Gottland: Mostly True Stories From Half of Czechoslovakia (4 page)

Because of character differences, their cooperation will never come about, and the comprehensive urban planning project will be devised by two Czechs, František Gahura and Vladimír Karfík. Karfík has spent a year working for Le Corbusier, and another year working for Frank Lloyd Wright in America. Zlín will become famous as the world’s first functionalist town.

The social department has its spies who inform on lovers. As soon as they notice a new relationship, they report the couple. The company recommends that they get married and have children.

The manager of the personnel department, Dr. Gerbec, says: “Children are the leashes we hold their daddies by.”

“Bata has a monopoly on human life,” thunder the red trade unions.

“The capitalist backs all the ruling and non-ruling parties in Czechoslovakia,” writes the communist newspaper,
Rudé právo
.

Indeed, in Zlín at least, there are Bata people running as candidates for all the political parties in the elections to the district council. The landowners give third place to the manager of the Bata factory in Otrokovice, the Social Democrats give a senior Bata official first place, the People’s Party gives a junior Bata official third place, the nationalists give the manager of Bata’s shoe finishing operations first place, and the fascists give the manager of Bata’s workshops first place.

This year’s shoe advertisement for all of Europe:
NOT A STEP WITHOUT BATA
.

An anthology of canonical texts by Jan Antonín Bata is published.

“I notice to my horror that our good old simple folk are growing up to be charity cases.

“Let us teach those among us who have lost their jobs to live modestly, but in a human way—at their own expense. By insisting that the state provide welfare for the unemployed,
they are weakening the country. Let us take the work they give us, work at any price. Let us recognize that accepting hand-outs is a disgrace. Handing out welfare is not a show of humanity—it is a way to kill the human soul. It is a way of corrupting the weak.”

So how is one to help those who are losing their humanity?

His answer: leave them to it.

After all, those people—according to public opinion—should have died of starvation long ago, but they’re still alive.

In 1931, Tomáš Bata had already warned workers who were laid off that if they accepted welfare, they would ruin any chance of ever returning to him.

The newspapers write that Zlín has no unemployment. In reality, the city evicts those who have lost their jobs from their homes and forces them to go back to their places of family origin. If anyone is a communist or is active in the unions, he won’t remain in Zlín for long. Bata keeps his own private files of Reds.

In case of unrest, he has his own people—he corrupts the local policemen. For example, in January 1934, nineteen police officers from Zlín who live in Bata family homes were awarded a 60 percent rent reduction.

The communist senator Nedvěd thunders that Czechoslovak law is no longer in effect in Zlín.

Going back to the crisis—despite the fact that thousands of people have been laid off, the number of shoes produced hasn’t fallen. In 1932, over a million more pairs were actually manufactured than in the previous year. “Bata-ian terror” is how the communists explain this success.

By 1936, Jan Bata has four daughters, one son and a wife
called Marie. We do not know much about his personal life, apart from the fact that two years later he will bring his wife a pair of newly invented nylon stockings from a short trip abroad. What might he say to her last thing at night?

“Our country needs our work, Maňa. We are the biggest taxpayer in our republic.”

Jan Bata convenes a writers’ conference in Zlín. Perhaps, after what happened with
The Shoe Machine
, he wants to take charge of literature.

He gives 120 men of letters a guided tour of the town, and then lets them take the floor.

“I feel great joy at seeing industry and literature together. These two elements should be united,” declares a former author of decadent fiction, Karel Scheinpflug, on behalf of the writers of Prague, and adds: “Literature can do a lot for industry, and vice versa.”

Bata tells the writers about his own cultural needs and those of the citizens of Zlín. “Our fight to improve people has been a success.”

The 120 writers view the work of 152 painters at the Jan Bata Art Salon. (Four months earlier, Bata had organized an artists’ conference.) He casts a tolerant eye upon the works of the greatest artists, which he has bought. His gaze comes to a stop
on a painting by Toyen (known earlier as Marie Čermínová), who paints eggs, stones and string to illustrate delusions; her work was highly praised by Paul Eluard when he visited Prague.

“I admit,” says Jan Antonín Bata, “that I try to find people who haven’t got lost in a single style. I know of a young fellow who paints dead chicks. Or men who look as if they only have an hour to live. I don’t think that’s right. Whom do these crude daubs serve? Society? The social classes? The nation? There’s one picture in particular I can’t get out of my mind: Slovaks with axes, and sparks flying from their eyes, who appear to be moving forwards—give me a break! I want to help artists. But only the kind who paint human beings, the kind who want something.”

(Despite Bata’s narrow views about art, the next four Salons that he organized did enliven the artistic environment; the shows were viewed by 300,000 people.)

“Aha,” says Jan, remembering that he is talking to writers, not painters, “you too should avoid pessimism. And get on with drawing up a credo for the working people.”

Jan is probably feeling handsome and desirable: the construction of two academic institutes is nearly over, and work on what will be the tallest skyscraper in the republic is just starting. It is to have sixteen floors and will be 254 feet high. It will be Bata’s office block.

