At the instruction of our client, Richard a citizen of the United Kingdom, to secure Czech citizenship, we requested the necessary verification of Czech citizenship for his deceased father, Jindrich, who had lived in Czechoslovakia until 1938.
Richard, together with his son Anthony, were seeking Czech citizenship, motivated by a strong family heritage and pride in his Czechoslovakian father.
We would like to share the remarkable journey of Jindrich, whose life story is a testament to resilience and courage.
Jindrich was born in 1910 in what is now Romania, then part of Austria-Hungary, because his father was serving there as the choir director at a church. Consequently, his birth certificate is in Hungarian, the primary language of the region.
At the outbreak of the First World War, the family moved home to Prague, where Jindrich lived until 1938. As the German occupation of Czechoslovakia began, Jindrich left his homeland. He found refuge in Poland, where he joined the Polish Army as a volunteer in 1939. After Germany invaded Poland, he fled to the Soviet Union, only to escape once more after Germany invaded the Soviet Union. His journey took him through Palestine, Zanzibar, Cape Town, and Freetown, finally reaching Glasgow in the United Kingdom. There, he joined the Czech Free Air Force under the RAF as a pilot and served bravely until the end of World War II. Jindrich lived in the UK until his death in 1999.
Due to the difficulty of pronouncing his name in English, Jindrich adopted the name “Henry”. However, even this simplified name proved too unusual in England combined with his difficult Czech surname, leading him to legally change this too, adopting the surname of his British wife in 1949.
“Top left: gymnasium graduation
Middle: My father looking at a score with my grandfather Jindrich Vodvářka in a rehearsal room as Jindrich Senior played the double bass in the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra.
Top right: ID photo on his arrival in Scotland after his internment in the Soviet Union literally with nothing other than the clothes he is standing up in.
Bottom left: marriage in his RAF officer’s uniform to my mother Beatrice Joan Redfern Roberts in 1945.
Bottom right: the post-war research engineer and inventor.” – Anthony
Following his departure from Czechoslovakia, the Gestapo sought his documents. Later, after the regime change, the communist police reportedly did the same, resulting in the destruction of many of his documents.
Richard’s motivation lies in a strong family legacy and pride in his Czechoslovakian father, striving to obtain Czech citizenship, which his son could subsequently acquire.
“Jindrich’s Prague Aeroklub ID. He and his engineering fellow students at the Polytechnic qualified as pilots as they knew a war was coming. My father’s name is inscribed on Flying Lions Memorial in Prague. I was moved to see this when Anthony and I came to receive our Czech passports in January.” – Richard
After a year of working on the case, we obtained citizenship documents not only for Richard and his son Anthony, but also for Anthony’s three children.
Based on these documents, we obtained for the clients their Czech birth and marriage certificates too. Czech passports were arranged overnight during their short visit to Prague, and later for the grandchildren back in London.
It is not unusual for Czech migrants to change name/surname, but even if it is legal, the name change can present an administrative challenge to prove to authorities. The destruction/loss of older documents can also complicate citizenship proceeding as the documentation burden lies on the client’s side. The pile of properly attested and legalized required documents can also be surprising for an applicant not used to the Czech bureaucracy and that is why it is even more beneficial to have a partner which will guide the applicant with due diligence.
It was an absolute pleasure for us to help the family reconnect with their heritage and secure their Czech citizenship without the hassle of engaging the Czech Embassy in the process.
The happy ending of Richard and Anthony’s Czech citizenship
