But why did the Great powers act as they did? What were the underlying causes? Nice to have you here. So it is a long war versus short war problem they had and the strategies of these great powers were for a long war. Because everybody assumed, and they were right by the way, this would be a long, arduous fight between economies. I think the Chief of Staff of the British Armed Forces said it this way: How do we prevent the dog from getting his bone?
So if you have to fight a long war to win, it is very difficult to fight one in support of the alliance. I was wondering also about the May crisis - a war scare that Germany was immediately going to invade which led to the mobilisation of the Czechoslovak army.
It also received support from the French and British. I seem to recall historians arguing that it was the May crisis which led to Hitler really deciding to strike for Czechoslovakia, or am I wrong? The May crisis originated in false intelligence, actually through Czech sources, and both Paris and London were alerted to the possibility of a surprise attack and therefore sent warnings. Now, nothing angered Hitler than being publicly humiliated and when no attack materialised the European press argued: Now listen, Hitler was obviously deterred and British and French power deterred him.
And immediately afterwards, Hitler, in anger, actually had the war plans and his timetables for action against Czechoslovakia accelerated. He used that very violent language. So it was clearly the case that the May crisis set him off on a course for some sort of confrontation.
And he wanted a small war with Czechoslovakia. It is also important to understand though that, in the background to that, he is aware that Germany is losing what is an accelerating European and indeed global arms race. Was he simply out of options by then, or what was happening?
He was a very prolific writer and he wrote about international affairs widely. He saw this constellation of events coming into being. Now it is true that the French were warning him and Czechoslovakia generally not to act and that France was in a poor position to support them.
Indeed the British were doing the same thing. But we have to understand the way alliances work in alliance diplomacy. Alliances are not just about aggregating power. They are also about managing and controlling the ally.
The French worry the Czechs might do something to trigger a war that they do not want. The experiment was to show the binding power of radio, and the solidarity between people of goodwill at a time when the world was under a growing threat from dictatorship. The sound preserved in the Czech Radio archive gives us a wonderful insight into this early attempt at an international radio bridge, complete with static and moments of panic as the shortwave signal is lost.
But the year that follow was to be a tragic one for Czechoslovakia. The period leading up to the Munich Agreement in September is very well documented in the Czech Radio archives. The archives also reveal that this was one of the first international diplomatic crises to be played out on the airwaves. Through radio, the Munich crisis became an international propaganda battle, with greater immediacy than ever seen before. In numerous places, despite what the Prague press and the Czech Radio say, there have been clashes, abuses and thousands of arrests.
In a cat-and-mouse game, Czechoslovak Radio — including its international broadcasts in English - would try to counteract these reports coming from Germany.
Here is an example from the summer of It is not true that the rectors and deans of the German universities in Prague were forced at the point of a gun to sign a declaration of loyalty to the state.
This absurd allegation was denied by the rectors and deans themselves in a statement made today, denying that any pressure whatever was used against them.
The voice on that particular recording is Gordon Skilling, who, after his return to his native Canada went on to become a prominent historian of central and eastern Europe. When I interviewed him no less than 62 years later in the year , he looked back to that time.
I came here to do my research and then I was fortunate to be employed by Radiojournal, broadcasting in English to North America. And this happened to coincide with the crisis at the time leading up to Munich.
I prepared an English bulletin based on Czech news bulletins and the newspapers, and broadcast pretty regularly. Not surprisingly, compared with Nazi Germany, Czechoslovakia was not adept at the art of modern propaganda, as the British visitor to the Sudetenland, Edgar Young, observed in The Czechoslovaks are only now beginning to realize the dangerous effects of the new technique of propaganda, which consists in telling lies and half-truths with such conviction and consistency that even the victims begin to wonder what is really the truth.
They have yet to devise an effective counter to it, and in the meanwhile it would be a good thing if more foreigners were to visit the republic, to see for themselves how things really are, and to tell their countrymen the plain truth. The Sudeten German Party had made big gains among German speakers in local elections earlier that year, and the Nazi rhetoric of their leaders was unambiguous.
