I was born on the third of july of 1924, as my father told me, near midnight, in a city named Ceské Kridlovice, which after the war, was rebaptized as Bozice, in the district of Znojmo, in the Republic of Czechoslovakia.

The house, where I was born, was old, built before the First World War - my father rent this house soon after marring my mother- in may of 1923. The owners of the house were two women teachers who lived in Vienna, in Austria, where they gave classes in a lyceum.  As was the custom in the old Austria-Hungary, "good people", how were called the public functionaries who had some propriety in the interior, to spend their vacations, away from Vienna, that was the Austria-Hungary capital, residence of the Emperor and his court, considered a noisy and dirty city, and the Vienna citizens liked to walk in the woods of the nearby little cities with open fields and many green. 

These two teachers had  a cousin who lived in "Gross Kridlovic", how was the city named in German, and she recommended the Vienna cousins to buy a propriety in this place, what they did. Afterwards came the First World War  from 1914 to 1918, not achieving directly these places, which after the end of the war, in accordance with treaty signed between the participants in the war, in Versailles, became to be owned by the new country named "Ceskoslovensko- or Czechoslovakia". The Austria- Hungary Empire ceased to exist and was dismember to create smaller countries, giving priority to the language spoken in the region and of the historical origin, what in our case was the old Bohemia, Moravia and Slovenia, which existed in the last a thousand years and which with constant wars loose theirs autonomy and existence. In this way, old nations as Croatia, Serbia and Slovenia, slavonian countries, made after the war the country named Yugoslavia. Part of the Westphalia passed from the German Empire to France, what give, twenty years later, to Hitler the pretext to the annexation and afterwards, the beginning of the Second World War...

Our house was number 8, consequently  one of the first houses built in this place, had at least 15 meters of front and 40 meters of back yard, solid building, with thick walls. In the front of the gate there was a  concrete stair of five steps, was build on the top of an abrupt declivity to avoid in the floods the water to penetrate in the house. In front of the house there was a little river, and with the strong rain it used to became a river.

The entrance gate divided the house in two parts: looking by the front, in the left side, was the principal part, with visit room, two bedrooms and a bathroom. In the right side there was a room, kitchen and dispense, that we transformed in another room in the case of visits. The principal part: the left, was reserved to the two women teachers, whose used to arrive from Vienna only in the summer school vacations: in July and August,( in the winter, they couldn't come because there was no heating in this part of the house). In the other part: the right, we lived since 1923- until our forced departure in 1938 ( because of the annexation of the Sudetenland to Germany, in accordance to Hitler exigence).

A big back yard was transformed little by little in a garden with grass and many fruit trees. It was surrounded in all sides - by one side by the walls of the neighbour house, by the other also another neighbour house and in the fund a big cellar. The yard, by the right side, was covered by the veranda, with a table and chairs to lunch in the summer time and in the other part my mother used to stretch out our clothes to dry. In the right side there was also a kitchen of the two teachers ( where their cooker - Frau Maria- prepared the meals).  Stoves in that time were of firewood and coal, and they served not only to cook but to warm the environment in winter, in the mood that the kitchens were used as living-rooms in the great majority of the time. Consequently there must be a place to store the firewood and the coal and my father still had a little room, that he used as workshop to cut and split wood and used also to guard the tools. Since we were little, we children learned also to deal with the saw, ax and other tools.

My father, in his youth, before he became a soldier, worked as blacksmith and cabinet-maker and knew  how to make tables, chairs and other pieces of furniture as a professional.

In the back yard there was a well also, with manual pump, but the water was not used to drink or cook. It was obligation of us children, to bring every day  pails of water from a fountain, some quarters above of our house. The pails were heavy and in the winter or during the rain, it was not an easy task.

Our father was an "gendarme",  it is, policeman that worked in the interior of the cities. "Gendarmes" were policemen ( French model) who existed even today in various European countries (in Italy they are called "carabinieri").

