A Chosen Few (36 page)

In 1968 things were different. The girls started going to Hebrew lessons, and there were meetings for children every Saturday afternoon. While the Skalas never observed the Sabbath, now they often met their daughters after their lessons and took them next door to the Old-New Synagogue for the Havdalah service marking the end of the Sabbath. It was a popular service for children, and the youngest child would get to hold the candle that is extinguished.

The newspapers also were different. Far from threatening Jews
in coded language, they were now denouncing anti-Semitism as a political tool. The millennium of Prague Jewry was rescheduled as a major international event, to take place in June 1969.

For seven and a half months Czechoslovakia was an exciting place. Not the least of the new possibilities was the chance to travel. On August 20, when a strange scream was heard in the skies—the sound of Soviet MiGs flying over an incoming armored invasion—many Jews were out of the country and watched the fragmented reports on television. Seven Soviet and one East German division headed to Prague and Pilsen from the GDR, one Polish and two Soviet divisions came in from Poland, three Soviet divisions came into Slovakia from the Ukraine, and smaller Soviet, Hungarian, and Bulgarian forces rolled into Slovakia from the Hungarian border. It was as though they were coming to fight a rebelling army. The Warsaw Pact, as the Soviet ambassador explained to U.S. President Lyndon Johnson, was moving against forces “hostile to socialism” and rescuing Czechoslovakia.

But what they encountered was angry, unarmed young people. Some at first tried to block tanks by sitting in front of them, but they quickly realized that they would simply be run over, as were walls, cars, and anything else that stood in the way of these clanking steel giants. In Bratislava girls seductively pulled up their miniskirts, and while Soviet tank and truck drivers stopped to ogle young Slovak thighs, young men ran up and smashed headlights with rocks and managed to set some oil drums on fire. A tank column from Hungary noisily squeaked and rumbled across the Danube bridge into Bratislava as university students cursed and threw bricks. A Soviet soldier dropped to firing position on the back of a tank and shot and killed a fifteen-year-old nursing student. The crowd that had gathered became furious, but the Soviets fired a few more rounds, killing another four unarmed people. The Soviets moved 175,000 troops against young Czechs and Slovaks throwing stones and bricks, which rang like off-key bells against the armor plating of unstoppable tanks.

By daybreak, August 21, every town of any size in the country was under the control of armored divisions. The foreign press reported spectacular acts of futile defiance. In Prague a legless World War II veteran dared tanks to roll over him. A girl ducked past the bayonets of a tank crew to mark a swastika on their tank. The Soviets were attacked with burning rags and Molotov cocktails. A few tanks burst into flames, and one ammunition truck exploded.
Young men wrapped themselves in Czech flags and charged tanks armed only with empty cans to stuff down the barrels. Flaming rags were dropped on tanks, and more of them caught fire. Scraps of furniture, car parts, and trees were tossed across streets for barricades. The tanks rolled effortlessly over them. On Thursday and Friday one-hour nationwide work stoppages were announced by the honking of horns. In one small village a tank column was turned back from a bridge by villagers who would not move. In Bratislava brown paper was stuck over tank periscopes to momentarily blind crews, and some tanks were set on fire.

For the first time in almost two decades, Czechoslovakians had been allowed to spend their summer vacation abroad. This was the news from home they were picking up on radio, television, and newspapers. František Kraus had recently died from his wartime ailments. Alice and their son Tomás were visiting friends in West Berlin. Reading the news, they were in no hurry to return.

The Skala family, on vacation in Denmark, started picking out the words
Czechoslovakia
and
Prague
in Danish conversations. Then they turned on the television and saw their hometown. The airport, the national museum, and the television center were shot up. At least twenty people had been killed in Prague alone. Russian troops had torn up the Czech Writers Union with crowbars.

In the new freedom of 1968 a youth trip to Israel had been organized by the Joint. Milana Mandl, born, like Israel, in 1948, was one of a number of Jews her age from Brno on the trip. Because of the presence of Rabbi Feter in Brno, her generation had grown up with an isolated but fairly active Jewish life. But the summer of 1968 on a kibbutz was their first opportunity to be around other Jews. Her younger brother Martin was in a Jewish youth camp in Yugoslavia. Their parents were on vacation in the mountains of Austria. When the news broke, they gathered up Martin and went to Karlsruhe in West Germany until they could decide what to do.