On 19 September one prominent Sudeten German politician, Wilhelm Sebekowsky, addressed a huge political rally in Dresden, a few days after the Sudeten German Party had been banned in Czechoslovakia for leading an attempted coup in the Sudetenland:.
Two weeks later, victory was indeed theirs as Britain and France allowed Nazi Germany to march into the Sudetenland. Yet there were also Sudeten Germans who remained vehemently opposed to Hitler.
Each nationality has its failings and its virtues. Somehow or other a formula for an honest and peaceful cooperation of the nationalities has eventually to be found, not only in our country, but in the whole of Europe. Let us join all forces to avoid that our home borderland will become a cause of conflict or a battlefield. Let us create a higher standard of cooperation of the two nationalities who dwell upon a soil assigned to them by destiny and which are called to be the bridge linking the German and Slav peoples.
Radio Prague also broadcast an address by the anti-Nazi German priest, Emmanuel Joseph Reichenberger, who had spent decades working with the poor in and around the city of Liberec.
On 17 September, he appealed in vain to Sudeten Germans not to let themselves be seduced by the fanatical rhetoric of their leaders. An unbounded campaign of hate has claimed its first victims. I speak as a German who truly loves his people and home and wishes to protect them from destruction. Germany's absorption of Austria in direct defiance of treaty clauses forbidding union of the two countries and in disregard of Hitler's own engagements to respect the independence of that nation has aroused serious concern as to the fate of Czechoslovakia.
With Austria annexed to Germany, the western half of Czechoslovakia is now surrounded on three sides by German territory. Within that part of the country, along the borders of Germany and Austria, live more than 3,, Germans constituting over 20 per cent of the total population of Czechoslovakia. Only three weeks later the 7,, Germans of Austria were incorporated directly into the Reich.
The second example, was a letter Propilek wrote to the local Communist Party in , where he stated that he could not be a materialist i. Marxist and that he was a follower of the philosophy of T. In , to commemorate 60 years since our graduation, I organized the publication of a small memorial brochure in his memory for our class reunion. My thanks must go to my son, Jan, who provided his skills as a graphic designer to make this attempt such a success.
The other teacher I would like to mention is professor Vojtechovsky. I was fortunate enough to meet him again in , after the Communist regime was overthrown and I was able to return to Nachod. He was the last teacher still alive from my student days and we had so much to talk about. My wife Christine was surprised how well he spoke English no wonder: the subject he taught was English. I confessed to him that our class did not always behave in an appropriate manner, and told him about our attempts to be sent home.
Near the end of the war when there was not much coal to heat the school, the principal decided students would be dismissed if the classroom temperature dropped below a certain limit. Since our class windows were over the Metuje River, we tied the thermometer to a string and lowered it into the icy winter water.
Then, we hung it back on the wall and promptly notified the incoming professor I do not remember his name that the classroom was too cold and we should be dismissed. To our chagrin, he was not fooled. He must have enjoyed our attempt, however, as he was almost smiling while chastising us. Professor Vojtechovsky really enjoyed this story. By , the economic situation was getting progressively worse and food and other basic necessities were becoming hard to obtain.
In winter it was particularly difficult to heat our house. Although listening to the BBC shortwave radio was illegal and punishable by death, we at home were all eager to get the true story on what was happening on the war front because nobody believed the Nazi propaganda. The only danger was to divulge this carelessly in a conversation with people one did not know well and who could report this to a local Nazi. Such cases, unfortunately, were not uncommon.
Day and night, fortifications a la Maginot line were being constructed, particularly on Dobrosov; it was the highest hill at over metres, overlooking the town.
When Nazis occupied Czechoslovakia, these fortifications were demolished by the Germans. Interestingly enough, they would have been ideal against the advancing Soviet Army in That spring the main highway from Kladsko and German Silesia was overrun by fleeing German civilians.
For weeks and weeks, a never-ending stream of horse-drawn farm carriages with elderly people and young children — their grandchildren—headed going west.
Where were their parents? I suppose the husbands must have been killed, taken prisoner or were still in Wehrmacht. Their mothers may have been taken to work in a factory.
