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This is a second article by one of our new authors: Josef Cermak, a Doctor of law, journalist, writer, poet, actor and a lifelong organizer of public and scientific life for Czech and Slovak countrymen in Canada. Last time he wrote about a famous physician Dr.Premysl (Mike) Pelnar that recently passed away. The story today is about his visit of the 61st Congress of the Czech and Slovak Association in Canada. The Czech version to this article can be found in our “Czech Only” version of CzechFolks.com named CzechFolks.com PLUS, where he regularly contributes with his insightful and brilliant articles.  

Introduction
One can view the Montreal Congress celebrating 70 years of existence (under slightly different names) of the Czech and Slovak Association of Canada from different perspectives:

a) everything was perfect;
b) not everything was perfect but we won’t criticize the imperfections because criticism makes things difficult for people who are trying to create something, someone might find it offensive, someone might be hurt; it’s much wiser to sweep all imperfections under the carpet; which is what is usually done in Canada, especially where human rights or anything having to do with race is concerned - on the whole a praiseworthy and largely successful philosophy; even though occasionally at the expense of the freedom of expression.
c) a few things were unimpressive - and should be described as unimpressive.

I decided to go with the third alternative: to report what I saw and heard, without spite, without anger, perhaps rather playfully, but always respecting truth, in the spirit of the most unbribable follower of this philosophy, Alexander Solzhenitsyn:

“The main thing is never to act against your conscience, not to put your signature on documents you don’t believe in, not to vote for those you think should not be elected…not to pass on lies, not to broadcast them, not to write them…not to pretend. Let your creed be “Let the lie come into the world, let it even triumph, but not through me.”

And even before our departure for Montreal this advice turned my head. I learned, in bits and pieces and from different people, that about two months prior to the Congress, the Executive Committee of the Association held a meeting, at which it was decided to nominate Dr. Gustav Plíva for the office of the president for the next term the present President. But because Dr. Plíva advised the Committee that he planned to take a six- month vacation (most of it in the summer), which would mean that he could not chair one meeting, a number of the Committee’s members decided to nominate for the President post Milos Suchma. My problem wasn’t who to vote for (I attended the Congress as a non-voting guest), and besides I wrote in an article published in the Satellite that the Association needed new blood and suggested for the office of the President Dr. Eva Sailerová. My problem was how to react to this information: by silence (a form of lie) or by honest reporting? What is more important: truth or an illusion that if you don’t speak about a fact, it doesn’t exist?

I attended this Congress for three reasons: to greet old friends and acquaintances (Milos Zach, Alois Fogler, Misa Fuchsová, Dr. Štefan Horný, Milos Suchma…and most of all Alena Valdštýnová, who unfortunately had different plans); to reminiscence about the times when I was closely identified with the Association; to deliver to the Congress greetings and good wishes from the members of Sokol Canada, the other all-Canadian organization of Czechs and Slovaks (I was rather curious what my emotional reaction at this point would be - I am (as far s I know) the only person who had chaired both organizations. I would lie if I said that I was moved to tears.

Going to the Congress
Our trip to Montreal was marvelous. We went by car. Our team was made of Blanca Rohn, Zuzana Hahn, Marketa Rehovská (formerly Slepčíková), Brandon Hahn (a cameraman and Zuzana’s son) and I. All of us (with the exception of Brandon who slumbered the whole trip and myself (?)) had been brilliant and amusing and we howled with laughter from Toronto to Montreal. We even decided to form an orchestra and name it after Blanca Rohn: “Blanca’s Quartet”? “Blanca’s Quintet”? No - not sexy enough. Ah, of course, it must be sexy! “Blanca’s sextet”! Perfect! Now we must find the sixth member…No problem, Sherlock, quite elemental, the choice is obvious: the Consul-General of the Czech Republic in Toronto, Richard Krpač! Will he accept? I assured my friends that as long as we allow Mr. Krpač to raise hell on percussion, he was ours! What a pity that Brandon, instead of slumbering, didn’t spend his time recording the intellectual fireworks of sparkling wit (it would have provided him with the means for a luxurious existence for the rest of his life). His mother, Zuzana, even recited a poem (seductively), but because I was decently brought up and can’t claim as an excuse that because I was born in Canada (I wasn’t) I don’t understand that some poems might not be suitable for public “consumption,” I was not sure that Zuzana’s choice was appropriate (but, naturally, I applauded violently)… and because Zuzana lacks the sensitiveness of people born in Czechoslovakia, she recited her poem with an equal enthusiasm at the Congress!

