Funeral Service Celebrating the life of. Zdenek Stribrsky 2 nd April th December Mortlake Crematorium Chapel Richmond

Size: px

Start display at page:

Download "Funeral Service Celebrating the life of. Zdenek Stribrsky 2 nd April th December Mortlake Crematorium Chapel Richmond"

Annabelle Cunningham
5 years ago
Views:

Funeral Service Celebrating the life of Zdenek Stribrsky 2 nd April 1926 7 th December 2012 Mortlake Crematorium Chapel Richmond Tuesday 18 th December 2012 at 2.

1 Funeral Service Celebrating the life of Zdenek Stribrsky 2 nd April th December 2012 Mortlake Crematorium Chapel Richmond Tuesday 18 th December 2012 at 2.40pm Do not cry for me, think of me with a joyful smile. I am closer than I ever was, I am there inside your heart. I will love you beyond life, love never dies. Keep on never minding 1

2 Over the past few years as my father aged, each time I visited him he would tell me more about his past and his childhood. Some things I never knew until a few months ago. Maybe in his last months certain memories came back to him as vivid as they were when he experienced them. Often a sadness came out as he told me. Some things remain in my heart with the memory of his expressions as he told me the stories of historical events of his country and his life. Some I write down, to give an idea of my father, his up bringing and the essence of his life. I can honestly say he was kind, generous, humble, loving truthful man, who represented what true human values should be. Zdenek was born in a village call Brandysek/ Olsany not far from Prague. His father was from a generation of Butchers and farmers. His Family: His father; Joseph Stribrsky, survived the first world war fighting on the Italian front near the river Piave, where he fell in love with a dark haired Italian girl. He wanted to marry her when he returned home. Joseph s mother would not have him marrying a gypsy foreigner so he dedicated himself to sport wrestling and politics (become a devout communist!). He even attended a trade union congress in Leningrad in 1938 and was a prominent Czech wrestler during the pre war years. When Joseph was around 30 his mother thought it was about time he married and had a family. She found a suitable partner in Anna Sykora whose family had run a pub for over 300 years selling food and beer, partly descended from a French soldier retreating from the Napoleonic war. Anna was divorced from a first husband with no children. This marriage of convenience gave birth to Zednek and Milena. However, when Zdenek was just 8 and Milena 5 years old, their mother suddenly passed away. The children grew up mainly in the care of their Grandmother Sykora while Joseph worked and pursued his interests. The German invasion of Czechoslovakia came, due to the surrender treaty Czech nationals were not conscripted to the army. Joseph due to his political ideas soon became involved in the partisan resistance movement. One Saturday afternoon while going to the cinema in Klando Zdenek saw his father for the last time being rounded up into a lorry by the Nazis. He went home in the afternoon find out it really was true and that his father had be arrested by the German SS. He was 13 and never saw his father again. Joseph was imprisoned first in Pancrac prison in Prague where he was put on a political trail. His uncle Adolf offered to pay the best lawyer in Prague any amount to avoid the death sentence. To which the lawyer replied this is political the verdict has already been decided. Only one of the group a woman was given a life sentence and she returned home after the war. Josef Stribrsky was condemned to death by execution of decapitation Then transferred to Terezin (Theresienstadt) Concentration Camp in solitary confinement before being transferred to Dresden for execution in He wrote a letter to his son before this event which Zdenek only received in 1968 when he met his uncle Adolf again in Germany, who gave him a few family mementoes. During the war Zdenek finished his apprenticeship as a butcher, but worked in the steel works. It was hard work but food rations were good, Zdenek gladly exchanged his cigarette rations for cream cakes and other things as he never smoked. He had weekends off and often visited his Uncle Adolf in Prague and other nearby cities. The last days of the war, he and his friends knew the Russian allies were coming. They waited for them at a crossroad on the outskirts of town. When the first Russian 2