The fleeing Germans just wanted to reach the Americans and not be taken prisoners by the Russians. After all the horrible deeds the Nazis had perpetrated in the Soviet Union, they were rightfully afraid of revenge.
I must confess that the people of Nachod had very little sympathy for them. Just a few years ago when Hitler took over the Czechoslovakian borderland region, the Czech population in the area had to flee inland and abandon all their property. But slowly, I felt sorry for these refugees, merely made up of old people and children who had not started this war. Their wagons contained only a few pieces of furniture and a few other items taken in haste during their escape.
And what about the poor, mangy, malnourished horses? I could not foresee that in three years, our family would be in an even worse situation. We were not able to salvage anything while escaping to the American zone in Bavaria, and even our life was put in danger.
After the civilians, the German Army arrived. Because the town was located right on the German border, an unusual situation was created—suddenly, the German soldiers were in another country. In Nachod, the local National Guard was composed of policemen, members of the Sokol organization, members of the formerly disbanded Czechoslovak Army and volunteers.
The Guard tried to persuade the German soldiers to voluntarily disarm and many happily did, their first question usually being, Wo sind die Amerikaner? My father, who spoke fluent German, had an interesting conversation and a scary experience with a German officer who did not believe that Germany had capitulated. The German suddenly removed his revolver from its pouch, and father, for a fraction of a second, was ready to jump at the now armed officer.
But father was not the target: the German officer pointed the revolver to his temple and committed suicide. This is not indeed the end of this story and I will return to it when I later discuss the revolutionary days of February Nachod presented a surrealistic scene at this time. The city was draped in Czechoslovak flags, and homemade American and Soviet flags began to appear. Women and girls with flowers and dresses in national costumes appeared on the city square and along Kamenice Street, ready to greet the Red Army.
Meanwhile, the retreating Germans were quietly marching in an orderly fashion, totally oblivious to the preparations being put in place to celebrate the end of the Second World War. Unfortunately, there was no happy ending to come. Between the retreating Germans and the Red Army was a special detachment of SS troops composed of fanatical Nazis who were equipped with tanks and were acting as a protective screen between the two armies.
They started to shoot indiscriminately, and in the melee my father was wounded above the ankle. He was lucky that it was only a superficial wound because if his ankle had been shattered, as an invalid, his ability to obtain permission to emigrate to Canada would have been unlikely.
Luckily, it did not take very long for the Soviet tanks to appear and put a quick end to this skirmish.
Apart from the SS troops, I must state that both the German and the Soviet soldiers behaved correctly toward the population. They supposedly walked all night along the Russian camp until the soldiers happily obliged what the women were looking for.
Other stories were more tragic, and I will mention one of them. A Czech family of a well-known local Nazi collaborator committed suicide by jumping in front of a train. Ours was not an exception. Ivan Krikava, who before the war was in the Czechoslovak diplomatic service and was stationed I believe somewhere in Germany, was arrested by Gestapo and taken to Berlin and executed there.
Whether my uncles were actually active members in the Czechoslovak underground or simply taken at random by the Nazis to terrorize the general population, I cannot say. I do know however, that my father was active in the underground. His knowledge of the French language allowed him to assist French war prisoners who were escaping from German Silesia through Nachod.
In he was awarded the Croix militaire decoration for this service by the French government. Father had purchased a morning paper and on the front page in big letters was a headline that indicated the Czechoslovak government, under pressure from the Kremlin, was forced to change its participation in the Marshall Plan.
One must stress that this participation in the Marshall Plan had been unanimously accepted including the communist members of the Czechoslovak government.
Father declared that he did not believe such an appeasement policy would bring us any good and was pessimistic about future developments. Unfortunately, he was correct. He was not only very busy with his practice, but he was also involved in political life as a member in the Czech National Assembly. Thus, he was frequently more in Prague than in Nachod and was under considerable stress, which did not help his heart condition. One day my father had an important minister from Prague over for a lunch meeting at our house and mother prepared an impressive feast.