My father or was in patrol, doing the rounding through all the district ( there were twenty-four hours of service) visiting various places and nearby little cities, walking many kilometers, or was in duty in the office. In each office there were from three to six  gendarmes - policemen, in accordance with the number of inhabitants in the discrict.

To drink  we used a natural fountain water around 500 meters away from house and it was children's duty, to bring pails full of water every day. When we were little, it was our mother task.

Finally, I need to mention that in the backyard there was a cellar, where my father used to keep barrels of wine, that he himself used to fabricate. There were also bottles of wine for daily use.

We used to store potatoes in the cellar also, to use in winter. 

During the summer we keep in the cellar perishable things like milk and butter, because the cellar was cold in summer and relatively hot in winter and the temperature was never below zero grade. ( There were no refrigerators in that time).

The milk we used to bring from a neighbour, who raised cows, and other basic necessary things we have to buy in the respective houses like meat, bread, sugar, rice, spice, canned etc..

We children used to ask for candies and chocolates and the great majority of things we find in the groceries.

I spoke about the house, now something about the city, or better about the village.

There were approximately 2000 inhabitants, almost all germans with around a dozen czechos, that were the families of the policemen, that in the interior were called gendarme, of the french model, gerdarmerie.

In the neighbour city, Bozice, the great majority of people were also germans, but in this place the czech government, after the end of the first world war and the demarcation of the frontiers with the neighbours Austria and Germany, built a group of houses, that were rent to czechs farmers, by this way, were colonized and therefore called colony.

The czech government order to build a public school, with primary course of five years, frequented by the colony children and also by the nearby Kridlovice. This school was frequented by children since six years of age.

The republic by name Czechoslovakia was created in october of 1918 by the international agreement in Geneva, Switzerland, and was constituted of countries like Bohemia, Moravia, part of Silesia, Slovenia and a part of Russia, named Carpathian (in accordance with mountains of the same name). In total, there were 140.000 square kilometers and around 14 millions of inhabitants.

How it was in the Central Europe, in the frontiers there were old inhabitants of nearby countries, that spoke their own mother language like german, hungarian, polish  and russian.

To occupy the official post in the frontiers, there was qualified bilingual people, therefore old czech soldiers, that were obligated to serve in the First World War in the exterior, like the case of my father, that served in Austria, Poland and Italy and therefore spoke german well.

1.1.1. - Something about my family:

My father, Cyril Votava, was born in a little village of name Pozdatin, in the Trebitch district, in july 5, 1891. He was of a family of five brothers and three sisters. He frequented the local school from six to fourteen years, then he entered to professional knowledge, first as a carpenter, but did not end the course, then as a blacksmith and finished with the respective diploma. Completing twenty one years of age, enlisted in Vienna in the Austro-Hungary army, and as he had have experience in dealing with horses was transferred to the fourteenth regiment of cavalry, in Austria named dragon chivalry, in Wiener Neustadt, near Vienna.

He enlisted himself and served in the army for two years. But the destiny changed the happenings:

In the year 1914, Austria declared war to his neighbour Serbia, because of the murder of Fracys Ferdinando, forecast as the future emperor, what give the beginning of the First World War and my father's roster was automatically extended and he was sent with his regiment to fight in Poland, to prevent the invasion of the Russians. There, in a  body against body sword fight, he was first wounded in the thigh and sent in a canvas cot to "Feldlazzarett", that was the provisory first-aid clinic in the battlefield.

After the wound's recovery he was sent to Vienna and from there to a new battlefield in the North of Italy against the uprising of the Italians and of the Turks.

In the combat with the Turks he was again wounded, this time in the shoulder.

He was given medical treatment in Vienna and was send to recovery in the balneary city of Baden Bei Wien. In this city, my mother Anna was working together with her sister Mary, in a big house of a widow baroness. There, in this ocasion, there was a casual happening, in a promenade, in a Sunday, between Cyril and Anna and, even after this, my father returned after the end of his recovery to his Regiment, that was transferred to Tyrol, in Austria. Probably, they were in contact by correspondence until the end of the war, in 1918.