3 convey going into town passed by they asked the way. His friends persuaded him to get on the trucks and show them the way. He entered Prague with the first Russian convoy of tanks and trucks. There was a celebrated arrival for their liberators. He was photographed and given a petrol tank of vodka to go back and celebrate with his friends back home. This event was even documented in history books one of which I received many years later.about the young Czech boy Zdenek who accompanied the Russian liberators from Nazi tyranny to Prague. When Czechoslovakia was freed. The Irony of the story was that young Czech boy would then run away to live in exile for 45 years from the tyranny of the Russian occupation during the cold war. Zdenek visited his uncle for two days while the last of the fighting went on. He returned happy and optimistic to his town, to find that the day he left his friends all of them had been shot by the retreating German soldiers. He was the lucky one the only one who survived. He moved to Karlovy Vary near the German border. His sister moved with him. He worked but realized that Russian Communist occupation, in his words was no good. He often told me that the 2 years from 1945 to 1948 were worse than the Nazi occupation during the war. He was asked to conscript to the Russian army, which he refused. In his words he said my father died for his country and I will not fight for any country but my own. His friend a blacksmith knew the border area and a special railway line one used for freight transport which crossed into Germany near Cheb. There was no barbed wire yet, the Iron Curtain still had to be completely drawn across Eastern Europe. With a suite case of cigarettes which he fortunately never smoked but could be sold contraband, he went to Germany. He returned once more on an adventurous trip. He visited his sister who said his friends had been sent to Siberia and if they caught him he would be sent there to. He went back to Prague to see his Uncle Adolf who supplied another two suite cases of cigarettes and some money. With his cousin they went back to cross the border. Uncle Adolf spent three years in a work camp for helping them on the charges of capitalism. The first night they had to turn back, as they got lost in rain going through the wood, but they made it over avoiding check points and controls the following night. His family home in Olsany was confiscated by the state. His sister Milena later told me there were many love letters in the attic written between my Grand father Joseph and his dark haired Italian love from the first world war years. Apparently he was fluent in Italian. Zdenek always described the devastation in Germany as being terrible. Although he a lived through the war. Czechoslovakia had remained reasonably functional and undamaged. He stayed in a refugee camp near Nuremberg. He had a folding camp spoon with a fork. He always said how he lent it to another 5 friends after him so they didn t have to use their hands. The camp was hard to that s why he left his sister behind. They played football a lot to pass time. He always loved to play football and was a good player and in London always supported the local Queens Park Rangers football team. His cigarette supply kept him well fed and by the time he got a permission to travel to England they had run out. He crossed the English Chanel heading for a new life on the 29 th November (my brother s birthday). Zdenek in his trade as a butcher had no difficulty finding work. He had many Czech friends he met who became close. He had no family from home, his friends were his family. He eventually found love in a Dark haired Italian girl Olga, who had come to England to work. She came from Pieve di Soligo very close to the river Piave where 3

4 his father Joseph had fought on the Italian front. They married on 2 nd February 1955 and on the 29 th November the same year his son Joseph was born. He loved his child and would carry him everywhere, milk bottle in his pocket, cuddling all the time. On the 25 th February 1961 (the date the first communist government took control of his country in 1948) I, his daughter Annarosa was born. He could not have been a more affectionate father. He never laid a finger on his children, calling Olga in for discipline. He worked nights in Smithfield market and came home early enough to help cook, hover up, wash dishes and be there when we came home from school, preparing tea and jam sandwiches on a rainy day. He was always kind and generous; it was a hard time for many, cash was tight. He was more partial to give than to save, but with hard work he and Olga save hard and their own home. He always found time for us kids (and our friends) to play football in the park, sing and teach us Czech songs while playing his accordion. We learnt Czech card games and chess. Being children of immigrants, with no close relations we became very close to families of other Czech refugees. We were baptized by a Czech priest, went to Czech Saturday school. Learnt to sing and study Czech and the national dancing. But at the same time we were and still are very British. This Czech community was held together by father John Lang a Jesuit priest from Farm street church. He survived Terezin where grandfather had been. Father Lang was the spiritual father. He was in our home when I was born and came to celebrate my parents 40 th and 50 th wedding anniversary. Father Lang also loved father, in a crowed he would always call him and hug him. Dad would often visit Father Lang in Velehrad the Czech community building in Ladbroke grove, bringing good priced or free meat for festive occasions for members of the community. I know many families had a free roast for a Sunday dinner or Christmas, when they maybe couldn t afford it. I think between them there was a sort of complicity about the war. Father Lang was where my Grandfather had been. He survived to tell us kids at holiday camp to eat up and be happy as we had no idea about what hunger was about. As children holidays were just to Italy to see our relations and family on summer holidays every two years. The other years it was St Marys Bay with father Lang and a short break at the Czech house in Folkestone for my parents. In August 1968 he drove his Lambretta 150cc across Europe to Italy to be with us. He stopped over to see his cousin in Stuttgart and saw his Uncle Adolf for the last time. His uncle gave him some of his father s medals and a trophy from wrestling as well as his father s last lesson to his son. He went up Gross Glockner for the thrill and drove down through Cortina d Ampezzo to Pieve di Soligo in time to see the news on the television of the Russian tanks invading Prague on 21 st August Home became even further away and out of reach. He repeated the same trip two years later with Joseph my brother on his last Lambretta 200cc. He never wanted a car, like all the men in our family, Joseph and Edwin his Grand son both have a passion for bikes. It took him everywhere, with us on the back. It gave him a sense of freedom which he loved. Our Czech heritage was denied by the political climate of the cold war. Our father transmitted his love for his country though music. Music was his love, and nostalgia for his homeland. The works of Smetana, Dovrak and Janacek. He once told me he bought a trumpet during the war from a man for two cream cakes he had exchanged from his cigarette ration. He loved cream cakes!! He would practice in the barn. He always wanted to play music. Parties were with friends and he would take out his 4

