Pavel Teodosijev

* 1944

  • "So the next day I went looking for Siemens, I came there and from Czechoslovakia, from the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic I was not used to the conditions that prevail there. So I opened a glass door, another door and there sat a man, who had a lot of devices around him and the screens and I thought I was right with the director of the company. And he started talking to me in several languages, but I could not understand, I had no clue, so I gave him my business card. He was a normal doorman, so he called the guy who gave me the business card, took me upstairs in an elevator several floors up. There he introduced me to the first clerk's office. It was already a kind of an open office, there were many tables devided only as cubicles. And she wrote something down together with me, he said goodbye to me, that was the end of our contact, no more interested, the other clerk helped me like that, and this clerk then passed me over from one cubicle to another until the last one asked me, and I, let me repeat, I did not speak any German, she did she asked me if I had a car. I said yes, and she gave me a map of where to get to the workplace. But as I misunderstood her, so excited to get a car... No, I'm sorry, she asked me if I had a car and I understood if I wanted a car. That's how it was. And I was excited, so I said, 'Yeah, I want a car.' So she gave me a map of how to get there, but I didn't have a car. And they didn't give me a car, oh well."

  • "When the Soviets came here in 1968, there was, or just before, such a possibility that the Germans were issuing visas at their trade council. Well, I went there at four o'clock. So, since the evening, I've been standing there, I was waiting for the visa until twelve, or I'm sorry, we've been waiting in line for that visa since twelve. It was in the street Ve Smečkách, if I am not mistaken. And the funny thing was that a really skinny bloke ran past the queue; that was the Emil Zátopek. So he wondered what we were doing there. And now he said a lot. He was very funny, I could not do that at all ... I'm not capable of making situational jokes... I wouldn't be able to be so funny, all of a sudden. so he made a few jokes or interesting things. And we asked him where he was running. And he said, 'Well, I was having a beer at one end of Prague and now I'm running home.' So that's how he... Well, that's just how he was… And I got a visa and after a while I got on a train with a friend and we went to see what it looks like Germany."

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    Praha, 29.11.2021

    (audio)
    duration: 01:04:17
    media recorded in project The Stories of Our Neigbours
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I got on a tram in Munich and asked aout the Siemens company

Pavel Teodosijev (en)
Pavel Teodosijev (en)
photo: archiv pamětníka

Pavel Teodosiev was born on January 5, 1944 in Prague. Father Constantine was born in 1900 in Ukraine, where he was also imprisoned in 1920 together with other classmates. He escaped from prison and eventually got to Czechoslovakia, where he was granted political asylum. As a child, Pavel recalls secret police visits to their homes. During the Prague Spring, he obtained a visa to Germany, where he worked for the company Siemens. When he returned to Czechoslovakia to extend his visa, the border got closed and he never returned to Munich. After 1968 he graduated from university, continued to work at the faculty and also restored antique furniture. In 2021 he lived in Prague.