Leaving

I was born in Czechoslovakia, a republic created in 1920 at the end of World War I out of three provinces of the defeated Austro-Hungarian Empire. The young republic prospered. Its first president, Thomas Masaryk, set a tone of high-minded humanism; the economy grew, the arts flourished, and the mix of cultures—Czech, German, and Jewish—made the capital, Prague, a rich center of European life. But Czechoslovakia's First Republic lasted only twenty years before Hitler's army invaded and World War II began. Those twenty years were the high point of both my parents' lives.

My mother, Julia Nessy, grew up in the historic Old Town section of Prague. As a child, she lived a few houses down the street from Thomas Masaryk, a philosophy professor, leader of the struggle for Czech independence from Austria-Hungary and the future president of Czechoslovakia. His two daughters were my mother's playmates and close friends for the rest of their lives. My mother became a concert and opera singer. A lyric soprano, she performed widely throughout Europe during the 1920s and 1930s. Music and devotion to the young Czechoslovak republic brought my parents together.

My father, Pavel Bacher, was a country boy who, because of his unusual promise, was sent to Prague for higher education. He was a gifted pianist, but he also studied law and was unable to decide whether music or law would be his career. Finally he chose the law and achieved great success in finance and manufacturing. A devoted Czech patriot, he was a close friend of Masaryk's painter son, Herbert. My parents met in the Masaryk home during the war and married soon after they met. They were married by a judge. The difference in their religious origins—his Jewish, hers Catholic—were of no concern to them.

As his fortunes improved during the early twenties, my father bought a house on the hill near the ancient castle, overlooking the city. From its windows we looked down on the Vltava River crossed by the famous stone bridge, and on the red roofs that dotted the hill rising right up to the castle from the river's edge.

This was the home that my parents, two older brothers, and I left behind as Hitler's army seized Prague in March 1939, just before the outbreak of World War II. As a shy, precocious nine-year-old girl, I observed much, though I understood little, as we left one world for another in America. What follows are my observations of that experience, recollected years later but still powerful in my memory. It is told in the voice of my nine-year-old self, Anna Bacherova.

I am standing at the foot of the staircase in our house in Prague. I have come down from the second floor, where I sleep with my governess and two older brothers, and I look at the scene before me. To my left are tall doors that lead to large rooms—the dining room, the library, and biggest of all, the music room, with its two grand pianos and two harps. My mother is an opera singer. I like to hunch down outside the door to this room and listen while Mother practices. Sometimes I look through the keyhole and watch as she stands before the piano, strikes a chord, sings the note with her mouth wide open, and then sings higher and higher till she hits a very high note and holds it. Then she strikes a new chord and repeats the exercise. After this, she practices arias from operas. I like to watch how her expression changes with each foreign phrase she sings.

This morning there is no music, and instead I see a disturbing scene. Pieces of furniture are standing about with handwritten notes attached to them. Paintings have been taken down, encased in wooden crates, and stacked up, one behind the other, against the walls. Under the windows that overlook the courtyard are huge trunks, their lids propped open. People scurry about with armfuls of linens, clothing, and dishes wrapped in crumpled newspapers. Here comes the governess...