Coming to Peace

Coming to Peace

by Karen Derenbecker

     Slavka (name meaning “she who achieved greatness”) was just a teenager when the time came that she had to secretly leave her beloved city of Prague and her much cherished mother, father, and brother behind for her safety. She had grown up with Hitler’s Nazi occupation from the age of six turning seven until the age of fourteen. Prague, a city of deep beauty with its landscape, architecture, culture and Prague Castle where Hitler in 1939 declared that the Czechoslovak people were now under him—German fascism, was never to be her home again. It was a city filled with people who personified it as a dear member of their family.

    Slavka, mom, knew what it was like living under the constant threats war brings, WWII in her case. The nighttime bombings where hope could only be found while hiding in darkness. Windows were blacked out so the planes swarming above could not see the light that was held in the hearts of the Czechoslovakian people. Unbeknownst to her and the others at the time, Prague was so precious even Hitler couldn’t bring himself to destroy it. Once the German occupation was over, Czechoslovakia was left vulnerable and perplexed as to where their trust should lie.

    In the mid to late 1940’s Prague and its country of Czechoslovakia came under the threat of Soviet Union backed communism. I believe this is when the fire became lit in Slavka at the very young age of sixteen, far shy of becoming seventeen. She felt compelled to do her part to protect all that Prague, Czechoslovakia, and its people embodied. She found her way, which was not revealed to me, to being a part of the Praha newspaper force at seventeen. She was one of the devout people who would write against the communist taking over and then the takeover itself being a voice for this country’s fight.

    The Communist Party undisputedly took over control of the government of Czechoslovakia in 1948 which became known as the “coup d’état” and Czechoslovakia realized four decades of transparent communist rule. This is when it became clear my mother had to escape her beloved city, country, family, and people. The democratic hopes and traditions of Czechoslovakia died along with their President Benes in 1948. There were forced home entries along with innocent citizens arrested and mysterious deaths. As the reign of terror became more entrenched, the people with vast ties whom she worked with and for saw it necessary that she leave the country with their help.

     With the help of many who knew people of great importance, she left her country and her people with no goodbyes, even to family, in the middle of the night literally and ironically crawling across the border into Germany. She described to me, much later in my life, her memory of lying in the mud watching soldiers’ boots go by. I grew up not knowing any of her extraordinary past. I was thirty-five with two daughters of my own aged seven and five before she opened up to me about her life before America—the only life I knew her to live.

    She began writing journals when she reached England in 1950. It is these journals and the photos and memorabilia she had that led her to let me in. My father, her husband of forty years, had passed away before we went through the devastation of Katrina. We, and those we know, were very blessed having lost very little and more importantly having lost no one during this horrific hurricane. It did, however, leave a lasting impression. I was no longer living on the side of Lake Pontchartrain that is most vulnerable when a hurricane hits, but she was still in New Orleans and now living there alone. I was there visiting her when she decided to share her keepsakes, including her journal with me so that I may take them and keep them safe. I don’t know how I never knew they existed since I was an impish child who scoured our home at Christmas time looking for the presents she might be hiding. I always regretted this Christmas morning and I regret not asking her questions about her life before my dad and this country. I’m not sure how much she would have told me had I asked. There was always something keeping me and my two brothers from asking her any questions.

    What a beautiful writer she was. The journals are so captivating and revealing of a very young lady thrown into living in different strangers’ homes in strange-to-her lands. She was welcomed through the contacts she had from the Praha newspaper. She lived in an ambassador’s home for some of her time in England and she made sure she experienced the theatre and concerts so renowned in London. What I know mostly comes from what she wrote about which is captivating—both the experiences and her writing. For instance, in her journal on July 19, 1950 (at the age of eighteen), she writes:

    “But the real reason of my trip to London was an appointment with Mr. Fleming, the Foreign Manager of Kemsley Organization.” THE Ian Fleming author of the James Bond books—007. She goes on to write:

     “I opened the door, like stepping into a ring, all tensed up to fight—for everything.

    The minute I had my foot over the threshold, everything went out of my head. There was a middle-aged man at a desk and a tall girl, standing beside him; they were caught in suspended movement by my entry, oddly like a film still. It seemed to me that the room, the exact position of the desk, the shaft of dusty sunlight on the floor had been there for me throughout my whole life.