The minister, however, arrived late with a bad hangover from overindulging in drinks the night before and only requested to use our guest room to sleep it off. Fortunately, it was impossible to change the whole judiciary system overnight and the judge, who knew father well, declared to him privately that the whole case was mere judicial nonsense but he had orders to punish him. Thanks to the judge, the penalty was relatively mild.
Father had to give up his law practice and go to work as a miner or farmer. I must not forget to mention the revolver father had from when a German officer committed suicide in front of him in May Thus, I took it upon myself to get rid of it.
But how? One evening in the middle of the snowy winter, I put the revolver in my ski jacket and with my dog, went up Dobrosov to ski. It did not take very long to find a deserted place with dense young evergreen growth and, after making sure that we were alone, I threw the compromising revolver within the trees.
It may still be there. By spring, my final school examinations were coming to a close. Every day on my way to school, I walked along the Metuje River and passed the county court house where my father was kept in detention and I hoped he would be able to see me. After successfully completing my final examinations, I applied to go to Prague and continue my studies. For this, it was necessary to obtain a recommendation from a local Communist Youth organization but I was unable to obtain it.
Thus, I was unable to go to Charles University. After the Velvet Revolution, I was invited to give seminars at Charles University, help faculty in dental research, sponsor them to become members of the European Prosthodontic Association and make with them common presentations at stomatological congresses.
Life can sometimes be so strange. So, for now, our family went into farming. Father purchased a small farm in the little village of Sadek near Pribram. The idea, which proved very shortly to be a false one, was to survive the Communists in Sadek, just like we had survived the Nazis in Nachod. I must confess that I actually enjoyed farming. I had always liked animals and now I had the opportunity to work with horses, take care of pigs, cows, ducks, hens, turkeys and work in a wonderfully scenic environment.
On one side, the fields went in the direction of Hlubos, a small village with a pretty church on a hill, and on the other side, one could see the mountainous range of Brdy. Our farm had buildings constructed in such a way that they completed a square and, when the main gate was closed, no one could go in or out. With this gate, I discovered that our hens, geese, and ducks all had incredible internal clocks.
They knew exactly what time the gate should be open for them in the morning as well as when they should return home to roost in the evening. If I was ever late, they would wait in front of the gate making such a racket that the whole village would be aware of my tardy arrival. This more or less idyllic world came crashing down with an anonymous piece of information my father obtained from Prague.
The question was how? I will not go into detail about how our first attempt to escape between As and Hazlov in September almost ended tragically, or how our second, successful attempt from Saturday, November 27, to Sunday November 28, from Frantiskovy Lazne to Selb , was accomplished with the help of an anticomminist underground organization. This was all described in great detail by my father, translated by me, and it is appended.
We were fortunate that we had a relative, Hermine , see entry on her and her parents, Oskar and Terezie — living in Munich, Bavaria, Germany, and were able to stay in her small apartment until our emigration to Canada. Why Canada and Montreal? The explanation is simple. My parents spoke French and not English, and in Quebec, father had two very good friends. The second friend was Mr. Jan Pick, who owned two textile factories in Czechoslovakia, one near Nachod and one in Chrast, near Chrudim.
He was astute enough to escape to England just before the Second World War and his factories were confiscated by the Nazis. The following is an interesting little story to illustrate the absurdity of the accusations. The local Communist party leader in Chrast and the Communist workers sent a delegation to Prague to protest the restitution of Mr. Their intervention was received and handled by Mr. Zapotocky, one of the highest-ranking Communists in Czechoslovakia, but was not successful.
I can understand your frustration in giving the factory back to a capitalist, but nothing can be done. The restitution of Mr. Jan Pick, when notified of our successful crossing of the Iron Curtain, immediately guaranteed our family to the Canadian authorities to allow for a speedy emigration.
The malicious interference of a German official tested this speediness when our file was purposely lost. Eventually all was put in order, but this episode cost us at least six months of waiting before we were on our way to Canada.
The shortest way? No way according to the bureaucrats. From Germany, we were taken by train to a D. Displaced Persons camp in Bagnoli, near Naples. There, we made friends with other Czechoslovak refugees, who were in the process of being taken up north to Bremen, Germany, before going by ship to Canada.
