Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only €10,99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    REFUGE, RESEARCH AND RELIGION: (A Partial Autobiography)
    REFUGE, RESEARCH AND RELIGION: (A Partial Autobiography)
    REFUGE, RESEARCH AND RELIGION: (A Partial Autobiography)
    Ebook147 pages1 hour

    REFUGE, RESEARCH AND RELIGION: (A Partial Autobiography)

    By R B Raikow

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    This is my partial autobiography because it deals only with the parts of my life that I hope may be of general interest. Thus the first part deals with how the Nazis and Communists affected me in my native Czechoslovakia; the second part describes my endeavors to clarify some aspects of the science of genetics; and the third part discu

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherGotham Books
    Release dateAug 16, 2024
    ISBN9798330360048
    REFUGE, RESEARCH AND RELIGION: (A Partial Autobiography)

    Related to REFUGE, RESEARCH AND RELIGION

    Related ebooks

    Biography & Memoir For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      My Father, The Nazi

      Aug 2, 2024

      My Father, The Nazi
      13 min read

    • Article

      Escape From Hungary

      Oct 1, 2021

      Escape From Hungary
      6 min read

    • Article

      Monuments To The Unthinkable

      Nov 14, 2022

      Monuments To The Unthinkable
      43 min read

    • Article

      Spies like Us

      Jan 12, 2024

      Spies like Us
      18 min read

    • Article

      The Sound Of Music

      Jan 19, 2020

      ‘Inconceivable, really, that someone should care that much about classical music that they should forbid its being played … a weird kind of flattery, being banned by the Nazis.” That’s a line from the 2009 documentary made by New Zealand actor and fi

      8 min read

    • Article

      Bravery Beyond Words

      Apr 22, 2024

      Bravery Beyond Words
      4 min read

    • Article

      The Doctor Is In

      Jul 30, 2019

      The Doctor Is In
      3 min read

    • Article

      Michael Wood On…

      Feb 17, 2022

      Recently, I saw the absolutely enthralling new production of Cabaret, which tells the tale of American writer Cliff Bradshaw in 1930s Berlin. This musical chronicles Bradshaw’s relationship with nightclub singer Sally Bowles, the fictional alter ego

      3 min read

    • Article

      Writing Against Wrongs

      Jan 26, 2024

      Writing Against Wrongs
      2 min read

    • Article

      Liz Kessler

      Jan 21, 2021

      Liz Kessler
      3 min read

    • Article

      Readers’ Letters

      Jul 24, 2024

      Readers’ Letters
      4 min read

    • Article

      Willing Accomplice

      May 11, 2021

      Willing Accomplice
      2 min read

    • Article

      Sins Of My Grandfather

      Feb 21, 2020

      Sins Of My Grandfather
      10 min read

    • Article

      A Weimar anti-fascist In Palestine

      Aug 24, 2024

      ON APRIL 1, 1933, THE DAY OF THE NAZI boycott of Jewish businesses, my father, Wolfgang Yourgrau, then 24 years old, was attacked by a group of storm troopers in a Berlin shop. He fought back furiously (he was a university boxer) but was badly beaten

      17 min read

    • Article

      History On The Airwaves

      Apr 15, 2021

      History On The Airwaves
      3 min read

    • Article

      Tristram And The Tyrants

      Sep 30, 2021

      Tristram And The Tyrants
      5 min read

    • Article

      Missing Monuments

      Sep 21, 2017

      Missing Monuments
      3 min read

    • Article

      TV’s ENDLESS HOLOCAUST

      May 17, 2024

      TV’s ENDLESS HOLOCAUST
      6 min read

    • Article

      The Republic And LGBTQ + History

      Jul 14, 2022

      Queer culture is often depicted as ‘flourishing’ during the Weimar period, how true is this? Queer culture really did take off in new and exciting ways after the end of the First World War in Germany, with new clubs, bars, magazines and political org

      4 min read

    • Article

      A Village in the Third Reich

      May 4, 2022

      Elliott & Thompson £25 Take a small English country town – Sherborne, say, or Kendal – picture-postcard cute and surrounded by beautiful landscape. Then imagine it after a defeat in war, a sixth of its men dead, chaos in the capital, hyper-inflation

      3 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for REFUGE, RESEARCH AND RELIGION

    0 ratings

    0 ratings0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

      Book preview

      REFUGE, RESEARCH AND RELIGION - R B Raikow

      PART I

      Why and How I Left My Native Land and Found Refuge in a Yellow House

      The nation of Czechoslovakia

      The region where I was born is now called Czechia or the Czech Republic, since its peaceful separation from Slovakia in 1993. The Czech language has been spoken there for centuries, but how Slavic people settled there is recorded only in legends. One prominent, relatively-modern phase, includes an account of St. Vaclav (Wenceslaus in German), who in the tenth century was Duke of Bohemia (the Western part of Czechoslovakia). He is the patron saint of the Czech people, and his virtues are lauded as the good King Wenceslaus in a popular (English) Christmas carol.

      pasted-image.tiff

      An equestrian statue of St. Vaclav in Vaclavky Namesti (square) in Prague.

      In 1867, the Czech-speaking region was integrated into the Austro-Hungarian Empire, which was a conglomeration of various cultures.

