"Because the weeks and months came, and then he understood [her husband Ignacio understood her fears], when I dreamt about coming back and how the dogs were running after me at the border. Or I dreamt about Božena [my mother] waiting for me at some train station, and it's always like that, how you're ready to hug - and someone pulls us apart. And I would always scream and Ignacio would wake me up and say, 'You're screaming, you're dreaming again. Try to forget about it...' Ta, ta, ta... 'Have some tea.' That was every now and then, and then my hair started falling out terribly. And I was washing my hair one day, and I had long hair, and he says, 'What's that, you've got some weird bald spot.' So I went to the doctor, and he said, 'So what happened to you, young lady, did your baby die?' I say, 'No.' 'Did you get divorced, did you have a fight?' I say, 'No.' 'Well, tell me.' And he was a dermathologist. And I started to tell the story. That I'm actually from nowhere, I don't have any papers now, because the Colombian ones exist, but they're provisional, and I still feel like I can't go back. And then what am I supposed to do, that the family, and that maybe they get sick and I can't come. That maybe they die and I can't go to the funeral. And the gentleman... his tears started flowing." And I said, 'It's terrible. What am I supposed to do?' He said, 'Well, I've never seen a case like this before. I feel like nothing. You might be left bald.'"
"I left with the idea that we were going to be the happiest country in the world and that we should do what Dubček said: all study, go back, build a new socialism and so on. So I was in Jarek's [uncle's] hotel at the time, there was something, and he ran off and said, 'There's some strange news,' and there was a radio, I don't know where it was from, I think it was through Paris or somewhere, there was international news on the radio, and they said that Russian, Soviet maybe, not Russian, tanks were coming to Prague. And we were looking at each other, and we didn't understand. I was like, 'Maybe it's a movie.' I really... I didn't even... I was so naive. I mean, moreover, it didn't occur to me. Of course, the next day, even in Colombia, the newspapers were full of it, but there was no possibility of making phone calls, everything was broken and disturbed. Then there were mainly in that hotel, he had connections with various people he knew in Bogotá, people who had messages from somebody who had travelled close by or something. They were unpleasant messages. And then there was one report that truly puzzled me, upset me, and that was that they had occupied Četka [the Czech press office where my father worked]."
"He [the civilian employee who carried out the secret notes] wasn't there, where he was supposed to be, as they had arranged, and she always told how she went to the gate. And on the way... she came to the gate and said she was going there to see her uncle. She said the name of the civilian employee. And she says how the two SS men at the gate looked at her in amazement and said, 'You really want to come in?' And she said, 'Yeah, we have an appointment there.' And they said, 'Oh, well, okay, give us your identification documents.' And she pulled the papers out of her purse and said, 'And you're going to give them back to me when I go back, right?' And the one guy looked at her and said, 'I don't know if you're ever going to go back.' And at that moment, she said she got terribly scared that her hands and skirt started to shake, and she put the document back and said, 'Well, wait a minute, I'll think about it. I'll eat some bread now and I'll be back in a minute.' And she said she could hardly walk, she walked away from the gate, they didn't do anything, they just laughed. And then she saw an SS woman, or several SS women with wolfhounds, and a group of women walking, shaved, in those striped uniforms, they were coming back inside from some work and she said, 'When I saw their eyes, completely extinguished, and how they looked, I was so scared, and nobody would make a sound out of me. I waited until they'd gone over, and I ran back to the train and came back.' Unfortunately with nothing, she thought, but she must have saved herself because if she'd gone in there, she would have... But people just didn't believe it. Even though they knew there was something horrible going on, they had no evidence of what was went on there."
Eliška Krausová-Chavez was born on 4 May 1946 in Prague as the second child of Božena and Ota Kraus. Gradually, three more children were added to the family, and Eliška helped her mother a lot with their care. She did not mind, she was always diligent and managed school without problems. She grew up as a happy post-war child, even though her daddy, who came from a Jewish family, had spent several years in concentration camps and lost his loved ones. He has dedicated his life to making sure that this black period is not forgotten, co-authoring one of the first books about the Holocaust, The Death Factory. At her father’s request, Eliška Krausová studied Spanish-French at the Faculty of Arts after graduating high school. And because she longed to travel and continue her studies, she took advantage of an invitation from her mother’s brother living in Bogotá, Colombia, and went there in June 1968. She fulfilled her wish to study at the Instituto Caro y Cuervo and eventually married her literature professor and later director of the institute, Ignacio Chaves. At that time, Czechoslovakia was occupied by Warsaw Pact troops, and she decided to stay in Colombia. Soon, her brothers Ivan and Michal and finally her sister Kateřina also emigrated. All were sentenced in absentia. Thus, the family practically broke up for many years and lost much of their time together. However, their relations remained very close and they are still in close contact today. Even after her husband died in 2005, Eliška Krausová remained in Bogotá, where she has been working at the Universidad Pedagogica Nacional since 1983; today, she is a professor of linguistics and philosophy. After the dissolution of the Czech Embassy in Bogotá, she founded the Association of Colombian-Czech Friendship Asocheca in 2009 and five years later received the Gratias Agit award for spreading the good name of the Czech Republic abroad.
Eliška Krausová (right) at the Academy of Languages in Bogotá, launching her husband's book. Next to Eliška, her husband's son Andres Chaves with his wife Adriana and daughter Camila and Juan Carlos Chaves, nephew, 2007
Eliška Krausová (right) at the Academy of Languages in Bogotá, launching her husband's book. Next to Eliška, her husband's son Andres Chaves with his wife Adriana and daughter Camila and Juan Carlos Chaves, nephew, 2007
