A Czech Border Guard’s Daring Escape to the West

**Ian Sanders** (0:00)
Welcome to Cold War Conversations, the home of real stories of the Cold War.

**SPEAKER_2** (0:07)
The legendary director Ridley Scott returns in IMAX. It's no surprise how fast civilization can disappear.

**Ian Sanders** (0:17)
Not there.

**Jiří Barteček** (0:18)
Kill or be killed.

**SPEAKER_2** (0:19)
Jacob Elordi.

**Jiří Barteček** (0:20)
There are people out there.

**SPEAKER_2** (0:21)
They need our help.

**Ian Sanders** (0:22)
Josh Brolin.

**SPEAKER_2** (0:23)
Shoot first and inquire afterwards.

**Ian Sanders** (0:25)
Margaret Qualley.

**SPEAKER_2** (0:26)
Okay, tough guy.

**Ian Sanders** (0:28)
And Guy Pearce.

**SPEAKER_2** (0:29)
Arm up. The Dog Stars, directed by Ridley Scott, now playing in theaters.

**SPEAKER_4** (0:35)
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**Jiří Barteček** (0:48)
As suddenly, the bullets went, zoom, zoom, through the glass, 15 centimeters above my head.

**Ian Sanders** (0:56)
What happens when the man guarding the Iron Curtain decides to escape through it himself?
In 1975, Jiří Barteček was a Czechoslovak border guard, trained to track fugitives with a German shepherd and ordered to stop anyone attempting to reach Austria.
Yet Jiří had no intention of defending the communist system. Haunted by the Soviet-led invasion of 1968 and determined never to shoot an innocent person, he secretly studied the border's weaknesses and planned an audacious escape. One night, accompanied by two friends and carrying his AK-47, he disabled the alarm, slipped beneath the wire and plunged into a river crossing. His ordeal did not end in the West. After days hiding around Vienna, Jiří entered an Austrian refugee camp where an unknown gunman twice tried to kill him. I'm delighted to welcome Jiří Barteček to our Cold War Conversation.

**Jiří Barteček** (1:57)
You know, I was born April 7, 1954 in the village of Petrovice u Karvine, county of Karvina, close to the biggest city, Ostrava Bay.

**Ian Sanders** (2:09)
Right, so this is in what's now the Czech Republic?

**Jiří Barteček** (2:12)
Monrovia. Monrovia.

**Ian Sanders** (2:14)
And who was in your family? Your immediate family?

**Jiří Barteček** (2:19)
Yeah, you know, I got two brothers. I'm the youngest from the boys, Czeslaw was the oldest, Bohomil is second, I was third, and my sister is fourth. And my oldest brother was born 1950, Bož was born 1951, I was born 1954, and my sister was born 1956
My parents were born, my father was in 1922, my mother 1928

**Ian Sanders** (2:47)
Your family comes from Polish roots, is that correct?

**Jiří Barteček** (2:52)
My mother got from Polish roots, my father not.
My mother is born in Czech Republic, but she's got Polish school, and because was on the border in Wrocławian, and she's got two sister in the Poland, but they were married in Poland. So all my cousin from her sides are in Poland still.

**Ian Sanders** (3:11)
And during communist times, was it easy to visit your relatives in Poland or not?

**Jiří Barteček** (3:17)
No, not at all, Richard. Was ridiculously this unbelievable. We were living exactly from my house to my aunt, a little bit less than two kilometers.
And you could go four times a year. My aunt has to send us invitation. We have to go to the county recording. They give you permission that you go. Then you have to buy stamp. You have to go three places and they give you five days visit. And you could not make anything with you whatsoever. No gift. Zero. Zero.
It was torturing people. I remember my grandma was 78 I went with her. She was eating her, basically her two daughters and granddaughter. And she's got one chocolate. And on the border, the lady had her. And she said, Oh, my God, you do black market. I cannot believe you.
You will take chocolate. And it was ridiculous how they treat that kind of people. Nobody would believe this. This one was like insane what those people were doing. You know, crazy, crazy.
Like my mother said, it was an evil system. And there was no other words to call the communist. It was not easy.

**Ian Sanders** (4:33)
What did your parents do for work?

**Jiří Barteček** (4:36)
My father, he was working in a train station since he speaks basically Polish and was on the Czech-Polish border. This time, we are right on the border.
And so he was doing those transportation. So since he spoke German and Czech and Polish, so he was kind of working in the office. And they were sending whatever the items and stuff like that. And my mother, since we were four kids, she stayed home all the time. And we got some, not the ranch, but so she was working for the plants to survive and everything.