After the end of the First World War the Austrian-Hungary empire also ended and my father returned to his native village, Pozdatin. 

During the war my father was distinguished with the Bronze Cross  and the silver medal for courage in battle.

Then my father went to my birthplace, he inscribed as a candidate to a gendarme post. He was called to do the prove and was accepted.

There was then that he was send in a post nearby the austrian frontier in Ceske Kridlovice in the Znojmo District because of his knowledge in German.

In May of 1923, he married the well known Anna Racek - Votava, in the Saint Jacob church in the Brno city, capital of the Moravia state, the second biggest city in the Republic of Czechoslovakia.

My mother was born in 5 of February of 1894 in Osova Bityska, of the District of Velke Mezerici, a little town near the cited city Brno.

She was one of the five children of the farmer Josef Racek, my grandfather. Of the five children, one of then was a boy and the other four girls. As was the custom in our land, the children frequented free public school from six to fourteen years of age, afterwards the men search for a profession and the women helped in the house and in the field, doing services like any man.

Having the Racek family four women, my grandfather decided to send the two older ones, Mary and Anna to find work in Vienna, that was the empire capital, big city, where lived the emperor and all his court, the great majory of public officers, the officers and all the commerce center, as well hospitals, cultural centers etc.... There were greater opportunities to find job or began some profession.

The Racek sisters were luck, they found service in the house of a noble woman, wife of a general with the title of baron, who keep in family various servants and after retirement he changed to his summer house in the balneary of Baden, nearby 25 kilometers from Vienna. There worked Mary and Anna until the end of the war and of the empire. Mary, my future aunt, married with the blacksmith Rudolf Schwanzer, nearby Vienna and Baden and stayed in Austria. Anna came back to her birth place and soon afterwards married with my father. When my father was transferred to Ceske Kridlovice, he rented a house, that I already described and they changed to this house, where a year later I was born and where five years later, my unique brother Vladimir was born also.

My mother was big and strong, she was the first to get up and do the morning coffee and the last one to go to bed, after working all day long in house, be it in kitchen or in the backyard, she carried for everybody and mainly of us children.

She was a great cooker and knew how to prepare any kind of plate in few minutes. I want to remember that stove, in that time was of wood and coal and that it takes a certain time to light the fire and to warm at the desired temperature.

It was the obligation of us children, after certain age, to furnish the wood and the coal, deposit them in appropriate place, near the stove.

Until six years old, as there was no other children in house, my brother was born when I was five years of age, I had permission to play with the neighbours children in the street near our house. They were germans and I little by little learn to speak german, without knowing, that it was another language. In house we speak Czech and in the street, playing with children or buying things, we spoke german. The merchants and the shopkeepers were in the great majority Jewish, many of them knew how to speak czech, but prefer to speak german.

The school, that I begin to frequent when I was six years old was of the czech colony, around half an hour of distance and there we have to learn the german language spoken and written. Although in the street we spoke dialect, the base was the same, and knowing it was useful for me later.

When I was four years of age, an accident happened, that had influence in all my future: One day, when my parents were not at home, a patrician was taking care of me, our acquainted, he was of certain age and he had no child, therefore he did not notice when I pick up a pocket-knife in the kitchen and decided to try to cut some new  branches of the tree, that spring from the trunk near the soil, as I used to see my father doing. I bent unskillfully a branch and had begun to cut it in the middle, but the branch broke and a point reached my right eye and split the pupil and as there was no rapid  and adequate help I became blind of the right eye. An rare accident, but enough remarcable to all my life, because it achieved me psychologic also, because the hurt eye changed color and everybody notice the fate that I have one greenish eye and another almost brown- and I was ashamed of  always having to offer explanations... not knowing, that in past times the lack of one eye was a very common accident ( see the famous navegators like Cabral, Camoens and others).

