Excerpt: How professor of math escaped Czechoslovakia
By Emma Palova
It’s snowing and it is freezing cold outside, as I am done with my morning writing session on day 6 of the National Novel Writing Month 50K word challenge. My shrubs in the garden are covered with snowflakes.
For my #NaNoWriMo 2019 project, I am working on the completion of the Greenwich Meridian: Where East meets West memoir about our family immigration saga from former Czechoslovakia to the U.S.
Professor Vaclav Konecny at Ferris State University.
This epic tale covers a span of more than 50 years and historic events from Prague Spring in 1968 to Velvet Revolution in 1989 and beyond that propelled the story into an adventure between three continents: Europe, Africa and North America.
Thanks to the prep work that I did in October, the research in previous years, and my parents’ accounts of their experiences, I am moving swiftly between the historic events that have formed our lives.
Here is an excerpt from chapter: “How professor of math escaped Czechoslovakia.”
Different options of escape seemed risky, because the borders were guarded against the people of the country, so they wouldn’t escape, not against some outside enemy. Soldiers and their dogs were dangerous; the life of a Czech or Slovak person meant less than the life of a rabbit. I assumed that the border patrol in other countries would be less dangerous.
So, I decided to escape either from Rumania or Bulgaria. I diligently analyzed reports from other tourists to these countries. It was interesting that the officials were issuing quickly passports to socialist countries. I applied and to my surprise I was issued a passport in Brno on July 7, 1976. My situation became easier even though the passport was without an exit clause to any capitalist country. So I was free to travel in Eastern Europe. I used my three-week vacation to get ready for the escape.
Excerpt from escape to be continued
Copyright (c) 2019. Emma Blogs, LLC. All rights reserved.
I am catching up on my posting, so today I am writing about Day 4 of #nanowrimo- Monday, Nov. 4. I logged in 7,523 words in the National Novel Writing Month 50K word challenge.
My father Vaclav Konecny wrote this for me in between working on his math solutions, and preparations to leave for Florida shortly after Thanksgiving.
Grand Hotel in Khartoum, Sudan
Life of professor Vaclav Konecny in Khartoum, Sudan briefly
On Nov. 1964, early in the morning, I landed via Sudan Airways in Khartoum, Sudan. It was a beautiful area of three cities: Khartoum, Khartoum North and Omdurman separated by the River Nile, Blue Nile and White Nile.
My future colleague Kenneth was waiting for me to give me a ride to the Grand Hotel on Blue Nile not far from the University of Khartoum. It looked like in a fairy tale; streets lined with palms, the glistening Nile with the three bridges and the British colonial style hotel.
After three days, Kenneth helped me settle down in Pink Palace with half board. I reported to the head of the Department of Mathematics Prof. Sobhy Sidrak, who had instructed me about my teaching. He instructed me to teach Applied Mathematics; it was called Theoretical Mechanics or Math of Newtonian Mechanics.
After moving several times, I ended up in an apartment close to the Pink Palace. I bought a very old car Ford Anglia. The administration of the university arranged for me everything I needed. My wife Eliska and children Emma and Vaclav at the time were in Czechoslovakia, so I had time to prepare for the first lecture.
Copyright (c) 2019. Emma Blogs, LLC. All rights reserved.
Completion of Greenwich Meridian: Where East meets West with excerpt
By Emma Palova
For my NaNoWriMo 2019 project, I am working on the completion of my memoir Greenwich Meridian: Where East meets West about our family immigration saga from former Czechoslovakia to the U.S.A.
I am averaging 1, 643 words a day. At some point I will have to increase the daily word count to reach 50,000 words by the end of November.
What propelled the saga ahead was my mom’s diary written in Czech in a pretty cursive spiral – bound diary with hard cover with yellow roses and a futuristic dateline: Big Rapids- Florida, 2019- 2020. My parents Ella and Vaclav winterize in Venice, Florida and mom wanted the diary back before they leave. So, I got right on it.
