"Fighting was simply futile. As children we believed that we would just stay a few months or years here behind the borders, and then we'd go back [to Greece]. But it didn't work out, and so I stayed here my whole life, children and all. So we were raised, she [my wife] and I, both as Greeks, and as Czechs. We're also interested in what goes on here [in the Czech Republic]."
"As children, we weren't really aware of the political situation. In the children's home in Radešov I would write slogans such as that the year 1949 would be the year of the great Greek victory. I drew Marx, Gottwald, and Stalin. I wanted to be a painter, but I was at the children's home when I was just finishing school and was to choose a vocation. I wanted to study art. But my teacher told me that Greece doesn't need artists, but experts. I noticed there was a radio playing there, and so I thought I'd become an electrician."
"In those days of the 20th and 21st of August 1968, I wrote according to what my opinion was at the time. But now I think differently. I wrote down that it was a sad day for Czechoslovakia. Long live General Svoboda. Long live Dubček. Get your hands off the CSSR. Soldiers of the USSR, Poland, Bulgaria and the GDR attacked the CSSR, apparently to stop the revolution in the CSSR. That's odd, as we don't know anything about a revolution. We really didn't know that something was going on here. Just a bit here and there on television and on radio. But a revolution? And here I have some more details about the strikes and so on. So in those days I had a different opinion on the matter. We saw it as help, not as being occupied."
I wanted to study art. But my teacher told me that Greece doesn’t need artists, but experts. And so I thought I’d become an electrician.
Konstantinos Michailidis
photo: Archiv pamětníka a fotografie pořízená během natáčení
photo: Archiv pamětníka a fotografie pořízená během natáčení
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Konstantinos Michailidis was born on the 14th of January 1933 in Notia, Greece. In 1946 he fled with his family to Yugoslavia. A year later in Bulkes, he joined a children’s cultural troupe in support of Greek partisans. The troupe performed all over Yugoslavia and also in Hungary. In the winter of 1948, Michailidis left the troupe and was taken to Czechoslovakia, where he was placed in quick succession in children’s homes in Liběchov, Radešov, Machín and Krásné Pole. After studying at a vocational school in Mohelnice and at a technical school in Brno, he received a housing permit with his parents in Karviné, where he married and settled down. Konstantinos Michailidis has kept a diary since 1949, which he writes in Greek mostly and supplements with photographs and drawings of his own [see Photographs]. He still lives with his wife Vasiliki Michailidu in Karviné. In 1990 they both accepted Czech citizenship.
Photographs of Konstantinos Michailidis from his stay at a children's home. The woman on the two photographs on the right is the governess "Mamma Elis" mentioned in the interview.
Photographs of Konstantinos Michailidis from his stay at a children's home. The woman on the two photographs on the right is the governess "Mamma Elis" mentioned in the interview.
