A Teacher in Czechoslovakia
Memoirs of an American Teacher
Madonna Moran (Donna Lee)
Stories from Prague
March 1993, Diary Notes
My own mood was one of heaviness of spirit. I took the tram downtown to Wencenslas Square to get an International Herald English newspaper. It was a pleasant ride, going over the bridge at the Vltava River. I could see the luxurious new Atrium Hotel, where our new President Clinton stayed on his visit to Prague. The "scuttlebutt" that I heard was that it costs $400 a night to stay there, and Mr. Clinton had rented the whole hotel for himself and 100 people traveling with him! "Security" reasons were given for this extravagance! (The equivalent of this amount of money in Czech currency was about two months salary for the average person! They assumed that all of us Americans are rich!)
As the train passed over the bridge, I could see the beautiful swans with new babies following them through the ripples on the water below. High on the cliff on the other side of the river was Stalin's Plains, where a plain ornament had been erected to replace the huge statue of Stalin which once overlooked the city.
Back home in my room, I read the reports of Bosnia news, that General Moriand had gone to Belgrade to negotiate with Mr. Milosevic, the Serb leader. The General was objecting to the arms and supply route for Serbs to Bosnia, which was coming from Belgrade. The BBC gave a "repeat" of this news and said that the Serbs had surrounded the town of Srebrnica and wanted the Muslims to surrender all of their weapons. 60,000 people were trapped there. Canadian U.N. soldiers tried to get through with trucks of food and medicine and wanted to evacuate the town, but the Serbs stopped them at every checkpoint!...The U.N. wanted to use helicopters to evacuate the people but didn't know where to take them.
I had been given another appointment with the police regarding my work permit and "green card" and dreaded it! I had met young American back-packing students at the bus station. They told me it only took them 30 minutes to get a green card to work here, and they had an "unlimited" visa! Why was I being "singled out"? I didn't know!
The next day, after school, I took the tram to a small run-down police station in a "seedy" section of town, where a lot of gypsies lived in squalor. A vagrant was asleep on a side bench as I presented myself and all of my papers to the policeman in charge. He was overweight and had a stain on his uniform from whatever he had been eating for lunch. He knew no English and apparently didn't know who I was! After a few false starts in our conversation, he ordered me to"Leave!" So, I did!
I still had to get a "Permission to Live in Prague" paper notarized by the bank for the police and go back to Interpol for the release paper stating that I am not a criminal! (Poor Anna who has had to be my "go-between" translator for all of this!) In spite of all the good things, I had a constant underdurrent of worry over my problems with the police. I didn't understand the reasons for it.
My first trip to the Prague Police Department to get a work permit was in September. It was in a run-down storfront office, and two men with green passports sat on a bench smoking, while I went to the main desk. I showed the officer in charge my passport and I.D. card and asked for a work permit. He was a gruff, red-faced man with his belly hanging over his gun belt. He looked at the passport and took it into the inner office, while I stood there, waiting. He apparently had a conference with someone inside, as it seemed a long time. A woman officer came out, who was his opposite--small, wiry, with close cropped hair--very "mannish" with a deep voice. She was all business! As she handed me my passport and I.D. card, she said, "You must bring us a picture and have AIDS test at Nemocnica for foreigners. We no want someone with AIDS!" She dismissed me with a wave of her hand, and I left.
I found out that neither of the tasks was easily done. The photo office required a tram ride to Wenceslas Square and back. The hospital was far south of the city, and I had to go to the "Angel" subway station (which was an old Jewish synagigue) to take a train. (This took at least an hour of my time--before school!) Once there, I sat for an hour in a drab waiting room. It was a simple blood test, but I had to wait 10 days for the results. (I do not have AIDS.)
The way the police operated ("by the grapevine")--they would first call the headmaster, Mr. Rosicka, then he would tell Anna, and she would pass the information on to me! Each month brought a new request. I got to know the city quite well, as they kept changing police stations and places where I had to go. (It was obvious they were playing a "cat and mouse" game with me!)
One "order" was to go to the Criminal Court Building in the center of town to get a "special stamp" on a document I couldn't read! I took a student with me to translate, and we stood in line for an hour in the rain to get into the building. When we got inside, there was another line in front of a passport window. When I presented my passport and document to the woman behind the window, she looked at them, then gave them back to me. "We are closed," she said. "Come back tomorrow!" She pulled down the shade behind the window.