After writing about mom’s experience of the Soviet invasion while she was on a therapeutic spa stay in posh Carlsbad – Karlovy Vary resort in 1968, I made a firm decision that this is movie material. I will write a screenplay and see it to production.
Mom’s diary
Mom’s writing is very graphic. She is so visual that she could draw the layout of their apartment in Khartoum, Sudan in Africa from their stay until 1969. I remember the large bedroom and the built-in balcony full of sand after the sand storms.
As the writing moves between Africa and Europe, I marvel at mom’s experiences. Sometimes, I am even jealous like today, as I read her memories from Africa and the Middle East. We each have different memories, and I was a mischievious kid with my own agenda.
Here is an excerpt from the chapter ” In her own words.”
I was a pharmacist, and it wasn’t that the profession was narrow and had nothing to offer, but I didn’t want to nurture vain ideas of travelling. So, Sunday afternoon trips to the dam in Luhacovice or Bystricka were the only means of breaking up the gray of ordinary days.
The first bigger trip was our honeymoon to the Krkonose mountains with the old Tatra and mother’s comments: “I hope the poor car will make it.”
When we arrived in Harachov, we sent a message to my parents: “We’ve arrived under Mount Blanc.” At that moment, it never occurred to me that one day I would indeed be looking at the majestic highest mountain in the Alps.
After five years of marriage, we had two children: Emma and Vasek. I was working part-time in a pharmacy in my hometown Vizovice and my husband Vaclav was teaching physics in Brno. He would come for the weekend to Vizovice, because I couldn’t find a job in Brno and we had no place to stay there. We were on the waiting list for an apartment, that we got in 1965. We didn’t have a car or money to furnish the apartment. My husband found out that the president of the university in Khartoum, Sudan was hiring English-speaking professors to teach different subjects. Vaclav’s English was excellent and he got the job. However, I did not know about this.
At the beginning of November, Vaclav announced his decision that he will be leaving for Sudan on Nov. 20, 1964. I gave him my blessings and never thought for a moment that I would go with him. I continued to work in the pharmacy and my boss who loved to travel kept asking me when was I going to fly to Africa.
In the spring of 1965, when I finally applied for a passport and got my vaccinations, Vaclav wrote me a letter that he was coming home, because it was the end of the school year. The university paid once a year for round trip air tickets for the entire family, regardless that he had just started teaching in November. The school year in Sudan ran from the beginning of July to the end of March; it was followed by a summer break lasting three months.
Those three months were also the worse months in Africa weather-wise filled with sand storms “Habub,” rain and heat. Khartoum lies on the 15th parallel close to the equator; it is the second warmest place in the world. It’s a dry tropical country with very little rain. A road stretched 50 miles north of Khartoum and 50 miles south and dead ended in the Nuba desert.
Three rivers ran through the city: Nile, Blue Nile and White Nile. We arrived in this city in July of 1965. When we got out of the plane at the airport in Khartoum, a hot wave like coming from an oven, hit me and I couldn’t catch my breath.
We rented an apartment from the university close to Blue Nile. The apartment was spacious with two built-in balconies, that were not screened, so the kids played there together with lizards and salamanders. The apartment had running water, a refrigerator and basic furniture- beds, table, chairs and two armchairs in light green color. There was no TV or air conditioning. The stores were open in the morning and evening and closed in the afternoon due to heat. Khartoum was a dead town in the afternoon.
The main boulevard was lined with stores full of merchandise unlike in Czechoslovakia where we always had to stand in line for meat, vegetables and also for toilet paper.
Lowell, MI – On the opening day of this year’s National Novel Writing Month 50K word challenge, I logged in 1,663 words in spite of the fact that I had to have a painful dental procedure done in Grand Rapids. I still have a numb jaw and I have trouble swallowing, kind of like those people in America’s Funniest Videos.
