Community & Business
27 July, 2024
Brave refugee’s story told
TALES of bravery, love and trust while escaping Czechoslovakia after WW2 to find a new life have been shared in a book by Mareeba author Helena Kanak.
From love stories to horror stories and chapters of comic relief, Helena has shared her mother escaping war torn Czechoslovakia at the end of the war through “A Tree Without Branches – Anna’s Journey”.
Born and raised in Czechoslovakia between WW1 and WW2, Anna braved earlier post war years in refugee camps and the loss of her brother in a concentration camp.
Helena never knew the whole story as a child, but always believed her mother was brave, and she had overcome many confronting things.
“It is a very long story, but I had the concept of writing it back in 1983, but it first really happened in 1990 after I visited Czechoslovakia.
“She started telling me all of these things about the war, her escape and everything I never really thought to ask.
“Fast forward to 1998, and one day my mum said to me ‘it’s 50 years today on Easter Monday that I left Czechoslovakia’. Mum and I started talking about her life, and I said to her at the time that I thought it would make a good story for the Cairns Post, and she said, ‘No, no, no, my life is boring, no one would ever want to read about it’.
“Eventually, she agreed, and when she was being taped, it was bizarre the stories she began talking about that I didn’t know.”
As Anna aged, Helena continued to ask questions and recorded her mother’s recollections.
By the early 2000s, Anna began recounting stories Helena had never heard before. Sadly, Anna passed away in 2008, leaving behind recordings and notes that Helena used to write the book.
The isolation during COVID provided the perfect time for Helena to focus on her writing.
Now, her stories will never disappear, with “A Tree Without Branches – Anna’s Journey” now available for the world to read.
One of those stories was about her escaping Communism with her brother and his friend Jan who would much later become Anna’s husband.
Anna’s stubbornness helped her through many tough times but became the main characteristic of one of Helena’s favourite stories during their grand escape.
While preparing to flee, Anna’s sister Helena packed a suitcase filled with numerous useful things.
Her brother, impressed on Anna to pack lightly, and worried any extra luggage would slow down the escape.
Despite begging her to “do as you are told”, Anna still took her suitcase, determined to carry her own possessions.
“Mum arrived with a heavy suitcase, and my father (who she was not married to then) said, ‘You can’t take that, we will be running, and you need a backpack’,” Helena said.
“My mum said, ‘Oh no, I am taking what I want’ ... and then my father gave up.”
While hiding from soldiers at the heavily patrolled Austrian and Czech border (where later the Iron Curtain would be constructed), Anna’s suitcase inadvertently fell into the river, soaking all her clothes.
She knew she could not leave the suitcase behind, as guard dogs would soon sniff them out.
Many decades later, the story of the suitcase and many others have been shared in Helena’s book.
“It is a flurry of emotions – it’s bearing your soul, I suppose,” Helena said.
“I feel relieved that I have managed to accomplish it, and I just hope I did justice to her story.
“My mum overcame some amazing things, and I think, in hindsight, she would have agreed with what I am doing. She was working with me until the end, saying things like, ‘Oh, I don’t like this and it should be that’.
“My mother had so much resilience as a mum and as a person, and she was amazing at getting on with life and moving forward in a very positive light.”
Sharing history is something Helena believes is crucial, and is encouraging people to talk to their parents, grandparents, aunties and uncles and document their history.
“I think our lives should never be taken for granted, and I have this opinion where everyone should talk to their grandparents, she said.
“My mum’s story had not been recorded before, but now it is on paper, and all those hardships have been documented.”
“A Tree Without Branches – Anna’s Journey” is now available on Amazon or by emailing helenamaxd@gmail.com
