Anastasis Pomakis

“We grew up together, but there were problems of course. As children, always, even though us boys were friends, and the girls had Czech friends too, but when something happened – because we were more assertive, that means we were more flexible, more sports-like, talented, because we had it in our genes. That was true for many a game. The city was expanding, the city was in bloom then, right, a lot of building going on, because the steelworks were expanding, so there was an increase of work force here. So the people needed flats or something, so they built houses, so we clambered around in the scaffolding and did all sorts of tomfoolery. So us and the boys as in the Czechs were the core of this, like a normal group. But when something went wrong, the blame went to the Greeks of course. Right, I mean that’s a problem all over the world. If someone moves to another country, then whatever bad or negative happens, it sticks to those people until it gets cleared up. Well, of course if we knew it was our fault, then we knew we’d done it. Like if a window got broken somewhere, right, while building the city. Right, so we knew that, but when something else happened and we knew we hadn’t done it, then of course we dealt with that amongst ourselves – us boys. So the truth always got out in the end. Right, that means that for instance at school, when someone was being naughty, then they called the headmaster and him, him, him to the headmaster’s office. Greek children him and him, report there, so we went. So it would happen that they’d come and say that this and this has happened, and we stared and said it wasn’t true. But we got to the truth in the end because we fought for it ourselves.”

“I remember that even amongst the teachers there were those who wished us no good, right. So I know that one teacher we had, she taught Czech, she couldn’t stomach the fact that we were simply much better at Czech than the local children. Right, so she put obstacles before us. Right, I have that totally negative. Right, and I can’t forget her that. But so, unfortunately, so she’s around eighty today. But you have that memory fixed in your head. That hurt. Because it happened that for instance some people switched schools because of her. That there were four pupils who left simply because of her, because she could make them fail. Right, even though we knew Czech much better. Because here in this region it’s like this, that they’re of Silesian nationality, right, they have their Silesian dialect. And we grew up with classic Czech, right. So we read, we did everything, we grew up with Czech. Right, we didn’t properly know the dialect. So that was one negative, yeah. With me it’s exactly like that, that even my daughter when she started first grade, I found out on the noticeboard, at the school, like the first graders always have the signs on the door 1-A, B, C, which pupils go to which class. And I happened to see that the same teacher had my daughter’s class. And of course that hit me straight off, right, the feedback was right there. The brain sparked and I said to myself: ‘Oh no, my daughter won’t suffer.’ She might not have suffered, right, I mean yeah, but that was just an automatic thing, right, even though one didn’t realise it. But when I saw that - I said no. So of course I went to the headmaster and I said I didn’t want my daughter to be in that particular class. I didn’t say why, right, that’s kind of dumb. I mean I won’t be going back and stirring up old problems, so that she’d find out - because I know that you say something and it doesn’t stay secret, she’d find out. So he complied, she didn’t teach [my daughter]. But otherwise everything was normal with the teachers.”

(Q: “Do you have Greek citizenship?”) “Well, I did have, but there was that one time, ninety-five or when was it, they said they’d be expelling. I didn’t have Czech citizenship, I didn’t, but then there was the regime change, and that they’d be expelling foreigners and so on and so on, fear and the whatnot... We didn’t find out till later that they split it into exchange foreigners and working foreigners, right. So I reckon, you’re here so many years, you work here and suddenly just because... Some law pops up, right, and we’ll have to have Czech citizenship, right. Otherwise we didn’t do military service, nothing. Then they called us in for military service, I was married by then, had children for ages and everything, right. That was funny. They called us in to the army office and we had a lot of fun there. I had a moustache then, like Stalin. We came to the army office, and they looked at us like what do we want here. We said: to do military service, who knows. We saw how the youngsters in the waiting room there, someone came out jumping that he can skip service. They wanted the blue books (documents excusing a person from military service – transl.), and we came along, me and my cousin, him with a full beard too, and they said like, oh well, some paper, so we came along, happened to meet some boys, university students, they have the two stripes, golden like, they always have it, that they’re university students. They looked at us and said: ‘So go there.’ We went along, so we kind of passed through it, the medical exam. There’s like a circle there, a medical one, and some such and then they do - then we were talking, there was one doctor there. And he looked at us and said: ‘You’re Greeks.’ So we started talking about Greece. And then the verdict was they wouldn’t take us into the army, that we’re able, but age-wise... And I said we both disagree, that we want into the army. That it’s unfair to us, that I already got it arranged and such. I said: ‘I’ve got it arranged at work, that when it’s time for the oath, that a bus, a minibus, that it’s ready, that the family will come. My daughters, my family, the one parents and the other, my friends will all come for the oath.’ They started to laugh: ‘You don’t mean that seriously.’ I said they couldn’t do this to us. My cousin also started... Then they said: ‘Not an option, no no no.’ ”

“The difference between us and you, like between how Greeks and Czechs have fun, is that we spend two hundred crowns on food and eighty on drinks, and you spend two hundred on drinks and fifty on food. Right, because they don’t have it that, it’s like that here. But those acquaintances of mine that come here and such, they know it has it’s limits. But it still isn’t so... I mean the men make for a hard time, because when they get going, they get going. And then you say: ‘Have one’, ‘We shan’t’, ‘Have this’, ‘Ablabla’, ‘I’ll rather have beer’ – well, it’s kind of rooted in them. But it’s fun, it’s fine when it’s joined. Now, the acquaintances I have, and there’re many of them that come, they’re completely thrilled, right, by the fun, that they can have fun. And the women are also happy with it, the girls say it’s perfect, that it isn’t like the balls where you just go and you do up your hair, your dress. Then you come there, the men meet up: ‘Hey hey’ – they go to the bar, for ten minutes they say, then it’s half an hour, six big shots, they come back – 0.1 BAC. And you want something from them then, you want to go dancing, they don’t want to, and then to wait for: ‘May I?’ So you sit there, three four thousand (crowns) stuck on top of you, and yo don’t even get to dance, nothing. Whereas with us Greeks it’s great: you want to dance – so you get up and you go dance, you don’t want to, so you sit down. You want to dance bare-foot, you dance bare-foot, no dressing up, just – you go have fun.”