Jiří Prokop

* 1946

  • "The little boy was already feeling it, yeah, he wasn't even two yet, that Lumiere, he was screaming all the way. The searchlight was running there. So always, it was like in the movies, we'd run, lie down, the searchlight would come, on again. We got to the wires, it was quiet, I was like, 'Oh, it's gonna be fine.' Now Sarah was five months pregnant, so I had to cut a big hole in there. And now we'd crossed the wires, about five metres, there was a little hollow, I said, 'We've got to wait and see what happens, just a minute.' And we could see two torches just flashing, two soldiers running, and two dogs were there in a moment. So. It was quiet. They came closer. I got up and I said, 'Please don't shoot, there are children here.'

  • "He had a double-needle thread, so he had eight threads, so he just switched it, twisted it once and bit off a thread. So it was really one two - and on three he was already biting off the thread. And he was just explaining, when he got into the army, this was still in the First Republic, he had just enlisted in something like, I think, thirty-six or thirty-seven. Now the first week in the army - he got to the army in Brno at the airport in Slatina. Well, there was a captain there. 'My button's broken off!' And so on. So he says, 'I'll sew it on for you, you can count to three. So he says: 'Two' - 'I've already cut the thread!' Yeah, he was always bragging. He goes, 'Gosh, that was fast! You'll be reporting to me tomorrow.' Well, he took him in, like, he took him in, he just looked after the household, he had some flat in Brno and stuff. And he even had a bar there, he had liquor there, he said, 'Look, you can have a shot, but the one that was before you, I kicked him out, because he was getting drunk and stuff.' Well, so my dad actually, he had a sewing machine there, so he did things that he needed to do, because my grandfather had a business. So he actually had a good war experience like that, he lived through it. Because of that, well."

  • "Now I got there, there was a big queue. Luckily, I was wearing a cotton watted work coat at the time, like I always did in the winter, and my bag was leather, like a tool bag, so I always looked more like a janitor or something. And so I didn't pay attention to anybody, I went ahead. I get there, there was just a guard, a doorman. And he's like, 'You were here last week, right?' Like this. And so I just realised that there was an opportunity like that, they were just doing some repairs, I'm like, 'Oh yeah, but at the ambassador's maybe we forgot a wrench or something, I'm going to go and have a look.' So he let me in. Now I got in, there was one room. Now, 'Where are you going?'I said, 'To the Ambassador's.' There she was, her name was Schirley at the time. Then there was another room. And only from that room was the third room - and there they already lsensed something was wrong with me. And so I was arguing with them there - and this Shirley heard it and came out. And I was lucky to get to her. Well, now I've told her the story, the whole situation. There's a Cuban family, they have relatives in Florida, they need to get there somehow. And she said, 'Well, if you could get here to me, I could just broker it. But you cannot get through the three rooms of those STBs.'

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    Zlín, 25.08.2020

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I would do it again

Jiří Prokop in 1991, holding a letter written in Hebrew, photographed in Šmeral's factory
Jiří Prokop in 1991, holding a letter written in Hebrew, photographed in Šmeral's factory
zdroj: Archiv pamětníka

Jiří Prokop was born on August 18, 1946 in Petrovice, Blansko region. His father Bohuslav worked as a private tailor, so in February 1948 the family entered a financially difficult period. Jiří Prokop was not able to study at a grammar school because of his political profile. So he started his apprenticeship at TOS Svitavy and at the same time he enrolled for long-distance studies at the grammar school, which he successfully completed. He spent his basic military service in Pilsen, where he was caught up in the invasion of Warsaw Pact troops in 1968. Jiří joined the Škodovka factory in Plzeň as a technologist and continued to supplement his education, which he longed for. He was accepted for part-time studies at the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, from where he managed to transfer to his dream full-time studies at the Technical University in Brno in 1971. When he met his future wife Maria Florianova in 1987, he had no idea what drama they would experience together in January 1990. Miriam had been in contact with the Cuban Rolando Saumello Acosta in the post-revolutionary period. And then came the decree that all Cubans working in Czechoslovakia must return to Cuba. Rolando was convinced that nothing good awaited him at home. He wanted to go to Florida, where his uncle lived. However, the Cuban authorities held the passports of the people living in Czechoslovakia at the time and it was impossible to cross the border without one. Jiří Prokop and Marie Floriánová decided to help Roland and his family. They cut the wires at the border with Austria, but their attempt to escape to freedom failed. They were arrested and returned to Czechoslovakia. Their journey led them to the Federal Assembly deputy and dissident Dana Němcová, who gave Roland‘s family shelter in her apartment. Rolando and his family eventually crossed the border in a car with diplomatic plates, which was lent for the occasion by the then Minister of the Interior, Richard Sacher. Jiří and Marie, who later took the name Miriam, married at the end of 1990 and stayed in Israel for six years. They then settled in Prakšice near Uherský Brod.