So, I broke up my daily writing session into two parts: morning and afternoon. My NaNoWriMo project is the completion of the Greenwich Meridian: Where East meets West memoir about our family immigration saga from Czechoslovakia to the U.S.
What helped me immensely to move this forward, was that mom Ella penned her memories in a pretty cursive in Czech in a hard cover diary with yellow roses. It has a dateline: Big Rapids-Florida, 2019-2020. Wow , and it’s dedicated to me: “To my daughter Emma.”
Mom even included a complete timeline titled “Life in a Nutshell” from 1959 to present.
Mom’s diary
Here; enjoy an excerpt from chapter “In her own words.”
I was a pharmacist, and it wasn’t that the profession was narrow and had nothing to offer, but I didn’t want to nurture vain ideas of travelling. So, Sunday afternoon trips to the dam in Luhacovice or Bystricka were the only means of breaking up the gray of ordinary days.
The first bigger trip was our honeymoon to the Krkonose mountains in the old Tatra and mother’s departing comments: “I hope the poor car will make it.”
When we arrived in Harachov, we sent a message to my parents: “We’ve arrived under Mount Blanc.” At that moment, it never occured to me that one day I would indeed be looking at the majestic highest mountain in the Alps.
After five years of marriage, we had two children: Emma and Vasek. I was working part-time in a pharmacy in my hometown Vizovice and my husband Vaclav was teaching physics in Brno. He would come for the weekend to Vizovice, because I couldn’t find a job in Brno and we had no place to stay there. We were on the waiting list for an apartment, that we got in 1965. We didn’t have a car or money to furnish the apartment. My husband found out that the president of the university in Khartoum, Sudan was hiring English-speaking professors to teach different subjects. Vaclav’s English was excellent and he got the job.
Copyright (c) 2019 Emma Blogs, LLC. All rights reserved.
I am as ready as I can be for the National Novel Writing Month 50K word challenge starting tomorrow Nov. 1 with my Greenwich Meridian: Where East meets West memoir project.
However, Halloween is not only followed by the NaNoWriMo blast off , but also by All Saints Day and All Souls’ Day in the catholic calendar on Saturday. I always go to the mass at St. Pat’s for one or the other to reflect and for inspiration.
Usually, the Book of the Dead is on display. An evening candlelight procession goes to the cemetery.
The feature photo is an optical illussion “All is Vanity” from Belrockton in Belding. It is hanging next to the “Face of Gossip,” which is on the cover of my new book “Secrets” from the Shifting Sands Short Stories collections.
Follow me on my NaNoWriMo journey to the completion of the memoir about our family immigration saga to the U.S.
I will be signing my new book at the Lowell Area Historical Museum (LAHM) on Nov. 15, 16 & 17 during Christmas through Lowell.
Following is an excerpt from the memoir “Greenwich Meridian: Where East meets West.”
I lived history twice: Prague Spring in 1968 and the Velvet Revolution in 1989. During the first one, I was a kid, so I don’t remember the Soviet tanks invading Czechoslovakia. However, the second event that changed the course of history for the entire Eastern Europe, I recall as if it had happened yesterday. I documented it myself in a diary with a blue hard cover and bought an important publication published by the Czech Press Office: “Chronicle of Velvet Revolution” in 1989 for 10 crowns. It is the most important document that I own, other than the American passport.
The communist block, which Czechoslovakia was a part of, started collapsing in neighboring Poland under their leader Lech Walesa. I remember, we had no dairy products, as they were all being shipped to Poland. While it was an act of camaraderie, the Polish people didn’t unload the train with the food and let the products spoil, and we were without cheese.
After that it seemed like a domino effect with one block collapsing and making the others collapse.
Sometime in the summer of 1989, I spoke with a friend
attorney about matters pertaining to my pending departure to the U.S.- I had to
get rid of all possessions, including my citizenship, pay for my education and
such. After discussing matters at hand, Mr. H said:
“The bell is tolling for them,” he said. “Can you hear it?”
