated these attacks are in principal anti-democratic movements which promote dictatorships. As such, they will fight us because we stand in their way to governing by terror for the pleasure of the few.

We should never forget how lucky we are to live in a country which stands for its democratic principals, and which is dedicated to defend them. We should never forget what an effort it takes to be free. – Thomas O. Lenda, May 15, 2002