    They were looking at me, as I was at them—I have no idea for how long: and then the telephone on the desk started to ring and the illusion broke. I don’t remember much about that conversation except that I have succeeded—they like me!    Good night!”

    Taped on the page to the left of this entry is a letter with the heading “KEMSLEY HOUSE, LONDON, W.C.I.  dated 10^th July, 1950 and stating:

Miss S. H_____

c/o Mrs. R. F. Walkins,

9, St. Marks Avenue,

Northfleet,

Kent. 

“Dear Miss H______,

         As Mr. Fleming is at present abroad, may I thank you for your letter of 7^th July.

         Perhaps you would care to come see Mr. Fleming on his return to this country. Would you kindly let me know whether 11:30 a.m. or 3:30 p.m. on Wednesday, 19^th July would be convenient to you.

         Yours faithfully,

                     [Signature] Howe

                     Secretary to

                     Mr. Ian Fleming

Telephone: TERMINUS 1234

    There was not another entry in her journal until the following August 24. My daughter is convinced she was on some secret mission…you never know. My mom, a James Bond girl. She had the beauty and the brains.

    Her journals go on to disclose quite an intriguing life during her time in Europe. I don’t think it will ever leave me how different I would have seen things in my teens had I known the world that was hers, my very own mom, filled with purpose and accumulation of worldly experiences in her teens. There was so much more to fill the soul than school, extracurricular activities, and what was in store for the weekend.

    She eventually came to the United States via the Queen Elizabeth and her name is in the Ellis Island registry. Again, I know very little of what she did upon reaching America. I do know that she began to model and ended up in Miami where she met my father. They met through her good friend Renata, also a model, who didn’t know much English so my mother would help Renata communicate with John (my dad). I don’t know the details, but I like to think that my dad wasn’t Renata’s type and that was good because John and Suisse (which is the name she went by) found themselves meant for each other.

    Time went on and they had my two older brothers and me. She filled our home with many European customs from her cooking and decorating. She did have a beautiful accent which we just always knew to be mom talking. As I mentioned, none of us children ever asked her any questions even when she received letters we were told were from her parents. There were also times she seemed particularly anxious, which was very unlike her and eventually I came to know those were times she still felt worry over being found.

    One day, another letter with the red and blue diagonal striping along the envelope’s edges and foreign looking markings came for my mom. My father told me and my brothers that day that we needed to just be our loving selves because she received a letter that her parents had died. We were told it was a car accident. She never talked about her family to us. It was when she gave me her journals that she spoke of not only her ordeal but her endearing memories of her parents, grandfather, brother and a very special weeping willow tree she loved to swing from and jump into the body of water.

    For at least a month after receiving the letter she wasn’t herself. The woman with the smile that just lit you up with joy and a feeling of comfort and with a personality to match retreated inside herself for some time.

    A while after she had told me about her time before coming to this country, she brought up that period when she learned about her parents. She wanted me to know that there were many things going on inside her after reading the letter. One of which was whether it was wrong of her, worth it, to have become a part of voicing out against the communist government causing her to leave her country, its people, and her family behind basically living in hiding from all she knew. Then, as she allowed herself to embrace all that is her life, she realized that she would have to be sitting on one side of that very big question life brought to her and that she is glad it wasn’t the side of why didn’t I answer my call to do what is bigger than me. To do what I could to preserve the good for my city, my country, and my family. It entailed some very big sacrifices but brought some incredible meaning and brought her to America and the life and family she built here.

    Czechoslovakia did become free of the Communist Party in 1989 and in 1993 split into the Czech Republic (where Prague is the capital city) and Slovakia. I once asked my mom if she wanted to take a trip back to her home of Prague with me to which she stoically and emphatically answered no. She continued to speak of it so enchantingly to me and my daughters and with so much love in her eyes, but the trauma had her wanting to leave well enough alone. My youngest daughter did the college summer backpacking trip to Europe and chose to go with the group of friends who wanted to see Prague too. There she did her morning run through the streets where her Gumba (as she was called) once lived to the fullest. I hope to see Prague myself as well as retrace the places my mom, Slavka—"She who achieved greatness” wrote about in her journals. She gave me many gifts. A very important one is understanding you will be faced with life altering choices to be made and they should be made with the integrity of your own heart and soul.