The Communist take over ... overthrow happened in February '48  and things changed so quickly. 

You know people who were the editor of the magazine where I used to work was replaced by somebody quite inappropriate. Only because he was a member of the Communist Party. 

Vojta also got a letter from the Artist's Union that unless he joins the Communist Party he will not be able to exhibit and he said he will have to leave the country, which we first tried to do legally, but there was no hope to do that really. 

We both had passports. The communist regime now issued an order that you also need a special permission, which was given only to members of the Communist Party to get outside the country. So the only thing that was left for us was to leave the country illegally. It was absolutely shocking.

I wasn't allowed to tell my parents that I was leaving. The day came and so I just put on lots of clothes and it was still cold, under a big overcoat and didn't show myself to Mum because I would look so bulky she would wonder why. So I just called out to her, 'Bye Mom' and she said 'What time will you be back?' and I said, 'oh about 10 as usual.' That's the last actually, I have seen her for the next 25 years.

Crossing the border, of course it had to be at night and also you needed a guide because we would be crossing the border into the section of Germany which was under the Americans. It was referred to as the American Zone. This man really didn't say a word except he just gave us instructions, like if there was a clearing he would say, 'Down on your stomachs', you know, and so it was pure Hollywood stuff. 

And I actually got quite carried away by the adventure of it, completely forgot that it was a very dangerous thing, because if we were caught there was a Special Police on the borders and were we caught there was years of imprisonment would follow, and on the other hand if you didn't stop and plan they were allowed, and would, shoot. So I think both Vojta and Dušan saw the critical or very dangerous situation as it really was, whilst I looked at it rather stupidly as a ... as a great adventure. 

When we eventually got into Germany, this guide brought us right to the police station. To our great amazement we found that about 30 members of the uniformed border police were there as well, because they were also crossing illegally the borders. We thought that they were waiting for us [laughter], to take us back, but it was a great relief and we realised there was no need for all that crawling on our stomachs but of course nobody knew that. 

We were staying in what originally was a concentration camp. We were deciding between Australia and Canada because they were two countries which were actually welcoming immigrants and also provided transport there in a question of weeks. And whilst I would have preferred Canada because I liked the cool weather better, both Dušan and Vojta definitely preferred Australia because they were fascinated by the primitive art of the Aborigines. Also in the last minute actually, the Australian representative of the government came a week earlier before the Canadians, so that was the last straw, so Australia it was to be. 

Already on the ship I met a Czech girl, who was in exactly the same situation as I was. Our transport was the third transport to come after the war and our arrival got a big publicity. Lydia and I had our photo taken and it eventually appeared on the first page. 
 

Well the same day actually, in the evening, we arrived at the Bathurst camp. An ex-Army camp but now it was a receiving camp for migrants. We were first accommodated in those long Nielsen huts with dormitories separate for men and women, and the next couple of days were spent really to be tested on our knowledge, or lack of, the English language. 

I was asked to explain the proverb 'to put the cart before the horses'. Well, that wasn't difficult. I didn't know the proverb but it was pretty obvious what it meant. So the examinee said that I don't need to attend any classes and I said I would like to stay in the camp, waiting for my husband to arrive.

He was sure that I could find a job in the camp, so I did, and I was employed as a waitress in the staff dining room.

The life in the camp was extremely relaxing. I just have one example of how easy going it was. We had been eating with Lydia in the staff dining room where the cook was a chef from Dubrovnik and the meals there were absolutely delicious and we both have put on weight. I had only one skirt, and one morning when Lydia was getting ready to go to serve the breakfast I said 'I'm staying in bed, tell them that I can't get up until I slim into my skirt.' And she said, 'I can't tell them that.' And I said 'Yes, yes it's true! You can tell them that.' 

So she eventually went, and she came back with a sort of huge, about size 24 khaki skirt, and big safety pins. And that's what they sent me hoping that I will fit into that [laughter]. So I've put it on and everybody laughed like mad when I came into the dining room to help Lydia.

We were still in the camp waiting for her husband and mine and in 2 months time they eventually arrived. All the migrants at the time, because the government paid, we were told 10 pounds for each immigrant to bring them over. We had a contract with the government to work for two years, wherever they would send us. Then we were looking around because we had a choice of as to where we wanted to work, and we chose Adelaide.

So the 4 of us were travelling to the Northfield Infectious Hospital, which when we arrived we found was just the only isolated building! There was nothing as far as you could, as you could see, except flowering thistles. So we already felt a little bit put off, felt very isolated. Actually they had a beautiful garden and I was working again in the staff dining room and the three girls were working on wards.

