cultural affect of invasion

[Lisa Jezek]

Due to the various occupations the Czech people were under, did it change them as a people, did it change their culture? Such as pull them closer or apart. I read that Czechs are clever and shrewd due to these various occupations. Your thoughts?

[Tomaszewski]

I don't think it pulled us together. I think the only thing to pull Czech people closer is an international ice-hockey match. It may sound funny, but I'm not joking...
But still occupation definitely changes people both as individuals and as a nation. I think that a positive feature of it (though it sounds as a negative one at first) that we are able to use common sense. No matter how many new rules, laws, restrictions and that like there are, we can always find a way round or through it, in the end we can manage to do lots of things that many nations would not do because they are theoretically prohibited.
It may be negative, of course: the word 'tunnelling' comes from Czech... ;-)
But on the whole, I think this is a positive feature of the nation.
One of the most popular TV shows has been a show for gadgeteers (if the word in English is correct). It's been on for 30 years. It's because many people like to do everything themselves so that they don't have to pay so much money for it. But that's also why Czech scientists and scholars are so famous. Because they don't concentrate on one particular aspect of something only. They were taught that they have to cope with everything themselves and that they have the capability of thinking up something new.
I'm not sure if this is not too confused. If so, I'll try to express it in some other way. What I wanted to say is that Czech people are very innovative and thoughtful, which can be positive as well as negative. But this is definitely what we learnt due to the occupations.

[Lisa Jezek]

I can relate, I had to restore a old house with little to no money. "Necessity is the mother of all invention". But under the communists was there a lot of persecution? If so who was it mainly and for what reasons? I don't mean to drudge bad history, it's just that I'm completely in the dark about this and ,"Those who don't know their history are domed to repeat it." Are there any books that you could recommend on this subject?

[Tomaszewski]

There are hundreds of books on this topic but I can't recommend any, I've never read any of them. As for the persecution, it depends. Some people claim, it was not so bad and even if it was, common people did not about it. I think that's not true. I was a child at that time but I knew about everything because my parents told me what was happening. People who claim they didn't know anything about political trials etc. were just 'closing their eyes' and didn't want to see it. Or they were pro-regime so they agreed. I know quite a lot of people who were arrested of funny reasons. Like my grandfather who had an operation and on May 1 couldn't carry Soviet flag because of the operation. His was accused of unfriendly relations to the Soviet Union. He was not arrested but his salary was reduced so much that he didn't have enough for his family. He was about 45 at that time and he was told he never would get more money again. Then there were the political executions, of course. But there was not many of them, except for 1950s. Later, people were not executed but they had to work in mines and similar places. After working there for 10 or 20 years they died anyway. What was worst was probably the methods of the police when interrogating, I heard some stories from people to whom it happened... Nowadays, from time to time, there is some documentary on TV about this, it's horrible.

[keech]

I think the communistic era taught people not to be idealistic (what a shame). They don't do things because of principle but rather look what's in it for them. Tomaszewski is right about the "gadgeteering" - i'm sure the Czech Republic has the highest rate of home-made grass-cutters and buzz-saws in the world . And after the years of different occupations (starting in the year 1620) czech people don't rely on other nations to protect their country (and there's generally the feeling that we always get stab in the back as a nation and if we had a chance to show what is in us, _we_ would be the winners (Munich 1938)).

[Lisa Jezek]

I think that looking out for "What's in it for me" is a world wide problem. It's just hard for people in general to be unselfish. From what I could see the Czech people are extreamly hard working and involved in their community with devotion. But my view of the culture was for only 11 days. After hearing about the bunkers you built to fight off Hitler then England and the other countries left you high and dry, it told me alot of what the Czech people were made of. I don't know how many generations it will be before that betrayal is fully forgiven.

Lisa

[Tomaszewski]

I think keech really expressed the core of things in his posts. And the bunkers, that's really the most famous story, people like to think that we could have beaten Hitler had we fought. The beginning of the second war made a lot of people think that we are on one hand close to western European superpowers so they have to count with us but on the other hand too far away so that we can be forgotten if needed... You're right in saying that it may take a long time before people forget. But to be true, it's not really an issue now, but it still stays in people's minds. There are still TV documentaries about the bunkers and how good they were etc. etc.

[Lisa Jezek]

Now I'm going to stir up some trouble......... Now that I think of it, America almost had their butts handed to them by the Nazi's and we had more people to invest, and more money to fund the technology. It's something that my husband and I are amazed by (resentfully) the technology and the ruling power of the sea that the Nazis had. In all likelyhood, even if Czechloslovokia had the support they asked for, it would have been a disaster. America wouldn't even support their mother country England until we were hit at Pearl Harbor! (we did some support in smuggling in goods and war items, etc.) Now that I think of that, it looks like everyone sat back and let everyone else get goobled up until it was their turn. My point being, the technological power of the Nazi's would have defeated Czechloslovokia....soundly. There would be no Prague. This is a 38 year non-educated American womans view, what say you?

[Tomaszewski]

Well, the truth is, and you are right in that, at least as the estimation goes, that we would surely have lost... Germany's war industry had a long time been in process, it was not the case in Czechoslovakia. If I should say my opinion, I think we had a 10 or 20 per cent chance to win...
But the issue is, would it have been much worse than the occupation? The bunkers were destroyed, all equipment of Czech army was taken over by the Germans and use in the war. Czechoslovakia lost territory alongside the borders...

[Lisa Jezek]

I get it. It's the feeling that you have never been given the chance to make your stand. Who knows what Eastern Europe will do yet, I have great hopes that they won't "globlize" and can be a type of sanctuary some of us. It's so odd, my heritage is Italian descent, and a quarter Russian, but I'm more interested in my husbands Czech roots. Part of me is extreamly pissed at Italy because they have the lowest birth rate in Europe. HOW DOES THAT HAPPEN!! No culture was more into having babies than the Italians! O.K. I'm way off the subject now, but I think I've exhausted the present one.