Gottland: Mostly True Stories From Half of Czechoslovakia Read Online Free PDF

its culture are closely tied to one place,” he hears from all quarters.
    “To hell with culture if children have to die in a war,” he replies.
1938 OR 1939: GÖRING
    He has a private meeting in Berlin with Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring. The communists will write that he did it immediately after the Germans first occupied Czechoslovakia—thus, in March 1939. Jan’s family will say it was half a year earlier, in the fall. The communists will say it was his own idea to make personal contact with Göring. The family will say he was forced to do it—a courier arrived from Berlin and threatened consequences if Bata did not appear before him. Even Tomík, who wasn’t fond of his uncle, will have an explanation for his intentions: “He was only pushed towards Göring by curiosity and a sense of his own importance.”
    I couldn’t find any reliable evidence on what the two men talked about. Apart from the fact that, in his book
The Treachery of the Bata Family
, the former poster painter from the advertising department quotes Jan as saying: “Göring told me in person that we are living in Germany’s backyard, that we must take that fact on board and act accordingly. Of course, there’s a lot of truth in that.”
    In any case, all exports will now be marked “Made in Germany.” The footwear is for the Wehrmacht, but no firm under occupation has any alternative. Hitler will even arrange for arms industry experts to become familiar with the working system at Zlín. “Of all the Slavs, the Czech is the most dangerous, because he is diligent,” says Hitler.
    During the war, the firm increases its number of workers fourfold.
    Jan Bata informs them that from now on freedom can only flourish with the help of enterprise. But he himself leaves for America immediately.
JULY 1939: CYCLIST
    Of course, he has to tell the Germans that he’s going to the World’s Fair in New York, otherwise they wouldn’t let him leave the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia. But he knows he will remain in the United States. Meanwhile, twenty-five-year-old Tomík and his mother are in Canada. Tomík was on a trip when the Germans invaded Bohemia. He has decided not to go back.
    The Germans try to take over Zlín and the surrounding area. The law of the Protectorate allows them to confiscate property if the owner is abroad.
    However, Jan Bata has protected himself: he has given 7 percent of his shares apiece to each of the five members of the supervisory board. Now he encourages the older Mrs. Batová to return to Zlín, because she owns 25 percent of the shares. She goes back to prevent Zlín from passing into foreign hands. In America, Jan has only 40 percent of the remaining shares, and thus the majority of Bata’s owners areliving in occupied territory. Of course, Jan has declarations in writing stored in a New York bank vault, stating that when the war is over the members of the supervisory board will return his shares to him.
    Apparently, this makes Hitler fly into a rage. “The Czechs are like cyclists—they hunch their upper bodies, but pedal below!” he screams.
JANUARY 1941: GREAT STREAM
    Jan and his family leave Los Angeles on the SS
America
.
    He is an undesirable visitor in the United States, where he has ended up on the Allies’ blacklist as a collaborator whose enterprise works for the Germans. He sails for Brazil.
    Twenty-seven-year-old Tomík is still in Canada and starts to manage a duplicate of Zlín called Batawa.
    In Brazil, Jan founds his own duplicates. He asks the Indians what water is called. “Y,” they reply.
    “And how do you say good?”
    “Pora,” they politely inform him. And thus duplicate number one is born, the small town of Bataypora.
    Duplicate number two is called Bataguassu, which means “Bata Great Stream.”
JUNE 1942: A DISPLAY
    Since 1929, there has been a department store on Wenceslas Square in Prague called the Bata Palace, with a large display window. (It was designed by a Czech named