While we were in Munich waiting for our departure to Canada, we decided to see the nearby Dachau concentration camp. It was, to my understanding, the first one to be used by the Nazis. When the war ended, Americans purposely wanted the Germans to see and be aware of the atrocities committed there, particularly for older school children.
In one of the buildings where prisoners were tortured, I noticed that someone had scribbled in pencil on the wall close to the floor Das alles ist nicht war.
This all is not true. Our ship, Charlton Sovereign, an old British ship from the war, arrived in Halifax Harbour on a sunny afternoon on September 4, After passing the careful immigration control, we had a free afternoon before embarking on a train to Montreal. A surprise awaited us when leaving the ship. An elderly gentleman, hearing us speak Czech, approached us and volunteered to be our guide.
I was duly impressed with the large campus and lovely buildings, and on this sunny September afternoon, I did not realize that one day I would be there as a professor in stomatology, publish a book dealing with the history of its faculty of Dentistry the first one in Canada and receive a standing ovation for that publication at a meeting of the Nova Scotia Dental Association. When I accepted a teaching position at Dalhousie in I tried with the help from the local branch of the Czechoslovak Association in Canada to locate this kind man, but since I did not remember his name, my search was in vain.
I doubt that after so many years he would still be alive, but he gave us the most memorable introduction into our new homeland.
Just in case someone was trying to sneak illegally into the USA, we were carefully watched. I could not but remember the history lecture given to us by professor Placek in Nachod. This was in a way similar to how Lenin was transported in a train carriage during the First World War from Switzerland to Russia via Germany to start his revolution, except we had no desire to so something similar in the States. We did not go directly to Montreal, but left the train in Sherbrooke, a town east of Montreal where Mr.
Pick lived. We stayed at his lovely house for a few days. What made the deepest impressions on me in this New World? I shall mention only three. To begin, there were no front fences between Mr. Imagine that! The impression was created that the residences were standing in a park-like setting.
Also, it was amazing that one did not have to go to a store to buy morning newspapers. And finally, every morning, milk, eggs, and other dairy products were brought to each house by a man on a small wagon with a highly intelligent horse. Father, as a lawyer, had no chance to practice his profession in Canada and our original idea to use our metal moulds for making miniature figurines and animals, and thus earn a living, proved to be an illusion. To explain, our family lost everything when we escaped and it was impossible to take even a small suitcase with us when we had to trek many kilometers over rough terrain and through forests.
Also, it would have been obvious to everyone what one was up to, arriving at the border with luggage. The only items we had in our pockets were the pre-First World War metal moulds my father had received as a youngster from my grandfather.
Molten metal was poured into them and the figurines ranged from Wild West Cowboys and Indians and US Cavalry to naval flotilla of dreadnoughts, cruisers, submarines and so on, to fortifications, bison, tall ships, various trees, cannons, and soldiers.
They accepted our figurines for sale in the toy department and we even had a large pre-Christmas display! But we were not pleasantly surprised by how time-consuming the work was, particularly the painting portion. It was fun to do it as a family hobby prior to Christmas, but it was a totally different proposition to do it for a living. However, if I were to choose one item to take with us into exile, the metal moulds would have been my priority.
Now, my son makes the figurines for his children just like I did for him, my father for me and his father for him. The moulds, in spite of being over years old, are still in perfect condition. They were used by our four generations of Sykoras and hopefully will be used by the next one as well. I must add that the Canadian Dental Association had a nice article about them a few years ago in its publication Communique, summer issue, p.
There is another four-generation tradition in our family but a totally different one: having Henkell Trocken champagne for special family events; it started with my grandfather Oldrich We accepted out first job offers in a textile factory in Verdun, a Montreal suburb. The proprietor, Mr. Cerny, escaped from Czechoslovakia just when the Nazis were marching in, emigrated to Canada, did well during the war, and now was able to help the new wave of political refugees.
It was not exciting or demanding work. I was simply asked to fasten, with special small nails, a fabric to long tables prior to printing, and remove the nails afterward. This was still the time before machinery took over. I discovered the only advantage of this job: I did not have to cut my nails as they were abraded by the pins. It did not, fortunately, take long before I was promoted to work in the Colour Kitchen.