Visit with the Czech Consul-General (Montreal), Mrs. Jaroslava Jeslinek
In Montreal, we drove directly to the Czech Consulate-General where we were welcomed by a young man (in fact, a boy, but with such aristocratic and self-assured demeanor that to call him a young man is a compliment to most young men I know). And we were welcomed equally pleasantly by Mrs. Jaroslava Jeslinek. And we very well fed.

Congress - Saturday, May 30, 2009
At the entrance to the meeting hall at the McGill University, each participant was handed a fairly thick brochure containing – in addition to the Congress program - reports of the officers, reports of the branches, greetings, archival material and advertisements. I was impressed by the amount of work which must have been put into this publication and didn’t appreciate remarks about its shortcomings: typographical errors, missing sponsors’ messages etc.

Before leaving Toronto, I heard that the Consul-General of the Czech Republic in Toronto, Mr. Krpac, was not invited. It was explained to me that when the Ambassador accepts invitation, the Consul-general is not invited (but both were present at the Congress in London couple of years earlier).
The morning was spent by registration, welcoming addresses, introduction of guests and delegates, greetings, reports, election of committees. After lunch, officers and the board of directors for a two-year term were elected, with Milos Suchma as President, Blanca Rohn, Eva Sailer and dr. Stefan Horny as Vice-Presidents, Vera Kohoutova as Secretary, Barbara Sheriff as Deputy-Secretary and Jan Sammer as Treasurer.

Social evening
This very pleasant event took place at the Fairmount Hotel - The Queen Elizabeth (the equivalent of Toronto’s Fairmont Hotel - Royal York). It was attended by some 120 people who heard speeches from the Canadian Minister of Immigration and Human Rights, Mr. Jason Kenney, Quebec Minister of Justice, Madam Weill (whose husband happens to be Czech), the Vice-Chairman of the Czech Senate, Mr. Jiri Liska and the Ambassador of the Czech Republic, Mr. Karel Zebrakovsky. The most interesting event of the evening was the ceremony bestowing the Masaryk Award on four people, two scientists, a social worker and an industrialist. The two eminent scientists were Pavel Hamet (in 2001 was by the Quebec Government awarded the highest recognition in the field of science, the Wilder-Penfield Award, for his lifetime contribution in the field of medicine and medical research), and Emil Skamene, professor at the Department of medicine and genetics, McGill University, and until recently, director of the McGill research institute employing 11,000 people including 910 medical doctors, a recipient of many awards, including Prix du Quebec and J.G. Mendel Prize. The social worker was Mrs. Sonia Zichermanova who was recognized for her devoted and highly successful work, both in the Association and outside (anonymous help to needy people, mainly families with small children, playing piano in the senior citizens’ homes as well as for our seniors, baking hundreds of delicious Christmas cookies for the bazaar). The fourth person awarded the Masaryk Award was Josef Kuchar. Mr. Kuchar was born in Siebenhirten in the Vienna region, attended J.A. Komensky school, escaped before the Nazis to Czechoslovakia, after the Communist coup d’état in 1948 returned to Austria, but a year later emigrated with his family to Canada, where he started the Recocher Inc., a company which he developed into one of the world’s largest producers of naphthaline and consumer products, with branches in Canada, USA, Belgium and Australia. Shortly after arriving in Montral, he joined - with his family - the Montreal unit of Sokol, helped with building the Hostyn center, and to this day is supporting the Association and other organizations.

The first three honorees were present at the ceremony (the fourth award was accepted by Mr. Kuchar’s daughter) and their responses added a glamorous touch to the occasion. It was during this ceremony, and especially when Misha Fuchs read the text of the Masaryk Award, that something in my mind stirred and reminded me of the pleasurable time when - in 1985 - I was putting together the words of the award. At the end of the ceremony, Misha and I gave to Minister Kenney, Minister Weill and Senator Liska a copy of the book, “It All Began With Prince Rupert, a Story of the Czechs and Slovaks in Canada.”