With six years of age I began to study in the czech school, that was located in Bozice, around half an hour away of our house. How I have had explained , the school was of the colonists-farmers, that were settled in the land rent or bought by the government to occupy and colonize the lands, that were owned by the noble Austrian-Hungary families like Lichtenstein, Schonberg and others, that owned in almost all Europe lands and huge proprieties like big castles, palaces, buildings, houses and vast quantity of lands, in the great majority not cultivated. The government idea was to occupy these lands with people that knew agriculture, that had knowledge of how to cultivate,  plant and harvest, but had not financial means to buy them. They were the Brazilians without land and roof of today...

The life in Czechoslovakia, after the end of the first World War, in 1918, and in another countries, that appeared in that epoch in Europe looked like a sort of "Belle Époque": there was no unemployment, there was no famishment, the economy was better after each year, there were little passional crimes, steal and robbery- as in all world history. I think that it was the better epoch to live, not only in Europe, but in the whole world ... until the appearance of the Nazism in Germany in 1934.

The school that I frequented during five years was mix: boys and girls from six until fourteenth years and the students were not only of the colonies, but also sons of public funcionaries, like of the post-office, rail station and naturally also, the sons of the gendarmerie of Kridlovice, between them I and later my loved brother Vladimir, five years younger than I.

We have had one teacher for all the basic knowledge: czech, german, arithmetic, drawing, chant, chemistry, physics, gymnastic and once in a week a Catholic priest came from the nearby city to lecture religion.

We have had class from eight o' clock until eleven in the morning and from thirteenth until sixteenth in the afternoon.

Thursday and Saturday there were no classes. The school year was from the first of september to thirty of june. The vacations were in july and august - in summer, and from fifteenth of december to fifteenth of january - in winter. After the five years of the basic course in this school, I began to study the middle course in the Znojmo city, that was around 30 kilometers of Bozice, half an hour by train. The railroad station was more than three kilometers distant of our house (45 minutes by foot), the train leaved at ten to seven in the morning and arrived twenty after seven in Znojmo. The classes used to begin at eight going until thirteenth hours and fifty minutes with  interval of fifteen minutes to lunch. At half past two in the afternoon I used to take the train back home,where I arrived near four o' clock.  It is good to remember, that in that time there were little smooth roads. They were only of rutty ground and in the winter, many times, snow fell more than a meter in the roads. The roads disappeared and people used to follow then by instinct, even more in winter, at six o' clock in the morning it was still dark and a part of the way was throughout a thick forest. But I never miss school because of the bad weather, it was a question of honor to each boy.

1.1.2. - Something about the region in that time

The climate in that region was middle, but relatively warmer than in other parts of Czechoslovakia, because of the low high over the sea ( about 300 meters) and protected from strong north winds by the mountain-chains in the division between Bohemia and Moravia. The stations were well defined:  spring  in March, summer in the end of June, autumn in September and winter in the begining of November ( Saint Martin used to come with his white horse), just to say, snow.  In winter the temperature hardly achieved less than 15 negative Celsius grade and in summer rarely more than 35 positive. This region was yielder to the cherry, peach, strawberry, melon and  watermelon plantation. In the forests we found mushrooms in summer and sprout violets and other sub-tropical flowers. In this region, surrounded the city Znojmo until now it is common to plant little cucumbers, that are tranformed in sour-sweet and sourish conserves. The same process is used also in Germany and the german immigrants used it also in the South of Brasil to conservate not only the cucumbers, but the little fishes (Hering), that are kept in cans and glasses for many time, also the cabbage, known under the name of "chucrute" and many other vegetables that are kept in this way. Grapes were also cultivated in that region and the wine there produced is of excellent quality. Only the tropical fruits and plants were unable to be produced-because of the winter, but in the rich palaces, where they had greenhouses and could survive.