These tactics went on and on, but I kept going to work every day. The next place I was required to go was the International Police Building, as they needed to have me investigated to see if I had a criminal record! It took 10 days for them to find out that I was not a criminal, and I had to get back to get more papers! It took alot of time to get there and back, as tram tracks were being repaired. Each month was something new.
I think it was in March that the police called Mr. Rosicka to tell him I needed to have a permit to live in Prague. I had to get a letter from my landlord, who owned my building, stating that I was a good tenant. Since the government owned the building, "Mr. R." said I could ignore this!
I was getting discouraged by these police tactics. Both Judy and Anna tried to buoy up my spirits. Judy told me she knew of a case, during the Communist days, when a teacher in our day care center held up a picture of Jesus to the little children gathered around her. When she asked, "Who is this?" one of the children raised her hand and said, "That's Jesus!" A few nights later, two members of the secret police V.B.B. (K.G.B.) appeared at the apartment of her parents. They asked, "How did the child know this?" (Religion was forbidden!) Then they told the parents they would get only half their salary for the month. If it happened again, they would lose their jobs!
Anna mentioned a teacher she knew who had gone to a church in her home village. Someone from her workplace reported her to the V.B.B. A few weeks later, when she went to her job on a Monday morning, someone else was at her desk. She had lost her job--with no reason given!
I called the American Embassy, and a lady there told me that no American teacher has been harrassed by the police in this way before. She said she would "look into it"!
My last trip to the police station was in April. It was a beautiful day--the parks were all in bloom with forsythia and daffodils. Lovers walked along the paths of the Vltava River; kids played stickball on the sidestreets, and women began Spring housecleaning. Feather comforters were hung over balconies, and the "bip, bip, bip" sounds of rugs being beaten on the clotheslines could be heard from the street. I certainly did not want to go to the Olsanka Police Station for Foreigners, today!
One of my students in the 4 o'clock class said that he would drive me there on his way home. I was happy to accept and asked him to wait for a few minutes outside, by the front of the school. His name was Georgy, and he told me that he had his own business, and his truck would be parked at the curb. It was a surprise to me to find a black hearse waiting for me, with a skull and bones painted on the side of the door with the words "Black Death Vodka" under it! Georgy smiled and leaned over to the passenger side to let me in. The entire back of the hearse was filled with bottles of vodka!
"I have to make a delivery in the Ukraine," Georgy said. "It should take two days--if the Mafia doesn't get me first." I thought he was joking, but Georgy never came back to school!
My own mood was one of heaviness of spirit. I took the tram downtown to Wencenslas Square to get an International Herald English newspaper. It was a pleasant ride, going over the bridge at the Vltava River. I could see the luxurious new Atrium Hotel, where our new President Clinton stayed on his visit to Prague. The "scuttlebutt" that I heard was that it costs $400 a night to stay there, and Mr. Clinton had rented the whole hotel for himself and 100 people traveling with him! "Security" reasons were given for this extravagance! (The equivalent of this amount of money in Czech currency was about two months salary for the average person! They assumed that all of us Americans are rich!)
As the train passed over the bridge, I could see the beautiful swans with new babies following them through the ripples on the water below. High on the cliff on the other side of the river was Stalin's Plains, where a plain ornament had been erected to replace the huge statue of Stalin which once overlooked the city.
Back home in my room, I read the reports of Bosnia news, that General Moriand had gone to Belgrade to negotiate with Mr. Milosevic, the Serb leader. The General was objecting to the arms and supply route for Serbs to Bosnia, which was coming from Belgrade. The BBC gave a "repeat" of this news and said that the Serbs had surrounded the town of Srebrnica and wanted the Muslims to surrender all of their weapons. 60,000 people were trapped there. Canadian U.N. soldiers tried to get through with trucks of food and medicine and wanted to evacuate the town, but the Serbs stopped them at every checkpoint!...The U.N. wanted to use helicopters to evacuate the people but didn't know where to take them.
I had been given another appointment with the police regarding my work permit and "green card" and dreaded it! I had met young American back-packing students at the bus station. They told me it only took them 30 minutes to get a green card to work here, and they had an "unlimited" visa! Why was I being "singled out"? I didn't know!
The next day, after school, I took the tram to a small run-down police station in a "seedy" section of town, where a lot of gypsies lived in squalor. A vagrant was asleep on a side bench as I presented myself and all of my papers to the policeman in charge. He was overweight and had a stain on his uniform from whatever he had been eating for lunch. He knew no English and apparently didn't know who I was! After a few false starts in our conversation, he ordered me to"Leave!" So, I did!