Vojta and Dušan and Lydia's husband were working on sort of on the railways and accommodated in Islington. It wasn't at all satisfactory, because we hoped to be living closer together. 

When we earned our first wages, Lydia and I had a day off on a weekday, and like all the nurses we took - caught - the bus to the city and spent our wages on outfitting ourselves in what was then called the new look, the long skirts nearly to the ankles. And then put those clothes on to look like proper Australians. Bought ourselves fish and chips wrapped up in newspaper and went along North Adelaide to have a sort of picnic. We were encountered by two cameramen who wanted us to advertise their new name, margarine and they were very surprised  when they found we were not Australians. Because in a way we were the first Europeans to come to Adelaide, and we were just as surprised at what they asked us to do. But we were quite happy to pose for them.

So whilst we were spreading the bread, which they supplied, with the margarine they were advertising, the voice-over went ... 'and here, two typical Australian girls are having picnic lunch in front of the museum using our' ... and that was the name of that margarine. 
We then hunted with Lydia all kinds of cinemas until we found our commercial.

First of all actually Vojta had to work, there was no other work except in a factory, where he was doing welding and I started teaching at a primary school. Vojta, about 6 months after we returned, said that he has decided to not work at anything else except his art because after all that's why he left his country.

I couldn't see how we could manage on my meagre school salary, but fortunately Vojta was given his first Commission for religious art to make a statue of wrought iron. This is where the welding which he has just learned actually helped him.

I was happily teaching. In my first Grade 2 class I had 70 children. It was a very much [laughter] full-time job. My aim was just one aim, and that was that the children must be able to read at the end of the school year. Fortunately I was given a lot of freedom and even though I think my methods were a bit unorthodox I think I had the results. With Vojta's help, I had made sort of small placards that the children had round their necks with the letters of the alphabet. Of course some letters had to be more frequent but with 70 children that wasn't difficult and then they would sit in their desks and I would call out a word, and the children who had the letter in them would run out the front and form the letter ... and they really enjoyed this! 

Olga and Ivan, they were growing up in Czech language spoken at home and English in the outside world and with other children. I was lucky enough to have my first own Czech Primer, which my mother sent me. So I actually taught Olga to read to Czech before she started school, which was the only way because later she wouldn't feel like going through the difficult Czech pronunciations. So at the start there, we even were using just Czech books. So that they both speak well and my daughter also writes really well. She's travelled a lot and I have kept most of her letters, which are written in Czech and are usually very amusing.

My son has been probably more ambitious in his family, he's got 4 children so there wasn't so much time or money for travel. But he was in Prague and met my mother, and when he wrote in Czech, I must admit that it was a little too creative to pass. But we speak only Czech, which I can't say about my grandchildren because all they can say in Czech is Babi and Děde and as Vojta used to say, even that they get sometimes mixed up.

I was thinking of what I have gained and what I have missed, just simply because I have left my country. I have missed out on that adult daughter and mother relationship, which I value very much with my own daughter now. Also, I must have been missing friends with whom I have shared the teenage years, which in most people's lives are the most exciting and the feelings are the strongest.

I have also missed out on the artistic developments in my country. When I tasted them I was in Czechoslovakia, back in Czechoslovakia, first in 1968 with my daughter who was then 16. The installations of theatre–plays and operas. We had seen [indecipherable]. It was like a dream, like magic, we couldn't believe what was going on. We were absolutely spellbound we couldn't believe it.

I think I have gained quite a lot. I value the fact that I was allowed to  adopt another language, which became to me as important as my mother language. In a way, even in a different way I really enjoy writing in English, and choose expressions which satisfy me fully. Whilst if I'm writing or talking in Czech it's a very comfortable language, your mother language, it's like putting on your old slippers and feeling very comfortable.

Besides that there is the sea. I have always been dreaming of the sea, which I of course have never got to until after we have left our country. I'm now lucky enough that I live just 2 streets up from the Esplanade and 3 minutes down I can swim and I can go for long walks along the sea, which fascinates me still.

I still remember the words of a loyal friend of my parents, who when I was going with Vojta, called us and said 'for heaven's sake don't you two get married or between the two you won't be able to buy yourself a saucepan.'

I feel that I will always have to be grateful to Australia because it enabled 2 people like us. Vojta, an artist with only one aim in life – that was to work at his art –and partnered by a thoroughly unpractical person like me, were able to live here without ever having to starve. This is thanks to a country which was very generous to us.