ambassador rudolf v. perina - Association for Diplomatic Studies and ...

capitalists and so on. At that time, my parents and many others didn't believe that the
Communist government would last very long. Everybody thought it would collapse,
given the chaos developing in the economy. Very quickly, however, the government
started turning against the so-called capitalists, which included my father’s family. It was
wealthy in the context of this little town but not really in a broader context.
The persecution became so threatening that my father felt he had to escape from the
country. At the time, he still believed that it was a temporary move and that the
Communists wouldn’t last long. He escaped from Czechoslovakia by illegally crossing
the border into Austria. He expected to be back in a year or two when the Communists
collapsed but it soon became evident that the Communist government might last longer
than anyone thought.
As things kept getting worse, my mother decided to take me and to join my father, even
though by then it was much more difficult to escape. When my father left not long after
the Communist takeover, the borders were still not very tightly controlled. By the time
my mother and I were trying to leave, it was a challenge to get across the border. There
were lots of patrols and so on. Had my mother been captured during such an attempted
escape, she would have gone to prison and I would have been put into a foster home. My
mother’s sister, my aunt, was married to a Yugoslav, a Croat, and through him my
mother found and hired professional Yugoslav smugglers to take us across the border.
Yugoslav citizens were already then in a unique position— able to travel more freely than
Communist bloc citizens but not considered enemies by the governments. The Yugoslavs
my mother found were Croats who made a business of going back and forth across the
border smuggling various commodities on which one could make a profit in post-war
Europe. She paid them to take her and me across during one of their crossings. There
were three or four of these fellows and I was tied to the back of one of them, and he
carried me across the border overnight. I was apparently given something to drink to keep
me drowsy and quiet. Still, I do believe I remember some of that night because it was so
tense and unusual. It was the night of January 28 1950. Obviously we made it across the
border into Austria.
My father by that time was living in Zurich, Switzerland which he had reached through
some pre-war business contacts, and after a few months in Vienna my mother and I
managed to join him. The person who carried me across the border returned to
Czechoslovakia and was captured and arrested on a subsequent crossing. In Vienna, he
and my mother took a photograph which I still have showing how I was taken across the
border on his back. My mother also began a diary where she recounted the escape in
some detail. I hope to translate it for my daughters at some point.
We ended up in 1950 as refugees in Zürich, Switzerland, and we lived for about a year
trying to find an onward destination. The Swiss at the time were hospitable to temporary
refugees but wanted us to move on as quickly as possible.
Q: The Swiss try to keep themselves out of the refugee business because of where they
are. I understand that. They would be submerged. Do you recall any of that time?
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