A difficult decision had presented itself. It was apparent that some kind of deal had been made with Moscow. The Soviets, who had five hundred tanks positioned in Prague alone, would gradually withdraw as conditions “normalized.” Normalizing meant going back to the old ways. At the moment the borders were still open for travel, but it was likely that they would not stay that way. Those who remained outside would never be allowed back in, and those inside might not have another opportunity to leave. It also
seemed likely that the “normalization,” although unpleasant for everyone, would be particularly unpleasant for Jews. Already an anti-Zionist campaign was in full swing in the Soviet bloc.

A popular Czech singer, Karol Cernoch, came out with a new song that captured the mood in Czechoslovakia: “I hope this is just a bad dream.” Thousands of Jews left the country permanently, along with tens of thousands of other Czechoslovakians.

The Skalas went back to Prague and the “normalization.” Zuzana’s parents explained to her what had happened along the way, so that she would not find it too shocking when they got home to five hundred Soviet tanks. One tank, she found, was stationed in front of her grade school. There was a Russian in a padded helmet who stuck out from the top looking very lonely, she thought. Sometimes the older children would throw stones at him, but most of the time he was alone with nothing to do but stare out.

Her parents’ closest friends, three couples with whom they did everything, all moved to Bad Nauheim, a town near Frankfurt in West Germany. The Skala parents visited Bad Nauheim to see what it would be like. Their friends wanted them to move there immediately. Other friends in Prague could arrange for Eva and Zuzana to be flown to Frankfurt. They would not even need to go back. Their friends would arrange everything. These people were living very well, because the man was a distinguished doctor. Skala, on the other hand, was a clerk, and his wife had no particular skill. Under Socialism, they had lived comfortably. But they could see that the West was different. Their friends would live very well, and they would struggle along like the poor side of the family. They returned to Prague.

There was no longer much life at the Old-New Synagogue and the Jewish town hall. Security agents were positioned in the building across Maislova Street to report on who went there. The official Jewish Community could function only because it cooperated with the regime. The Jewish officials could not be trusted, and so people stopped attending the few Community activities. It was no longer fun to celebrate holidays under watchful eyes on Maislova Street. At a Hanukkah or Purim dance, the community leaders would tell the young participants not to play music or dance because it might disturb people in the neighborhood. Soon there were no activities for Jewish youth. Old people with their old ways would be tolerated, but there was no reason to encourage young people. Zuzana Skalova kept going on occasion until she was a
teenager. Then, by chance, when she came across a document from the official Community leadership stating that Jewish life in Prague was free, open, and lively, she decided that she was participating in a sham staged by the Community leadership for the government. She stopped going.

Rabbi Feter was still in Brno, and Prague had Rabbi Gustave Zicher, but they were both aging, and the two younger rabbis who were to be the next generation of rabbinate emigrated. A good Sabbath turnout at the Old-New Synagogue was twelve or fifteen older men. Only the pensioners were not worried about their careers. The second synagogue, the Jubilee on Jeruzalémská, also managed to stay open, though the neo-Moorish synagogue was too eerie and lonely for the handful of aging men hoping for a minyan, and services were moved to a small dusty upstairs room.

Viktor Feuerlicht now led the services in the Old-New Synagogue. But he, too, had been contemplating leaving. He only wore a yarmulke indoors and did not make an outward display of his Orthodoxy. Still, he was the cantor and was seen regularly at the synagogue. No new apartment or opportunity was ever available for him. He still lived in a shabby postwar apartment with his wife and two sons who could not expect to have many career possibilities. With the “normalization” they would probably have even fewer choices. One of his sons had gone to England to study mathematics, and after the occupation he decided not to come back. But Viktor still had trouble with his arm, injured during the war; and Czechoslovakia had a good, free health-care system that looked after him.

