Zuzana Petrikova

"In America yes, as he taught and published books there, even in English. But most importantly, his students from all over the world wrote to him. He loved writing back to them. He knew, I guess, 13 languages, he read everything in original. In Greek, Italian, German. I have a few of his books into which he used to write what he thought was wrong. He wrote to all the books, and always read something. So, I guess he was quite well-known here too. True, not so much as in Bohemia but his former students liked to remember him and even today we hear from them. Maybe it´s important that when grandad was running away from Bohemia, he didn´t want to, but they came to tell him that the next day he would be in prison. So, he took a small suitcase, and they were taken across the border. They walked across the Šumava Mts. And later they always spoke about how terrible the journey was. And granny in her dress and town shoes with heeels walked like this across the border. It was interesting that some 10 years ago my grandad got a letter from a son of the man who took them to Germany. He published a book about this. There is one whole chapter about the way across the border with our grandad and granny. It´s very interesting what these people did to help and save others because their own life must have been in danger too. My grandad always said:“ Well, I have left everything there.“ Because he left all his books and the house behind, yet that he was happy as he saved his life and could have children and grandchildren around. That in fact one life finished and another life started."

"Now I´d focus on my grandad: so, dr Josef Macek. He was well-known in Bohemia at university, was in the government, was friendly with Masaryk and Čapek. After the war, when they had to leave, they went to Pittsburgh where they often met with Alice Masaryková and other Czechs.. My granny wrote about all their friends. Every summer they came by train across the whole America and stayed with us for two months. I remember this, these are my first memories of my grandad. He always got up early. I came up to him and he told me some fairytales. This went on for years. Every morning these fairytales and only when I was at school I realized that these fairytales were the whole story of Illiad and Oddysey. I had no idea at that time. I thought he was making these stories up. Well, my grandad was forever writing something to somebody. He kept a lot of correspondence and he used to go down every day to post the letters and I went with him. So, we liked to be together. And with our granny we used to sing a lot of Czech songs. I remember well when my grandad retired, they moved to Vancouver not far from us. They used to walk down to the seaside. They sat there and watched ships pass by. I knew they would be sitting there every afternoon. I often went down to see them and I always found them there. I have an older brother born in Prague and then I have a younger sister born in Vancouver. As she was about nine years younger, I often looked after her. We used to go to the park where our grandparents were sitting. She was on a swing and I could talk to them."