I found it more interesting to mix and prepare colours according to directions from the office. My fingernails had started to grow again, and they were now the shades of a rainbow!
The mentality of some of my co-workers would have made for an interesting social research study. The instructions on what was to be mixed were always brought to us from the office, and when we completed the task, we would return the sheet of paper to the office, which was located quite far away.
One day by coincidence, when a new instruction sheet was delivered to me by someone from the office, I had just completed my previous task and so was ready to bring the old instruction sheet back to the office.
Since this co-worker was returning there anyway, I asked him if he would be kind enough to take it back for me. So both of us walked together silently across the factory floor to the office.
It may be of interest to note that at the same time, my father took courses for a B. Com degree and, once or twice, we were registered for the same course, sitting side-by-side in the classroom. Father completed his degree in spring while I finished my programme at the end of the summer. Too bad we did not graduate together! My teeth, since my youth, have always given me problems. This changed in Montreal when I became a patient of Dr.
Borchard, a German, who had the foresight to leave Europe before the war. Since I had spent many hours in his dental chair, he knew what I was doing and one day asked me whether I would be interested in studying dental technology. At this time in , I was already working at Dominion Textile in the quality control laboratory and for more pay than I had a St.
I could not, however, see staying my whole life in a large factory environment. I became interested, particularly when I was told that a vacancy existed at Stevenson Laboratory, where Dr.
Borchard sent his prosthetic work to be done. This proved to be of importance later on. In summer , I started to work as an apprentice in dental technology; it was a five-year programme of apprenticeship with evening courses. The work was interesting and I was happy with my decision. Stevenson had seven French Canadian dental technicians, one English Canadian, his name was Arthur Lafleur and he could not speak a word of French , and two students, me and Basil Sevriuk, who was a Belgian of Ukrainian ancestry.
Although he married a French Canadian girl, he always claimed that he did not speak or understand French. I wondered whether he was merely pretending, especially when the French technicians talked freely about him in his presence, and I questioned how much he really knew about what was going on. He was an artist with porcelain crowns and took interest and care in teaching Basil and me what we needed to know for our annual requirements. I was later told by other dental technician students that this was an exception to the rule.
I was in my third year of apprenticeship as a dental technician student and I felt that I had the time and energy to pursue other education, too. I did not regret it. I had a congenial group of friends, many of them also political exiles from Central Europe, so we had a lot in common.
Also, the various courses I took widened my general knowledge of history. I easily completed the programme and graduated Magna cum laude in the spring of At the same time, I finished my fourth year of dental technology.
Let me explain. Stevenson encouraged me to apply to McGill to study dentistry. I tried to tell him that this would be financially impossible for me but since he insisted, and since he was my boss, I complied. The Faculty of Dentistry did not even answer my request for an application form and as far as I was concerned, the case was closed.
How wrong I was, and how very lucky too! The law of unintended consequences took over. When I completed my MA and fourth year of dental technology, I obtained in the fall a one-year scholarship to study dentistry at McGill. Our dean, however, was not pleased with me since I had not replied to his letter from the previous year. I was called to his office, but the problem was easily resolved: McGill had my address wrong and I never received his reply to my request.
All forgiven! There is no way that you will teach your classmates any shortcuts, and you have to follow the given lab procedures even if you think that it can be done faster your way. I remember an amusing incident when we started the Crown and Bridge course. Then we were asked to apply wax on them and model the patterns to a proper contour. We had two two-hour lab sessions for completion of this task. When I finished the patterns in about half an hour and brought the work to our instructor, Dr.
Kent, for assessment, he looked at them, then at me, and asked whether I was a graduate student in Prosthodontics. I explained to him what our dean had told me and he had to agree. Despite my positive beginnings at dentistry school, I nearly got dismissed from McGill at the end of the school year. I put white gingival tone powder over the neck of the denture teeth, used characterized acrylic resin, and stippled the base.
I realize this does not mean very much to a layman, but it was really a perfect job and I was given A1 for it.
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