Just Don't Turn Around...

About the Book

This book is the story of my family life followed by a long and complicated journey to the USA. I write my own story, not a story of a hero. It’s not about a famous football player that many of us envision in our dreams. My story doesn’t involve any spy adventures like the books I enjoy reading. Rather the life I share with you is about a family which was born and used to live in the communist stricken Czechoslovakia.

So much has been written about communism and its gulags, prisons and dissidents who eventually became well known figures all over the world. However, so little is known on the subject of millions of the ordinary people and their daily lives. For my readers, who never experienced any type of tyranny it is very difficult to understand or feel the brunt of constant pressure from an oppressive government trying to control every step of everyone’s life, from the crib to the grave. The main governing tool is a very high level of fear that controls one’s thinking, conduct, and religion out in the open and at the same time as one is trying to create his own identity which must be hidden from that society. A little bit of open deviation from what is required by the government is heartlessly punished. Agents listening to us are never too far and always ready to throw us into a gulag. We live two lives – one in the open and the other one in secret - the real life. My father used to call it the “double-face” life.

The fear of repression reaches a higher level when someone decides not to follow the herd and chooses his own way – a way out of a country, resembling a huge concentration camp, that’s surrounded by barbed wire. I choose to risk all our lives just like as I told my father the day of the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in August of 1968: “sometimes it is better to die standing up than to live life on your knees.”

I guess I am “lucky” in my own way because I was born under communism and having an inquisitive and observatory nature I learned the “ropes, bells and whistles” of that society very well. I employed the “double-face” to my own advantage when secretly arranging the trip out. I think they taught me well and I do not even break a sweat while lying to the “feared” faces in order to obtain another signature for a long paper trail. Just a small mistake or imperfection in my plan and those faces could squash me and my whole family like a bug.

Our stay in the refugee camp feels both like hell and purgatory. Hell comes up on us as we come to realize we are yet again on the bottom rung of human society, which sometimes tastes worse than living under communism. During this depressive time it takes a lot of personal strength in realizing the difference. We can run away any time because the refugee camp is not surrounded by barbed wire. People without a future get “stuck” in the camp for years and in some cases for life. Their behavior which is hardly distinguishable from that of criminals deepens our hellish feelings. Purgatory comes from the inside out when I find the might and confidence in our future. Away from the rest of our families which lives in the other camp, this times the concentration camp of communism.

Seven months in an Austrian refugee camp gives us the opportunity to reflect on ourselves and our family, providing a new focus for our future life. We come into the USA with almost no money, no job prospects and no references, and positively no family, just the four of us…However, we are finally free in every aspect of life and our hard working attitude breaks us free of financial dependency on the US government in less than forty days. I believe my story will be good reading for all my friends who encouraged me to write it down for years. I tried to record every single detail to my best recollection and it will provide much information for our children and their prospective families when our memories will fade out with time.

About the Author

Yan Bielek born on September 11, 1951, one of three children raised by parents who where teachers in Czechoslovakia. Yan graduated from the Slovak Technical University Bratislava - College of Chemistry in 1975, married Nora and had their first child that same year. Their daughter was born only three years later in 1978. His family of four emigrated in the summer of 1984. Yan continues to thrive in his original profession as a chemist. He currently lives with his wife in Cumberland, Rhode Island and lives the life he’d always dreamed of. His son and daughter are also both married.