Geoffrey Chew and the benevolent police informer

In the days of the Cold War people who came into regular contact with foreigners were kept under close police scrutiny and were put under intense pressure to report on details of their meetings. In the early 1960s the South African musicologist Geoffrey Chew spent a year studying in the city of Brno. His landlady was a highly cultivated woman, who spoke several languages. She was also a reluctant police informer, but she got round this rather distasteful problem in a neat and elegant way. On a recent trip back to Brno, Geoffrey Chew remembered the time.

Geoffrey Chew and the benevolent police informer

Geoffrey Chew

"I had a really excellent landlady, who lived in one of the nice flats near Luzanky Park. Of course it was a bit run-down at the time. She was deputed, obviously, to look after me, and told me very soon after I arrived that the police required reports on me at regular intervals, and she would like me to supply her with stories that she knew she could pass on to them, which would sound plausible, but that I should keep anything serious and illegal strictly out of her sight. Immediately after that, of course, we got on extremely well."

"She told me later also that the police had summoned her up to the police station, saying that - of course - she would have to take a job as a receptionist at the Hotel International because she knew so many languages. This would involve having a notebook under the counter, taking down everything that was said in the foyer. She was able to plead the fact that she was slightly deaf and she wouldn't be able to do such a job and that she regretted it terribly."