Family Vacation
The 31 Year Long Holiday
The holiday that changed my life
It is the spring of 1968 (yes I am that old!). It is a time that is referred to as Prague Spring, because our country — Czechoslovakia — was freeing up. Was breaking free of the shackles of the Soviet Union and us ordinary people were allowed to go on holiday to a “western” country as a family.
My parents decided that we would go to Italy, to Lido di Jesolo near Venice. My dad and older brother and sister would take the car and go a bit earlier, driving through Germany and France to Italy. My mother (who had to work longer) and I would join them by train in Italy a week or so later.
While they were travelling and my mother working, I stayed with my paternal grandmother. As I was just recovering from an operation, my grandmother thought it would be good for me to feed me raw eggs. I hated that, and I remember that when my mom came to fetch me, I told my grandmother that I didn’t want to see her again (ah, the cruelty of an 8-year-old!). She, with some kind of scary foresight, told me that I won’t see her for a long time. How true that proved to be.
On the 19th of August my mother and I boarded the train for Italy. I had said goodbye to my stuffed animals and my maternal grandmother promising that I would bring her something nice back from Italy.
On the train we had a whole carriage to ourselves. The seats turned into a bed as well. I do not remember how long the journey took, but it did involve a night ride. Eventually we chugged into Italy where my father and siblings waited for us. They took us to the bungalow where we caught up on the news and with excitement went to bed as the next day we were all going to go to Venice on a boat.
August 21st 1968
The next morning started with wonderful blue skies as we sat outside for breakfast. We were ready to tuck into the sweet new and exciting pastries that we had for an Italian breakfast.
My dad put the radio on — and the world changed.
The news was full of how Russian tanks rolled into our country and into Prague. People were protesting on the streets, there was mayhem. Outcry from other countries, but no one would do anything…Czechoslovakia was under occupation. The president and prime minister had disappeared.
Breakfast was forgotten.
We tried phoning our families that were left behind, but there was no connection. We were all very worried and scared what would happen to them.
In the end my parents made two decisions.
1) we would not return. So suddenly we were refugees, with nothing to our name bar an old Czech car and some summer cloths.
2) We still would go to Venice. So in my mind Venice is always linked to leaving my home and since then I have never returned there for a visit.
Thus, my holiday became nearly permanent — from 1968 to 1999 we could not return. The Czech communist government eventually put a jail sentence on my father and all the family, if we would have returned. Only after the “Velvet Revolution” in 1999 could we visit our home country and so my holiday ended. Though I never went back to live there.
