Story:

During the normalisation, the feeling of fear and general mistrust among people was ubiquitous and very intense. I once applied for a business trip to Vienna. However, I was summoned to the police and I was told that my travel was not in the interest of the state and my passport was taken away. After several years, I found out that someone reported me. I rather did not try to find out who reported me. When my wife and I wanted to go on vacation to Yugoslavia, they gave me only a so-called ‘grey’ passport which was valid only for that country. Later on, we managed to get the remaining necessary documents and we knew we would probably not come back. As part of the vacation, there was a trip to Venice and we felt that was a good opportunity to leave. Thus on June 21, 1984, we migrated and we thought we would spend the rest of our lives abroad.

Karel Foustka