I promised Charles we’d get the memoir he’d written published. But he died leaving the unpublished manuscript and a grieving wife. I feared I’d never fulfill my promise. I couldn’t write. I couldn’t focus. No matter how hard I tried I couldn’t get my grief and concentration to mix. My heart was broken and I …
In June of 1945, seventeen year old Charles completed his second year of mechanical engineering study in Brno, Czechoslovakia. He was making up for time lost during the war years, 1944-1945. His Uncle Josef Robotka asked Charles to live with his nephew Jiři. Jiri needed a math tutor and someone like Charles to influence him to study regularly. By November Charles was feeling homesick …
Last Sunday I exhibited Charles’ book, Border Crossings: Coming of Age in the Czech Resistance at an Author’s Fair celebrating local authors, Detroit-centered books, and the city of Detroit. Charles was a Detroit immigrant, engineer, artist and writer and worked and lived in the city for 50+ years. I figured his book was qualified to be there. While preparing for …
Charles (Karel) Novacek, 1947 Vlasta Jakubová, the sister of my late husband Charles (Karel) Novacek was born on March 13, 1925 in Oždany, Slovakia. During World War II she was engaged in the Czech resistance as a contact to her uncle, Colonel Josef Robotka. After February 1948, she joined the anticommunist resistance, again working with her …
Serious illness this fall has kept me at home and given me the opportunity to sift through files of old correspondence. Much of it is related to my late husband Charles and his memoir and is sentimental in nature. . . old love letters, ticket stubs, postcards. . . Although I’ve gone through and thrown …
In my online research I found “White Blossoms,” an opinion piece by Milan Hanuš.* The subject was Charles’ sister Vlasta and the pain she experienced while being imprisoned for her work in the Czech Resistance during the Cold War. Hanuš declared how shameful it is that the Czech public doesn’t listen more to those who deserve to …