      In January 1918 (after World War I) an international meeting was convened at Versailles, just outside Paris, to establish the terms of peace. Thirty nations participated, but the representatives of Great Britain, France, United States and Italy dominated the proceedings. One of their declarations was the establishment of an independent country called Czechoslovakia, to consist of three regions that were occupied by three Slavic groups, closely-related by language: the Czechs, Moravians and Slovaks.

      As a native Czech speaker, I can understand spoken Slovak, and Moravian, even though they each sound somewhat different and some of words used in each are unique.

      Representatives of each of these groups elected Thomas Garrigue Masaryk to be the first president of Czechoslovakia.

      The Garrigue middle name of Thomas Masaryk was actually the maiden name of his American- born wife.

      The borders of this newly created nation were drawn on the basis of natural topography, and its constitution was modeled on the one used by the United States.

      The constitution drafted for Czechoslovakia was actually better than its model at the time, because it granted women the right to vote.

      After two decades of peace, in 1938, another international conference was held at Munich, Germany. This conference was once again dominated by Great Britain, France, US and Italy, but this time it included Germany, represented by Adolf Hitler. Hitler demanded that the western border of Czechoslovakia be moved, so the border area, called Sudetenland, be designated to be part of Germany.

      The bilingual population of this region was ethnically about 60% Czech and 40% German. The allies, apparently afraid of triggering another world war, acceded to Hitler. (I think that Mussolini, representing Italy, sided with Hitler for different reasons.)

      The Sudetenland is a forested, mountainous region, which makes it easily defensible. (I think Hitler’s major aim was clearing it of Czech fortifications.) Giving into Hitler on this point was apparently a small matter to the larger nations participating in the Munich conference, for they ignored representatives of Czechoslovakia, who pointed out that the Sudetenland housed significantly more Czechs than Germans. These larger nations, including the US, probably thought that it was not prudent to annoy Hitler over a dispute concerning our tiny country, which was just beginning its independence.

      The compromise signed with Hitler at Munich encouraged Hitler’s megalomania: The peace we enjoyed after WWI, soon ended and Austria, Poland, and Czechoslovakia fell into Hitler’s clutches by 1939.

      Some personal history

      My father attended Prague’s Charles University, where he earned a Doctor of Law degree. He established a successful practice in Prague as a defense lawyer, which enabled him to support his family in middle-class comfort.

      His father had been a rector of a private school. He also painted portraits and still life, and earned some money by restoring old oil paintings.

      My mother was born in a rural town, just outside of Prague. Her father brought his family to the big city, Prague, to pursue (I think) some white-collar work. I recall him as the kind grandfather, who lived with us in our large Prague apartment.

      I never knew either of my grandmothers because they both died before I was born.

      I don’t know how my parents met, but I think they were drawn together by their shared love of music, especially opera. Mother had a high soprano voice, which she displayed at garden parties before World War II. During those good times, father also took singing lessons and did some stage acting, maybe encouraged by the success of one of his brothers, who was then a prominent opera singer in Prague.

      Black Spiders

      In March 1939 (the very month of my birth) Goose-stepping Nazis marched into Prague. Soon their black Swastica symbols were all around us like swarming spiders.

      images.jpeg

      It is sad how the Nazis took over and corrupted the Swastica, which was a symbol in ancient India. Ironically it had originally stood for peace.

      As a child I saw the black Swastica on insignias of universally hated policemen and on flags, flown everywhere (while display of our Czech flag was forbidden). The image still triggers fear in me. My older sister, Shari, told me how she always recalled the awful sound made by collective Nazi boots as they hit Prague’s cobblestoned streets. Nazi atrocities that we heard about during the war, such as the deliberate destruction of a Czech town called, Lidice (described below), left scars on everyone.

      During the six years of World War II, most people in Prague did not experience outright physical danger (provided they were not Jewish) because bombs did not fall on us until 1945, but everyone suffered from loss of freedom to speak one’s mind and inability to move about. Food shortages were common: the only milk available was diluted (it actually appeared bluish) and eggs were a rarity. Even cans of Ken-L-Ration (horse meat for dogs) were used in some of our dishes. Fresh produce was hard to come by. (One day, my father brought home some bananas. The bananas were way past their prime, with dark peels and a mushy interior. We had to eat them with a spoon.)

      Most law offices, including my father’s, managed to maintain some business during the war, because the Nazis were sticklers for precision (one good German trait they did not lose). I know that my father saved some people from the concentration camps by providing papers testifying that they had more than fifty percent non-Jewish ancestry. (I think he sometimes used creative paperwork.)

      Our parents tried to make sure that my sister and I received some schooling in the arts. We had piano lessons from a former member of the national symphony, who was desperate for income. He had a nervous tick. Sometimes we attended the opera, which was still occasionally staged because the Nazis looked favorably on a German or Italian repertoire.

      Air-raid sirens went off daily. They announced approaching allied planes, but everyone ignored these warnings. We were convinced that the planes were on their way to bomb targets in Germany. Our parents tried to shelter me, but they couldn’t keep all of the war away. I remember once seeing a darkly dressed lady sitting at our dining room table. The lady touched my cheek with cold fingers. She wept. Somehow I learned that she was trying to get help for her relatives who were being deported to a concentration camp.

      In another incident, the doorbell rang unexpectedly, followed by a loud banging on the door. Heil Hitler! barked some men in black, with red arm bands featuring the hated Swastica symbol, as they snapped their stabbing solutes. "We will

      Enjoying the preview?
      Page 1 of 1