Josef Zdražil

“When my grandpa died, the authorities did not even allow my mother to go to his funeral. And as for me, the first time to get back to former Yugoslavia was in 1964 and it was not as easy as it is now, when you have a passport and nobody keeps you here and you just travel. But we had to submit a request for money for the journey, it was called a request for granting foreign currency. Then you had to fill out a form and request a so-called exit permit and only then they gave you a passport. And there were many forms to fill out. When I was teaching at school, they were making the decision whether we would be allowed to travel or not, and I needed to gather about seven signatures and stamps before I was allowed to travel.”

“The war front in the territory of Yugoslavia was passing from… and it was continuously going back and forth and there were various armies that passed through – Germans, Italians, Russians; there were partisans, too. And during this war we were evacuated three times, which means that – if you can imagine that – that you are sitting at home or doing something and they come to tell you that you need to leave your house within fifteen minutes. And you don’t know at all whether you will come back or what would eventually happen. And it happened to us three times, but as I said, I was one year old at that time, so I don’t remember it, I only know it because others have told me about it. We were with partisans in the forest and the problem was that there was no food, and at one time we only had beans to eat for quite a long time, otherwise there was nothing else, and it was really not a kind of food suitable for small children. I had serious health problems because of it, and I returned from death’s door, as you say. My life was at risk.”