Refugee from a different era
After arriving in 1968 from Czechoslovakia, Kveta Privora is proud to call Canada home
A wedding invitation was a ticket to freedom for Kveta Privora. The Soviet authorities then occupying Czechoslovakia gave her permission to leave her hometown of Prague for four days to attend the wedding in Vienna.
The year was 1968. The Prague Spring — the period of liberalization led by Alexander Dubček — was over, ended with invasion by the Soviets, the removal of Dubček as the leader of the government of Czechoslovakia and the return of Moscow’s stranglehold on the country.
“During the Prague Spring, things were getting a little easier,” says Privora. “So we had never considered going anywhere else. But, as soon as the Russians came, my husband and I decided that we had to leave.”
Because the invaders did not close the borders immediately, negotiating a short-term exit permit was possible, she adds. “But they were checking papers and if they found anything suspicious, they would stop you from leaving.”
The wedding invitation (actually a fabrication — there was no wedding) passed muster. Privora was granted permission to leave.
“I could take only one small bag because I was supposed to be going for just four days,” she says. “And we couldn’t tell our parents that we were not coming back. It had to be a secret.”
Prvora’s husband, Frank, a structural engineer, was on a short-term work assignment in Yugoslavia at the time. The couple met in Vienna, with plans to immigrate to Canada as soon as possible.
In fact, it was another three weeks before they could continue their journey, because the Canadian embassy in Vienna was closed for the December holiday season.
Privora has happy memories of that Christmas in Austria and excitement at the prospect of moving on to Canada. But, she says — recalling the contrast between Ottawa’s Sparks Street Mall and all the magnificence of the Austrian capital — arriving in Canada was something of a culture shock.
“I didn’t want to stay at first,” she says. “I couldn’t speak English so I didn’t know how to ask for anything. At the beginning, I cried and I slept and cried some more.”
She was also homesick and worried about any repercussions for her family caused by her sudden departure.
“My mother lost her job and my brother had problems getting into university,” she says, “but my father was left alone.”
Meanwhile, Frank Privora, who spoke English, found work in Ottawa and the pair began their lives as new Canadians.
After two years, his career took them to Montreal, but, says Privora, although they loved the city, the provincial government of the day would not allow their children to be educated in English.
“This was 1970. The Parti Québécois said they had to be educated in French because neither one of us was taught in English,” says Privora. “A lot of people that we knew went underground, but we had left Czechoslovakia because of that kind of repression. We left Montreal instead.”
After working in Thunder Bay for six years, Frank Privora set up his own company and the family returned to the Ottawa area, where they have lived ever since. But the shadow of their “illegal” status in Czechoslovakia hung over them for their first 13 years in Canada.
“It took that long before we were finally granted amnesty,” says Privora, explaining that she then had a choice between applying for dismissal of her Czechoslovakian citizenship or retaining it and being approved as a Czech living abroad.
“I applied for the dismissal for both of us — I could do it for my husband too,” she says, adding that because every male had been required to do military service, he had technically been classed as a deserter. “I don’t believe in dual citizenship. I believe in commitment, if you are here and decide to stay.”
Of course, she adds, like any immigrant, a piece of her will always belong to the place where she was born, grew up and attended university.
“But Canada is my home now. Both our daughters were born here and both have families of their own,” she says. “I know that after the Communists fell in 1989, a number of Czech people went back to Czechoslovakia. Not for me. I went back to visit my mother when I could after 15 years, but the country had changed. I had changed. Much more of my life is here. And it is a good life.”
Now retired, it is a life that includes regular sessions of square dancing and duplicate bridge, as well as caring for an orchard at the couple’s home in Perth — a fulfilment of an early dream to have some fruit trees.
I could take only one small bag because I was supposed to be going for just four days. And we couldn’t tell our parents that we were not coming back. It had to be a secret.