Peace in Our Time [Volume: 7(1988), pp. 417-426]

422
CURTIS LaFRANCE
car, mostly working class commuters, to organize a "sing along"; Bill was
the hero of the hour. It was an unexpected, happy return to what we soon
found to be a very unhappy country.
(We would have been interested to know that during those very days
John F. Kennedy, touring Europe, was being assisted by George Kennan
and the American Consulate in Prague to cross that same new GermanCzech border.)
We all registered again at the YMCA. We tried hard to forget the
Munich crisis and pay attention to our reasons for coming to Czechoslovakia.
But due to the political situation, classes at the university were often postponed, sometimes for a whole month, depending on the individual professor. In the meantime, we took advantage of our extra "vacation" to
enjoy cultural activities. The Czechs, as if compressed into a narrow
nationalism by their shrinking borders, took refuge in their own history
and cultural past. Smetana's "Bartered Bride," considered the quintessential
Czech opera, was given constantly at the National Theatre to enthusiastic
audiences. Cries of "Bravo," "Vybornm" as the final curtain fell were proof
of the patriotic fervor the opera aroused. We saw the same outburst of
patriotism at an all-Dvorak program at the Czech Philharmonic. The common word "kino" adapted from the Western "cinema" was now dropped,
for example, for the more exotic Czech term "biograf."
The influx of Jews fleeing from Germany became noticeable. Jewish
friends at the "Y" talked about the plight of their relatives. Strangers who
overheard us speaking English on the street or in stores asked for advice
about going to America. Czechoslovakia was only an interim step in their
plans for escape. In this way we met a strapping six-footer, Hans K., who
said he was a boxer. He had many friends who wanted to go to America
and who needed dollars. We had long ago spent the few dollars we had
brought into the country. So desperate were these people that we worked
out an agreement, verbally, with no papers passed-if and when they reached
the United States, we would pay them the equivalent amount of dollars
for their Czech crowns, at an exchange rate mutually agreed upon. (Months
later, the people on whose behalf Hans had made these arrangements with
us, arrived in New York, and were paid.)
As the spring term at the university wore on, I began to feel guilty
about my general lack of attention to studies. I had not made much
progress in research on my proposed thesis, nor had John or Bill accomplished much serious work. We were being continually side-tracked
by requests to speak, teach or perform. We prepared short speeches on
our impressions of Prague for a local radio station. John taught "basic"
English in a foreign-language school. Bill gave a concert of American
jazz to the delight of a sold-out hall. All our activities seemed to take
precedence over the purpose for which we had been granted our scholarships.