Oh, I picked up English very quickly. I was determined also to teach the family Czech,
at which I was not so successful, but my English sister particularly was a great teacher,
and took great pains in explaining things to me. And I went, when I went to the school,
they put me with seven-year-olds because, I didn't understand any English, and I didn't like that at
all. But their teacher spoke German, and though I wouldn't speak of course, I did understand, and
so she explained things to me too. But I only stayed in that class for two weeks, and then I
moved to a class of my own age group. I knew I was going to live in the place, and I knew I just had
to learn as quickly as possible. The family was relatively poor, but they had a heart of gold.
[Interviewer] Did she have any children of her own? [Vera] she had a child, Dorothy,
who was three years older than I, so I gained not just an English mom and dad but an English
sister, her name was Dorothy. I started developing very quickly once I came to England, and I didn't
shoot up so much upwards but I developed hips and the bust and all these beautiful clothes
mother had made for me suddenly did not fit, and as clothes were rationed by then, Auntie Marjorie
sold mine on the black market but she did make me clothes from her daughters that she had grown out
of, she had a grown-up daughter and she was a superb seamstress, so you know I was well clad.
And she was very good to me and also taught me a lot of a lot of English, in fact she used to
do her baking with a Czech-English dictionary in front of her, and I kept asking 'what's this' you
know 'what's that' and and I never let the subject alone. They had a little dog and I taught the
little dog more Czech than I taught the grown-ups because a little dog called Jill understood in the
end all the Czech commands. Once I got to the Czech school then I realized what happiness in
exile meant because I was surrounded by kids as I said who shared my predicament, by teachers
who knew what it was, what the war meant for children like myself. They were more like caring
relatives, we were like a large extended family and the ties we forged there during
those three and a half years have remained stronger you know throughout the years, and
they are here to this day we most of us had lost all our families and we are each other's families.