As a 16-year-old boy living in Czechoslovakia under communism, my father found himself sitting with his dad at a table in an austere government office. On the other side sat two indifferent government employees who were tasked with the job of deciding his future. Even at 16, the idea that people he had never met would determine the course of the rest of his life seemed absurd. Shortly, the decision was handed down: After high school, my dad would spend the rest of his years toiling in the coal mines.
My grandfather appealed to them to reconsider and permit him to attend school instead, but his pleas were immediately dismissed. Labeled as dissidents because they refused to give up their Christian faith and officially join the Communist Party, my father’s family members had no hope of being awarded a coveted seat at a university or trade school. The adults in his family had already lost their jobs in banking and church leadership and were banished to spend their lives doing backbreaking manual labor. Some were even jailed because they refused to give up their guns to the soldiers who came to disarm the citizens. Forced to transfer ownership of their homes to the state, they were left with nothing.
Powerless and facing a future of poverty, my dad resolved to escape to a place where individual liberty was sacred. Patiently, he awaited his chance.
In a desperate attempt to save his son from the perils of the coal mines, my grandfather contacted the president of a small technical college. A communist in name only, this college president used his position to quietly aid as many of the nation’s youth as possible. He quickly accepted my dad as a geology student. A golden opportunity presented itself a few years later when my dad was awarded the chance to travel to Austria on a college trip. Traveling outside the Soviet Bloc was usually forbidden, so this excursion signaled the chance he had been waiting for.
With their passports held by their chaperones, who kept them under constant surveillance, there seemed to be little possibility of breaking away. During the last few days of the trip, my dad was able to lose himself in a crowd as his group was entering a restaurant. After requesting help at the nearest police station, my dad was connected to a group of Austrians who owned a local bar and had a reputation for helping refugees from the Soviet Bloc. This meeting led to a job at the bar and a place to live in a refugee camp outside the city.
After one year in the refugee camp, my dad got the news he’d spent most of his life anticipating: He had been selected to emigrate to America. He promptly moved to New York, then settled in California a few months later. He studied English, started a business, and eventually became a homeowner—accomplishments that were impossible for people living behind the Iron Curtain.
Unlike in his old life under communism, where the concept of equality of outcome for all destroyed the people’s incentive to work hard, he quickly found that hard work and ambition were often rewarded in America. While studying for the citizenship exam, he discovered a passion for United States history and a love of the Constitution with its steadfast protection of individual rights. He was constantly amazed by the generosity of Americans, who were all too eager to help a new immigrant while never expecting anything in return.
The early days in his new country were not without challenges. He was far away from his extended family and everything that had once been familiar to him. As punishment for his escape, he was given a show trial in his former country and sentenced to imprisonment. The news that his two brothers had been dismissed from their jobs due to his escape dampened his newfound happiness. Before he married and started a family, he experienced a few lonely years. Despite everything, he knew he had won the ultimate prize—he had the good fortune of landing in the land of hope, and because of that, his children and grandchildren would never have to experience the tyranny that he had risked so much to escape.