I still had to get a "Permission to Live in Prague" paper notarized by the bank for the police and go back to Interpol for the release paper stating that I am not a criminal! (Poor Anna who has had to be my "go-between" translator for all of this!) In spite of all the good things, I had a constant underdurrent of worry over my problems with the police. I didn't understand the reasons for it.
My first trip to the Prague Police Department to get a work permit was in September. It was in a run-down storfront office, and two men with green passports sat on a bench smoking, while I went to the main desk. I showed the officer in charge my passport and I.D. card and asked for a work permit. He was a gruff, red-faced man with his belly hanging over his gun belt. He looked at the passport and took it into the inner office, while I stood there, waiting. He apparently had a conference with someone inside, as it seemed a long time. A woman officer came out, who was his opposite--small, wiry, with close cropped hair--very "mannish" with a deep voice. She was all business! As she handed me my passport and I.D. card, she said, "You must bring us a picture and have AIDS test at Nemocnica for foreigners. We no want someone with AIDS!" She dismissed me with a wave of her hand, and I left.
I found out that neither of the tasks was easily done. The photo office required a tram ride to Wenceslas Square and back. The hospital was far south of the city, and I had to go to the "Angel" subway station (which was an old Jewish synagigue) to take a train. (This took at least an hour of my time--before school!) Once there, I sat for an hour in a drab waiting room. It was a simple blood test, but I had to wait 10 days for the results. (I do not have AIDS.)
The way the police operated ("by the grapevine")--they would first call the headmaster, Mr. Rosicka, then he would tell Anna, and she would pass the information on to me! Each month brought a new request. I got to know the city quite well, as they kept changing police stations and places where I had to go. (It was obvious they were playing a "cat and mouse" game with me!)
One "order" was to go to the Criminal Court Building in the center of town to get a "special stamp" on a document I couldn't read! I took a student with me to translate, and we stood in line for an hour in the rain to get into the building. When we got inside, there was another line in front of a passport window. When I presented my passport and document to the woman behind the window, she looked at them, then gave them back to me. "We are closed," she said. "Come back tomorrow!" She pulled down the shade behind the window.
These tactics went on and on, but I kept going to work every day. The next place I was required to go was the International Police Building, as they needed to have me investigated to see if I had a criminal record! It took 10 days for them to find out that I was not a criminal, and I had to get back to get more papers! It took alot of time to get there and back, as tram tracks were being repaired. Each month was something new.
I think it was in March that the police called Mr. Rosicka to tell him I needed to have a permit to live in Prague. I had to get a letter from my landlord, who owned my building, stating that I was a good tenant. Since the government owned the building, "Mr. R." said I could ignore this!
I was getting discouraged by these police tactics. Both Judy and Anna tried to buoy up my spirits. Judy told me she knew of a case, during the Communist days, when a teacher in our day care center held up a picture of Jesus to the little children gathered around her. When she asked, "Who is this?" one of the children raised her hand and said, "That's Jesus!" A few nights later, two members of the secret police V.B.B. (K.G.B.) appeared at the apartment of her parents. They asked, "How did the child know this?" (Religion was forbidden!) Then they told the parents they would get only half their salary for the month. If it happened again, they would lose their jobs!
Anna mentioned a teacher she knew who had gone to a church in her home village. Someone from her workplace reported her to the V.B.B. A few weeks later, when she went to her job on a Monday morning, someone else was at her desk. She had lost her job--with no reason given!
I called the American Embassy, and a lady there told me that no American teacher has been harrassed by the police in this way before. She said she would "look into it"!
My last trip to the police station was in April. It was a beautiful day--the parks were all in bloom with forsythia and daffodils. Lovers walked along the paths of the Vltava River; kids played stickball on the sidestreets, and women began Spring housecleaning. Feather comforters were hung over balconies, and the "bip, bip, bip" sounds of rugs being beaten on the clotheslines could be heard from the street. I certainly did not want to go to the Olsanka Police Station for Foreigners, today!
One of my students in the 4 o'clock class said that he would drive me there on his way home. I was happy to accept and asked him to wait for a few minutes outside, by the front of the school. His name was Georgy, and he told me that he had his own business, and his truck would be parked at the curb. It was a surprise to me to find a black hearse waiting for me, with a skull and bones painted on the side of the door with the words "Black Death Vodka" under it! Georgy smiled and leaned over to the passenger side to let me in. The entire back of the hearse was filled with bottles of vodka!
"I have to make a delivery in the Ukraine," Georgy said. "It should take two days--if the Mafia doesn't get me first." I thought he was joking, but Georgy never came back to school!