Under “normalization,” even apolitical people were worried about what they told their children. If children heard something different at home than at school, they might say the wrong thing at school. The Skalas did not talk very much about Jewish affairs and said even less about political affairs in front of their daughters.

Czechoslovakia’s only teacher of modern Hebrew had to leave the country because of articles written by her journalist husband. As they left for Vienna, she asked Bedrǐch Nosek to take over the course. Nosek called it “a miracle” that all during the long hard “normalization” years, he was able to teach modern Hebrew to regular classes of up to eighty students. Of course, some of his students were called in to official offices and politely interrogated about why they were studying Hebrew. Nosek was also periodically questioned about his materials. The regime had to make certain he
was not using Zionist books. But since his books were in Hebrew, they could only guess at their contents. Nosek would always assure them that they were normal language books. This response worked until an influential man from the Soviet Union, a director of adult language programs, arrived in 1982. Meeting with the heads of the school board, he simply asked, “How can you be teaching modern Hebrew? Isn’t it Zionist propaganda?” After he left Czechoslovakia, Nosek’s course was quietly canceled.

In the early years of “normalization,” many people were being questioned. The Krauses had hesitated too long in West Berlin before returning, and they had some explaining to do. Even Karol Wassermann was called in, the art-collecting apolitical pharmacist. That was the way Wassermann thought of himself, but another view was that he was a nonparty member, seen regularly not only at the Old-New Synagogue but at rehearsals for theater pieces that were now banned. He decided not to tell his wife when he was called in. She was a Protestant and had not been through the experiences he had. To him, it seemed nothing that terrible could happen now. If it went very badly, he could lose his job. He hated his job.

After more than an hour of questioning—normally such sessions lasted fifteen minutes—Wassermann started to get that taut, ironic look to his face that was always a prelude to losing his temper. He told the three men questioning him what he really thought of the Russians and the occupation. After two hours he was sent home. Later, he was informed to his complete astonishment that while he had been very critical, he had criticized with “a Marxist vocabulary.” He was removed from his job but was sent to direct another pharmacy, one that he was convinced was the smallest pharmacy in Prague.

Z
UZANA
Š
IMKO
had been to Israel three years earlier and had met her half-sister, who had told her the stories their mother never spoke about: how Slovaks had hidden them during the war and an informer had turned them in. Zuzana’s half-sister was hidden in corn husks, the father was beaten to death, and their mother escaped. After two months in Israel, Zuzana went back to Slovakia to her parents and her home in Nitra in the building full of Jewish families where they kept kosher and observed the Sabbath and every holiday. In Zuzana’s mind, Jewish life was a normal and
permanent thing in Czechoslovakia. She did not have to go to Israel to find it. On a rare occasion she would hear something vaguely anti-Semitic, but in general she had no problem with non-Jews. Friends gave her Hanukkah presents, and she gave them Christmas presents. Nitra was her home.

But in 1968 she saw most of the other Jewish families in her building and community pack and leave. Although she was only 20, her parents were already in their sixties and she could not bear to leave them. Her father, with whom she was especially close, candidly stated that he did not think he would live much longer if she left. Then, too, Zuzana believed in the diaspora. For her, it had become Jewish life: “I think Jews need to have communities in other places in the world.”

Within six months following the Soviet invasion, her Jewish world had vanished from Nitra. In what had been a building of six Jewish families, only the Šimkos remained. Most of the Jewish people who had been clustered in the apartments near the synagogue left. The few Jews who stayed were mostly party members, though many of them were soon ousted from the party. Almost no one of Zuzana’s age was left. Nitra’s nine centuries of traditional Judaism, which had even survived the Nazis and Stalin, this time had finally been extinguished.

At the time of the invasion Fero Alexander had been performing folk music in Budapest. In between performances he heard on the radio that there was shooting in Bratislava and Prague. The Alexanders were a musical family, and Fero played violin in a Slovak folk group, while his brother Juraj, born in Theresienstadt, was a concert cellist. Born in 1948, Fero was one of the few boys of his generation to be bar mitzvahed in Bratislava. But with the changes of the Dubček era, he had been able to participate in a lively new youth group for Jews of his age in Bratislava.