5 massive accordion and play with everyone singing.and of course a good Czech beer. Although he had a timid nature he was very social. Czech mass on Sundays was also important. Czechs would gather and sing from their hearts in the language of their homeland in a climate of patriotism and nostalgia wondering if they would ever get back home again. Czech club was part of the package too, not just church and Father Lang, but the beer and the food at New Year or particularly St Nicholas 7 th December (the day he died). We would sing carols and get presents and our Daddys would have a good booze up!! These were the brothers, he never had, many passed away a long time ago before him. He was even on the Czech club committee for a while. For me and my brother it was an incredible adventure day going there. Meeting and speaking to the old Czech Soldiers who flew away during the invasion and came to England to fight and fly in the RAF, telling me stories of how they got shot down. I listen to their testament of history through their own words. The more recent Czechs refugees would tell us their adventures about how they ran away from the communist regime. Father Lang was always around the head of a sometimes unruly flock of Czech sheep. Zdenek applied for a visa his sister to visit this was denied many times. They only met again after 43 years. There were many funerals of friends good Czechs who never saw their homeland again. He was lucky in 1990 on a new British passport he returned on holiday quite a few times. He would often travel to visit me in Venice and my mother s town to see and help with his growing family of Grandchildren in Italy. He always said he was happy to make it back to Czechoslovakia, but it was a bit too late. Many friends and relations had passed away and many did not make it back home. The velvet revolution on November 17 th 1989 was memorable for all the children of the Czech refugees. We called each other from all over the world crying and celebrating looking at the Images on TV with true joy in our hearts. I had spent more than one Sunday of my teenage years with Father Lang and others protesting outside the Russian Embassy. To see Freedom at last was a miracle. Zdenek s final years were about his family. When he retired he visited them often in Venice. He would often talk about the old days, his old friends. He would say how lucky he was, to have seen his grand children Edwin and Liliana. He loved his home and did the gardening for him and the neighbours too. During his twilight years he had the ;Grace of a great grand daughter, close to him, who loved him dearly and who he love immensely. She was his sunshine. Life was about the family and love he never had as a child. He attended many funerals of friends and neighbours, a few of whom he helped a lot during their old age. He would say he was fortunate to get to old. He always imagined he would die young like his father. But he had and shared the joys and sometimes the heartache of a family who love and adored him. He was always there for us. Not everyone can say they had a truly wonderful happy childhood and wonderful parents but Joseph and I certainly can. He love his wife so much he was worried about passing away so not to leave her and cause her sadness and distress. He had few desires; he was contented with the simple things nice. The nice creamy cakes he liked to indulge in and swap his cigarette rations for and of course the odd beer. 5

6 However I did find out one desire which he expressed to me. He once said to me that I had really deluded him. Why? I asked. His reply was that I had stopped studying the piano. He said his one desire was to have at least one good musician in the family. His desire was granted as I remarried a wonderful musician of whom I know my father was proud. His love of music always remained and until his last hours he listened to music and even tried to sing. In September he was happy to see Liliana his grand-daughter marry. He saw his grand-son Edwin and other friends and family again. He told me he was happy and serene, his girls were looked after and they had become part of another warm and loving family. He knew his time was coming. His last wish was to pass away peacefully at home with the love and comforting warmth and affection of his family around him. He got this wish too. His last days when we got him back home were precious. On his last Sunday Father Tychy priest from who comes regularly from Rome to Velehrad came to bless us all. Zdenek was happy and talked without coughing, happy and smiling in Czech for a long time. Its sad as Velehrad has been sold and the community will move. My father is one of the last of his generation. His passing and this Eulogy is dedicated not just to him but to the Czech community in London and to the many wonderful friends and people he shared his life with during a sad an troublesome period of his county s history. I often asked him to sing the Czech anthem, but he never could as it always made him cry. That is why it will be sung at his funeral service, and he will depart with La Paloma one of his favourite songs. Zdenek was nostalgic he always said he wanted his ashes to be thrown in to the Piave where his dad fought in the first war. I said that we would prefer a tomb so he was happy to say his ashes would be laid to rest in my mother s town in Pieve di Soligo in Italy. This way the many Italian relations and friends can know that there is a place for him on earth. All who new him will remember his sense of humor his kind and loving manner and his strong loving soul will be ever present in our hearts. His last wish would be that we would remember him with love and happiness in our hearts, not to shed too many tears. As he always said. KEEP ON NEVER MINDING! 6

Bronia and the Bowls of Soup

Bronia and the Bowls of Soup Aaron Zerah Page 1 of 10 Bronia and the Bowls of Soup by Aaron Zerah More of Aaron's books can be found at his website: http://www.atozspirit.com/ Published by Free Kids Books