I stared at him in awe; we were used to speaking in riddles to protect ourselves.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“I can’t say.”
It stayed at that, but I immediately knew that he was referring to the bells tolling for the death of communism. To this day, it puzzles me how he gained this insight three months ahead of time.
Copyright (c) 2019. Emma Blogs, LLC. All rights reserved.
Lowell, MI – Today, during my morning writing session, I ventured into our U.S. naturalization, as well as answering the most important question for a writer.
How has America changed me?
Michigan authors at the Lakeshore Art Festival 2019 in front of the Authors Tent.
I have broadened my horizons from a naïve person with a narrow perspective on the evils of capitalism to a responsible American citizen, who votes and participates in democracy. Rather than complaining about things, I take action to change them, when possible as in the case of my authorpreneurship.
I am proud to be a part of the Michigan Authors movement sweeping the shores from Lake Michigan to Lakes Huron & Superior. See http://michiganauthors.com/
I was naturalized in August of 1999 in a beautiful ceremony at the Gerald R. Ford Museum in Grand Rapids along with 96 other people from around the world. I received congratulations from all over Michigan, because the Associated Press syndicated the story about my naturalization written by Kara Henigan for the Ionia Sentinel-Standard. Here is an excerpt from the Ionia Sentinel-Standard Aug. 19, 1999.
Ludek’s naturalization in October of 2018.
Emma Palova of Lowell, was among the new naturalized American citizens. She tells other people’s stories for a living as a writer for the Sentinel-Standard, but on this day, she shared her own tale, a tale of a dream fulfilled.
“The United States has always symbolized freedom for me, coming from an oppressed, communist country,” she said. “And it still does, otherwise I wouldn’t be here.”
Citizenship was not a necessity for her
livelihood.
“It was my goal and my dream,” she said.
“It is kind of a closure.”
My husband Ludek was naturalized last year in October, also at the Gerald R. Ford Museum. Ludek takes his citizenship very seriously, and always asks me about candidates, proposals and follows the debates.
The story about his naturalization appeared in the Lowell Ledger on Oct. 24, 2018.
At his ceremony, magistrate Hon. Ray Kent
congratulated the new citizens with these words:
“Write the next great chapter in the history of this
country.”
That statement is still ringing in my ears as I write this chapter of the memoir. Ludek has already voted in the last school election. Voting is a privilege. Back in communist Czechoslovakia, we could only vote for one party- the Communist Party. It defeated the purpose of voting at all.
Tomorrow I will dive into the tentacles of the Velvet Revolution in 1989, led by dissident playwright late Vaclav Havel.
Copyright (c) 2019. Emma Blogs, LLC. All rights reserved.
Most of us can relate to slow starts after the holidays. On top of the holiday indolence, I’ve been sick too. And I even got my first ever flu shot in 2018 inspite of my wavering doubt about the effectiveness of the vaccine. This is the first day that “I feel like a human being.” That’s a quote from colleague writer Tamela Spicer.
What’s coming down the pipeline?
Book cover for “Secrets” aka the Face of Gossip.
I am working on two last stories to complete the second book Shifting Sands: Secrets. (c) 2019 Emma Palova. It is a sequel to Shifting Sands: Short Stories. I will let the manuscript run through the AutoCrit self-editing software for fiction to test it and review it.
I found out about AutoCrit during the #NaNoWriMo 50K word marathon in November. It has reasonably good reviews. A webcast on self-editing using the software is scheduled for Jan. 22 from 4 to 5 p.m.
I will most likely self-publish on the kdp self-publishing platform, since anything else is a complex labyrinth of paths with dead ends.
Looking for reviewers
On the other hand, I am an eternal optimist, so I will pitch the individual stories via the app Submittable to different markets. Any new book needs reviews, any reviews.
Let me know if you would like to write a review. All Advance Reader Copies (ARC) are always free. You get to read something no one else has read before; now that’s pretty special.
