Zuzana Petrikova

"Now I´d focus on my grandad: so, dr Josef Macek. He was well-known in Bohemia at university, was in the government, was friendly with Masaryk and Čapek. After the war, when they had to leave, they went to Pittsburgh where they often met with Alice Masaryková and other Czechs.. My granny wrote about all their friends. Every summer they came by train across the whole America and stayed with us for two months. I remember this, these are my first memories of my grandad. He always got up early. I came up to him and he told me some fairytales. This went on for years. Every morning these fairytales and only when I was at school I realized that these fairytales were the whole story of Illiad and Oddysey. I had no idea at that time. I thought he was making these stories up. Well, my grandad was forever writing something to somebody. He kept a lot of correspondence and he used to go down every day to post the letters and I went with him. So, we liked to be together. And with our granny we used to sing a lot of Czech songs. I remember well when my grandad retired, they moved to Vancouver not far from us. They used to walk down to the seaside. They sat there and watched ships pass by. I knew they would be sitting there every afternoon. I often went down to see them and I always found them there. I have an older brother born in Prague and then I have a younger sister born in Vancouver. As she was about nine years younger, I often looked after her. We used to go to the park where our grandparents were sitting. She was on a swing and I could talk to them."

"Well, Luboš and I, we were always quite active in the Czech society. For some years we danced the “Czech beseda“. Luboš has been playing in the Czech theatre for years. And I was in the Czech Association. We are always doing something. We used to have Czech dancing parties and another quite popular thing here was that since I was small, every year we have organized a Czech second hand sale. It started with collecting things that were sent to Austria to the camps for refugees. It started at the Krajinas´cellar, I remember that. We always met there, collected things and packed them up. After 1968, we started selling things. People came with something they didn´t need and others took it. Mainly the new refugees could get anything, even things for the kitchen. They cost a few cents only. Since I was very small I have worked there. Today, the sales still exist but they don´t sell clothing. People sell what they make themselves. The main thing is that you can buy soups there, something to eat, different cakes and people can meet up twice a year and they look forward to this event to see the people they haven´t seen for a long time. Czech books are sold there too, which is fine because everybody has lots of books and no idea what to do with them. So, they bring them to the sale, somebody buys them and the next year brings them back again. This is how Czech books change hands."