Waiter, 48 years old, divorced:
I guess I am not persistent enough. I saw the crowds in front of the Consulate in Vienna, Czechs and Slovaks desperately trying to get their point across using a few laboriously composed German sentences…I imagined the headache and stress I would have to endure, visiting job centres and foreign departments. And to what end? Just for getting a paper, stating that I don’t belong anywhere, and can’t go back to
Prague, not even as a tourist. That wasn’t for me. I hung about in Vienna for few more days before I had enough…
Married couple, clerks, 28 and 29 years old:
…when we were leaving we were almost decided not to come back. We thought that people should have the right to decide where they want to live. Then the end of holiday approached, and we had to make the decisive step. Suddenly we weren’t sure if this was the right move and if we really wanted it…
Woman, 44 years old, married with two children:
…we were on our way from Yugoslavia and we though that we shouldn’t really come back, for our children’s sake, if for nothing else. Nobody really knew what was going on there or what would happen next…we slept in a Sokol house and there was this woman who came to us saying that the sum of 300 shillings is to be given to everyone with a Czechoslovakian passport. She asked us to hand over our passports and promised to fetch the money for us. About an hour later, panic broke out, who knows what kind of woman is she? And what could she want to do with our passports? Some people got quite hysterical and my husband said that we couldn’t stay if we fear for our passports that would be of no use in a few days time anyway. What kind of emigrants would we be…?
Post officer, female, 47 years old, divorced with one child:
…I was so moved by everything, every poem…I think I would have cried my eyes out if I had stayed…
Two doctors, 45 years old:
…even in the best conditions we would still be foreigners there…
Source: Reportér, 8. 1. 1969
Berta Štenclová