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| Jana Svehlova three weeks before her father's arrest |
Jana Svehlova was interviewed in Washington, D.C. in 2010:
"My parents left Czechoslovakia in 1939. But they married in England – they met in England. My father was with the Royal Air Force – with the 311 Czechoslovak Squadron. And my mother managed to get to England as a domestic person. And her War duty was delivering milk to English homes. And all her life she complained about those dirty English women not washing those glass milk bottles properly."
So, both of your parents fled the Nazis?
"Yes, they fled the Nazis. And my father and mother met in Cardiff, because my mother went with her friends to an official Air Force Club in Cardiff. And she was still very sad because her boyfriend in Czechoslovakia told her he wouldn't marry her. But she was persuaded by her friends, and she went. And in walks a group of handsome Czechoslovak airmen. And one of them asked her to marry him – I mean, I'm sorry, to dance with him. And she said yes. And next, he asked her to lend him money for cigarettes. (Laughs) And next thing, they have a date. And then he asked her to marry him because he said, 'look, I'm going to get killed anyway. So why shouldn't a nice Czech girl get a good pension?' And so they married in May 1943. And I must admit, I was born December 1943."
So, when did you then return to Czechoslovakia?
"Well, my father couldn't wait to get back to Czechoslovakia. So in August 1945 – immediately after the War when they demobilized – he went back to Prague. And my mother did not want to return because she was from the Sudetenland, her first language was German, and she didn't have the best memories of Prague just before the War. So she wanted to stay in England, but my father wouldn't hear of it. So, first the families of people who fought with the Allies were flying back. But so many planes crashed that the Red Cross organized that the spouses - basically the wives and the children - would go by train and boat. So my mother and I then came by train to Czechoslovakia in 1945."
... Jana's father was arrested in December 1949, when she was 10 years old. Despite this, Jana says she still has good memories from childhood:
"I was never hungry. My mother told me, and I have lived with this – my mother complaining, not having money for example for coal. So, I know that one of the neighbors – we found out later that that particular neighbor was the one that was reporting on us to the Secret Police. But she was very nice to us. (Laughs) And she gave us money, or lent us money for coal. And also, when my mother was writing to the president and everybody else, you know, 'Let my husband out; he's been out there now five years; I think he's reeducated.' Because her first language was German, she was never sure about the Czech grammar. So this particular neighbor was also helping her with those letters. And I – after my mother died, she died when she was 92 in England – and I found she kept all the letters from my father from prison. All those 10 years, year-by-year. So I found those letters and it was kind of funny. Oh, and some of the letters she wrote to the president. And she also wrote a letter to the commandant of the labor camp, 'My husband has been there for seven years now; let him out. I'm sick, and my child needs a father.' And he wrote back, 'Your husband's behavior is not right. He is not reeducated and he plays cards.' Because sometimes when they were down in the mine, you know, the guards wouldn't go down there. So, somebody obviously must have said it that he played cards. (Laughs) My mother wrote back, 'Well, he was a gambler before he went to prison, and I guess the prison hasn't cured him yet.' (Laughs) So, they didn't let him out. Maybe because he was playing cards." (Laughs)
Visit http://www.ncsml.org/Content/Oral-Histories.aspx for more full-length transcripts over the months to come.
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