Touring with books
I am also in the process of creating a tour for the new book Secrets. My first targeted event is on April 6 at the Author’s Fair in Detroit.
I am imposing a deadline on the memoir project “Greenwich Meridian” about the family immigration saga from former Czechoslovakia. I am taking this book to the event Books Alive! in Ludington on July 19 in conjunction with Ludington’s Friday Night Live.
Authors (left to right) Jeanie Mortensen and Emma Palova of Lowell share a giggle.
This event is possible thanks to author Joan H. Young from Scottville.
I am also looking forward to continuing my partnership with LowellArts for book signings and the upcoming playwright festival.
Excerpt from short story “40 Hunks” in Secrets
They
were crossing the Sonoran Desert west of Nogales. Jose felt the pocket of his
jeans for a piece of paper. He pulled it out to look at it for the 100th
time as they were nearing the border.
It
was the letter from the US Department of Agriculture giving him permission to
cross the border to the US with the 40 men sleeping behind his back. Before
they boarded the bus, Jose had to make sure they were the right men. Most of
them didn’t have any IDs, so he trusted them and tried to match up the names
with the list from the government.
The
list was far from being exact, but Jose knew once they entered the US
territory, they would be assigned a permanent work guide. From there on, it was
none of his business what’s going to happen with these men. The guides were
correction officers borrowed from the regional correctional facilities in the
US.
The
border patrol in Nogales searched the smelly bus and studied Jose’s driver’s
license and that piece of paper.
“How
do you know who’s who?” barked a sweating guard with an AK47 across his
shoulder, at Jose.
“Vaguely.
I know that I have 40 men,” said Jose also sweating.
The
guard boarded the bus and walked in the aisle examining each face, holding the
piece of governmental paper in his hand. He stopped and looked closely at one man. The
men were wide awake now. He leaned over the hulky man taking in his odor.
“Who
are you?” he asked with his face distorted in an evil grimace.
Jose
walked up to the two men in the back of the bus.
“Hey, amigo,” he said to the guard. “They don’t speak English.”
I found my dad Vaclav Konecny’s contributor profile for the Crux Mathematicorum math magazine of the Canadian Mathematical Society on the Internet yesterday.
I am including it in one of the chapters of the Greenwich Meridian: Where East meets West memoir. The title of the chapter is: Contributor Vaclav Konecny.
Dad still contributes to the magazine, either by proposing math & geometry problems or by solving them. He received an honorable mention as one of the six problemists of 1996, who had participated in one-third of the solutions for the year.
My Escape from Czechoslovakia
Another document of great value is his letter: “My Escape from Czechoslovakia” dated Nov. 18, 1976 to the Department of State in Washington D.C.
As a true mathematician, dad, in great detail, describes his journey through various border crossings between four different countries. He even describes his alternative plan. Here is an excerpt:
I made two plans:
To get from Eastern block through some check point
To go to Bulgaria-Micurin- and swim to Turkey. I exercised a lot for this purpose and I was well prepared.
But plan one worked out okay.
Law-abiding citizen Vaclav
What fascinates me the most about his escape story is that he used any means necessary to get to his target; that is a Western country that would give him visa to re-enter USA. My father is a law-abiding citizen who never breaks any rules. And he definitely never breaks his own tough rules, forged by the years spent at the Archbishop Seminary in Kromeriz.
However, in his escape journey, he had to resort to lying and deception. Dad even came very close to breaking traffic rules in Yugoslavia.
“I went as fast as the traffic rules allowed to Belgrade. I was stopped by police there, but they let me go even if it were just in the opposite direction to Sophia. I reported to Mrs. Julia Cardozo-Neitzke, U.S. Consul on July 27, 1976. No embassy wanted to issue me visa, but after enormous effort of the U.S. Embassy I got German visa.”
His Contributor Profile closes with the following statement:
“Vaclav’s sincerest hope is for world peace.”