Sunday, May 31, 2009
The last day of the Congress started with an address delivered by Professor Thomas Pavlasek who - as a boy - witnessed the events at the Czechoslovak Consulate in Montreal in 1939, when the representatives of the Nazi Germany came to take over the Consulate. Thanks to the speaker’s father Frantisek Pavlasek, who was then Czechoslovak Consul-General in Canada, they were met not only by a group of Sokols in their uniforms but also members of the Montreal police, and had to depart empty-handed.

The second speaker that morning was Zuzana Hahn who not only is an excellent speaker, but is not beyond occasionally using some of the Czech words which made Jan Masaryk such a hit with the English nobility. Her report on the progress of the efforts to build in Ottawa a monument to the victims of communism deserves printing in its entirety, but briefly, she felt that the controversy between the group she founded and in which Sokol Canada is a partner, and the group which suddenly appeared on the scene much later, may be resolved by the two groups making a joint application to the Capital Commission in Ottawa which has jurisdiction over the public lands on which monuments and statutes may be built.

The final item on the Sunday program was a meeting with a delegation from the Czech Republic, consisting of Senator Liska and a representative of the Ministry of External Affairs, Vladimir Eisenbrook, who after short speeches answered questions from the audience. Their answers were occasionally elaborated by the newly elected President of the Association, Milos Suchma, who is intimately familiar with the political situation in the Czech and Slovak Republics.

Touring Montreal
Misha Fuchs was (together with Ema Kosacka) the good angel of this Congress. Both were everywhere, inconspicuously and charmingly. Misha in addition contributed a great deal to the Social evening (which she chaired) and both, together with Dr. Horny {who also translated at the Social evening into French and Polish) and Petr Stikarovsky, prepared for those who showed interest, a lovely good-by to Montreal: they piled us into their cars and drove us around Montreal. Because they know their city so well, they showed us a place full o charming corners, palatial homes, a river which has few equals, the evidence of the Expo - the roof on one of the pavilions became world-famous long after the Expo; it just wouldn’t behave regardless of how much money they threw at it and in the end it had to be replaced. But also a place, which means to us Laterna Magica and our Sokol Slet.

Conclusion
It is a pity that someone didn’t go through the Congress brochure one more time before publication.
The heaviest shadow, though, that will darken the reputation of the Montreal Congress, is the treatment accorded to Dr. Gustav Ripa. It resulted in Dr. Plíva’s leaving the Association.

The Association always has a difficult time to find a reason for its existence whenever our homeland enjoys a degree of freedom, which allows its people to elect their own government. This is one of such times - unless it refocuses its activities.

But there is much to admire about this Congress: the Social evening and especially the ceremony of bestowing the Masaryk Awards; the addresses of Prof. Pavlasek and Zuzana Hahn; the meeting with the delegation from the Czech Republic; the effort of the host branch of the Association to make Montreal and the Congress as memorable for us as possible.

And on a lighter note: the incredible drive from Toronto to Montreal including the founding of the Blanca’s sextet (the accession of the Consul-General of the Czech Republic in Toronro, Richard Krpac, to the orchestra is considered certain), the lovely drive (in my case with Misha Fuchs) around Montreal.
Thank you, Montreal - and everyone who contributed to the success of the Congress.

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Toto je druhý článek jednoho z našich nových autorů: Josefa Čermáka, doktora práv, novináře, spisovatele, básníka, herce a celoživotního organizátora veřejného a vědeckého života českých a slovenských krajanů v Kanadě. Minule psal o slavném lékaři Dr.Premyslu (Mike) Pelnaři, který nedávno zemřel. Tento příběh je o jeho návštěvě 61. kongresu Českého a slovenského sdružení v Kanadě. Českou verzi tohoto článku tentokrát najdete v naší “pouze české” verzi CzechFolks.com nazvaným CzechFolks.com PLUS, kde pravidelně přispívá svými bystrými a skvělými články. 

ODKAZ ZDE

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