Libuse Konradova: "RAF pilots are my biggest heroes"
The Czech writer and journalist Libuse Konradova has just written a book about the life of Jaroslav Novak, a navigator of the British Royal Air Force during the World War II. In the book Novak recalls his childhood, the beginning of the war and his joining the Czechoslovak Air Force, as well as his dramatic escape from the country, at the beginning of the Nazi occupation. In the major part of the book Libuse Konradova explains Novak's operations as an RAF pilot including the Battle of Britain. In the end she describes the disillusionment the pilot experienced in post-war Czechoslovakia, and how once again he was driven into exile. I asked Libuse Konradova what she has learned while writing the story and she told me of the complications pilots faced in escaping to Britain at the beginning of the war.
"I was little bit surprised that there were many occasions or events that I had no idea about. It was very difficult for soldiers after three months traveling through e.g. Hungary, Romania, Istanbul, Beirut...to get to Marseille, and finally they had to leave again. I didn't know so much about it, that England in that time was very open to support pilots."
The destinies of the former RAF pilots were sometimes very sad. They were not very friendly treated when they came back to Czechoslovakia after war. Some of them were even sent to prison. Is this also part of your book?
"Well, I didn't want to write some political pamphlets about that time. This is just a simple story about someone who fought for freedom, and finally when he left country again before 1948 he was fighting for his home. So these are two fights that the readers can get in their mind; first he fought for freedom to be in his homeland, and then he had to leave again and find another country where he could settle and start a new life."
How did you come to write this book? Usually, it's not the women who are interested in air fighters and military affairs.
"Well I have to say something similar I wrote in the beginning of my book; they were for me the biggest heroes. And they helped me in the very bad time after 1950's and even during my exile. It's a wonderful situation because you always know where is bad and where is good. You know the differences. And although I do not like war at all, in any case it is something I've always admired, and I always will admire. They were for me heroes number one."
