April 17, another meaningful date this Spring as I begin to build this website. On that day in 1939, my grandparents, Alfred and Rosa, and their youngest child, Ditta, then age 16, arrived in England after fleeing Czechoslovakia. Their older daughter, Olga, was already there with her family as was my father. I learned about that date after reviewing Alfred and Rosa’s application for British naturalization after the war.
I wish I knew more about the details of their departure and journey to freedom. By the time, I knew enough to ask questions, Ditta was the only first person witness who was still alive and she was reluctant to share much about their harrowing trip. It was traumatic for her to leave home in such haste and under such circumstances. She and her family had to submit frequently to inspections of their papers and belongings and could have been arrested at any time during that journey.
Six days earlier, on April 11, 1939, Otto Eisler, who is believed to be the architect of my grandparents’ apartment building, was arrested in Brno and imprisoned there. He was eventually released after which he started to plan his own escape. His six-year feat of endurance during the war is an amazing story all by itself.
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