Thanks dad for so much inspiration.
Note: Dad Vaclav and mom Ella currently winterize in Venice, FL. I will be joining them for my annual writer’s retreat in February.
Have you been through the publishing odyssey between agents, traditional publishing houses and self-publishing?
I have been on this route for the last 28 years, and I have learned a lot about the publishing, the filming and the arts industries, as well as about myself. I traveled this path as a print media journalist who swapped ink for the digital WordPress platform in 2013 with the first post published on Jan. 15.
I am an author, journalist, writer, screenwriter, designer, photographer and an entrepreneur of Emma Blogs, LLC, based in Lowell, MIchigan. That is professionally. I am also a human being: a mother, a wife, a daughter, a sister, and a grandmother. Some people call me, Mrs. Emma.
And I am somebody’s aunt, a Godmother and a”babe.”
Missing my mother.Ella & Emma, Venice 2015
How many different hats can a writer wear? Many. But the real question is, “Which is the right hat, and where do we hang it? Where do we put what?
Where do we put what?
My new friends like T.G., Barb and Wendy, think I am a geek. Ask my old artistic friends like Tom and Pam Woodruff of Leland, or Eva Laurencikova of Kromeriz, Czech Republic, “Who am I?”
I started my own flagship blog EW Emma’s Writing on http://emmapalova.com after advise from agents to build up the Emma Palova name brand in pursuit of publishing Greenwich Meridian (c) 2017, a memoir about the Konecny family immigration saga, @emmapalova@ludekpala now spanning three generations.
The mission of Emma Blogs, LLC
Over the four years of my publishing journey on WordPress, I have diversified into providing an advertising platform for others on the Emma Blogs portfolio, creating blogs for other people, publishing and most recently re-branding old structures into new designs. In Russia, they called it “Perestroika.”
Opportunities await if we keep our minds open to them
You guessed it, the “Wasteland” (c) 2017 theme park is on my mind. After all, who doesn’t want to re-do a theme park or the arts sphere? Stay tuned for more on this.
The screenshot of your Place at Home opportunity.
Re-branding and re-structuring into new designs
I have assisted in the digital re-do of the Fallasburg Historical Society (FHS) organization founded by a group of women in 1965, who used to get together somewhere on the grounds of the Fallasburg Park, into a digital conglomerate, known around the world.
The FHS slogan now is, “The next 50 years of Fallasburg.”
When asked about the direction of the Fallasburg historical organization, president Ken Tamke said the goal is to spread the word about the Fallasburg village on the Internet, and then people may actually find the hamlet in the northeast Kent County.
The FHS also has a new website http://www.fallasburg.org . So visit and chat with us before you head out there. You never know what you’re going to find.
Currently, I am working with the arts community of the greater Lowell area to create a new palette.
Thai wind 1 by Kacey Cornwell, Art Prize entry
Prague horloge on the Old Town Hall by “I love Czech Republic” group
You can call or e-mail Emma for a re-branding consultation as we fly fast toward 2020. Don’t wait around. You can do your research, but make a move now, or we will all miss the train. One person cannot rebuild an empire overnight.
My publishing ventures on Edition Emma
Tell us your story
Join me on my explorations of the publishing industry on both platforms; print and digital. Like most of my friends, authors and artists, I’ve learned the hard way; endless rejections, phone calls from sales people from different Publishing Houses that are now going digital.
Being constantly broke, I had to get more resourceful than just waiting around for a publishing prince to arrive on a white horse at my doorstep. He or she never did.
I also looked for the magical publishing white horse in the actual zoo as a kind sign that I might find an avenue one day.
That’s why I rolled out the blogging/writing portfolio, Emma Blogs, LLC in the summer of 2014.
Part of the portfolio is my own Publishing House Edition Emma (c) 2017 copyright. All rights reserved.
If you want to get published, submit your work to Edition Emma. Looking forward to seeing your work.
Love always,
Emma
authoremmapalova 