"There was a bit of a problem between generations of expatriates. Or those who left, because not all of them were exiles. The people who left after the communist takeover, after the forty-eighth year, were mostly not technicians, but lawyers, politicians and so on. Plus, at this time Canada had strict rules for new immigrants that were designed along the lines of the poor Pole or Italian. Anyone who came had to work manually for two years and it was stipulated where it had to be. And gradually that's how they worked their way up. And the Canadians didn't realize that by doing that they were actually losing the advantage of that immigration because they were supposed to be using the knowledge of those people. But on the other hand, too, what is a valid Czech lawyer in Canada, right. So it went both ways. Well, and all these people were very nice to us there. There was a tremendous amount of fus about how we arrived. But then it all went sour, especially on the fact that while they had gradually worked their way up, and now after all these long years they finally had their little house and some income, we came in and took twice what they did. And it was really terrible. So it was disrupting those relationships. And I was best off with the English because they were in the same situation as us."
"In the end, [Eduard Outrata, the father of the witness] served 1952-1955, or three years. He was sentenced to twelve years in that year 1954. So he came back [on six months' medical leave] and was supposed to go back, after that six months. When he was finishing that six months, he inquired in the presidential office with Zapotocký, who used to be his boss in that forty-eight, whether he should therefore go back [to prison] or not. They told him not to go back. So he stayed at home in an impossible situation and then Zapotocký accepted him. This is a story that is probably not recorded anywhere, I only know it verbally. Zapotocký took him in and offered him presidential amnesty. My father refused, saying he insisted on a retrial. which we have since begun to prepare. That was a beautiful thing, too. On the last day, before my father was released on medical leave, they seemed to have 'forgotten' in his cell the verdict they had otherwise kept from him. So he learned it by heart that night. When he came home, we greeted each other, of course. Then he slept, got up in the morning, sat me down at the typewriter and dictated the whole twelve pages of the verdict from his head. He started working on the retrial. He was a lawyer by original training. So he wanted a retrial, and in August 1955, we sent a request to about twelve different addresses. Zapotocký told him that he couldn't arrange it, but on the other hand he didn't have to have his permission to give him amnesty. Well, he offered him a larger sum of money to part with. And my father said he couldn't accept it, in this situation. And Zapotocký told him to take it, because tomorrow they could be in opposite places. So with that, he said, my father took it."
„At the beginning my father payed off the gestapo man, who was in charge of issuing “durchlasschein”, which was actually a pass through ticket. Later the communists also implemented it here. The guy issued a durchlasschein for me and my mother, without noting it down in the report; therefore my mum could come with me and the Germans didn’t even know about it. We left without any delay. My father argued that my mother was so spoiled that she could not live without her regular holidays at the Italian beaches. However it was, it was effectively bribed.”
“But now there was a problem with an archive. In a year and half the national committee (in Francie – author´s note) a pretty long archive was put together, and it could not get to Germans at no cost. The ship captain refused to take anything than people and their necessary luggage. Certainly no archives. They kept quarrelling and negotiating, the captain stood his ground and it was clear that things will not work out. It was interesting that our representatives were not able to resolve the situation. In the end the wife of the minister Slávik, who worked as the ministry of interior for a long time, resolved the situation. She was a spirited lady, who took over the lead and ordered the archive to be delivered on the pier. So they put it on, she took a light match and burnt it all down.”
“My uncle wanted to know, what is going on, to hear the bombs falling. Yet my father didn’t want to know about it. So finally they closed everything, so that nothing could be heard, but at least my uncle hanged a thermometer on his window. So when the bomb fell down, the thermometer shook and they saw it that way. And then it blasted very close and each reacted the way they could. My mother ran to me as I was sleeping in the next room, my uncle stood up and ran somewhere too and I ran also, despite the fact I had nowhere to run. They met in the doorway and before they could move again, it must have took at least a minute. So that is the kind of stories I got remembering those times. The battle of England was over and we moved to a village called Headley in the South of England, in Surrey, where my father rented a big house.”
Edvard Outrata was born in Brno on August 9, 1936 into the family of JUDr. Eduard Outrata and Emma, née Čepková. His father was the general director of the Brno Zbrojovka factory, was involved in the foreign anti-Nazi resistance and twice served as a minister in the government-in-exile led by Edvard Beneš. His mother Emma represented our country at the Wimbledon tennis tournament in 1935. In 1939, after the German occupation, Edvard emigrated with his parents to France and then to Britain, where he graduated from a Czechoslovak state school. After returning to Czechoslovakia in 1945, his father Eduard Outrata served as head of the State Planning Commission. He retained his position after 1948, but four years later he was arrested and convicted in a staged trial. In 1955 he was released for health reasons. His son Edvard, however, graduated from high school and was accepted to study at the University of Economics in Prague, which he completed in 1959. After completing his basic military service, he joined the Prague Research Institute of Mathematical Machines as a programmer and analyst. Because of his contacts with employees of British computer companies, he was contacted at least twice by Czechoslovak counterintelligence. After the occupation in 1968, he and his wife Ing. Jana Outratová left to Canada. Until his return to his homeland in 1993, he worked at the Canadian Federal Bureau of Statistics. From 1993 to 1999, he served as Chairman of the Czech Statistical Office, and in 2000 he successfully ran for the Senate of the Czech Republic, where he served as Vice-Chairman from 2004 to 2006. He retired in 2006.