Another eleven years will go by before the British writer
George Orwell publishes the principles of life under the watchful eye of Big Brother, but Jan is ahead of world literature. He comes up with the idea of creating something that has never existed before: his own mobile office space which follows his employees about the building. He situates it in a glazed elevator which moves up and down the tower block. This cabin is 16 × 16 feet, and has a sink with hot running water, a radio and air conditioning.

He doesn’t have to leave the elevator, nor does he have to take the stairs. For instance, his office stops on the thirteenth floor, the wall of the building moves aside and from his mobile throne room, Jan Antonín Bata can see the people at work.

He says it’s for their good too: they don’t have to give up a lot of time to come see the Chief.

If the need should arise, his office can appear on another floor in moments.

Jan Bata founds a “School for the Best,” drawn from the School for Young Men. At mealtimes, the students can only speak in foreign languages, and the tables are set as they are in five-star hotels (Jan has just come back from a two-month journey around the world). They study in tuxedos, and remove their top hats only when they cross the school’s threshold.

On the other hand, after classes they dress in ordinary laborer’s clothes and go to work.

Despite Jan’s successes, old Mrs. Batová (meaning the late Tomáš’s wife, who is not old, but people call her that to
distinguish her from Jan’s wife, who is also called Marie Batová) never stops referring to him as “that cretin.”

Jan, who only completed elementary school, receives an honorary doctorate from the Higher Technical School in Brno and insists on being called “Professor.”

He talks too much. Caution is the mother of wisdom—so said the Good Soldier Švejk
^‡
—but like Švejk himself, Jan Bata never abides by this saying.

The day after Austria is incorporated into the Third Reich, sensing the fate that is to befall Czechoslovakia in the near future, he wakes up with an idea. In a short while from now, the imminent power struggle will begin. Even Warsaw regards Czechoslovakia as an artificial creation, doomed to destruction.

In his own newspaper,
Zlín
, Jan Antonín Bata publicizes his idea—to move Czechoslovakia to South America.

“Brazil is as large as the whole of Europe and has forty-four million citizens, while Europe has four hundred and eighty million. Why seek land for development in cramped Europe? Why not there instead? Better to move out. The last war cost the world eight trillion Czech crowns. Transferring ten million people to South America would only cost fourteen billion crowns. And for one hundred and forty billion they could build themselves beautiful farms. Why do something
so stupid and harmful to people as to have a war? Patagonia in southern Argentina would also be highly suitable for us.”

Bata is counting on the Germans liking this idea. They’d be relieved if the Czechs were to move out. (During his trial after the war, in communist Czechoslovakia, this will be the pretext for accusing him of betraying the nation.)

“But a nation and its culture are closely tied to one place,” he hears from all quarters.

“To hell with culture if children have to die in a war,” he replies.

He has a private meeting in Berlin with Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring. The communists will write that he did it immediately after the Germans first occupied Czechoslovakia—thus, in March 1939. Jan’s family will say it was half a year earlier, in the fall. The communists will say it was his own idea to make personal contact with Göring. The family will say he was forced to do it—a courier arrived from Berlin and threatened consequences if Bata did not appear before him. Even Tomík, who wasn’t fond of his uncle, will have an explanation for his intentions: “He was only pushed towards Göring by curiosity and a sense of his own importance.”

I couldn’t find any reliable evidence on what the two men talked about. Apart from the fact that, in his book
The Treachery of the Bata Family
, the former poster painter from the advertising department quotes Jan as saying: “Göring told me in person that we are living in Germany’s backyard, that we must take that fact on board and act accordingly. Of course, there’s a lot of truth in that.”

In any case, all exports will now be marked “Made in Germany.” The footwear is for the Wehrmacht, but no firm under occupation has any alternative. Hitler will even arrange for arms industry experts to become familiar with the working system at Zlín. “Of all the Slavs, the Czech is the most dangerous, because he is diligent,” says Hitler.

During the war, the firm increases its number of workers fourfold.

Jan Bata informs them that from now on freedom can only flourish with the help of enterprise. But he himself leaves for America immediately.

Of course, he has to tell the Germans that he’s going to the World’s Fair in New York, otherwise they wouldn’t let him leave the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia. But he knows he will remain in the United States. Meanwhile, twenty-five-year-old Tomík and his mother are in Canada. Tomík was on a trip when the Germans invaded Bohemia. He has decided not to go back.

The Germans try to take over Zlín and the surrounding area. The law of the Protectorate allows them to confiscate property if the owner is abroad.

However, Jan Bata has protected himself: he has given 7 percent of his shares apiece to each of the five members of the supervisory board. Now he encourages the older Mrs. Batová to return to Zlín, because she owns 25 percent of the shares. She goes back to prevent Zlín from passing into foreign hands. In America, Jan has only 40 percent of the remaining shares, and thus the majority of Bata’s owners are
living in occupied territory. Of course, Jan has declarations in writing stored in a New York bank vault, stating that when the war is over the members of the supervisory board will return his shares to him.

Apparently, this makes Hitler fly into a rage. “The Czechs are like cyclists—they hunch their upper bodies, but pedal below!” he screams.

Jan and his family leave Los Angeles on the SS
America
.

He is an undesirable visitor in the United States, where he has ended up on the Allies’ blacklist as a collaborator whose enterprise works for the Germans. He sails for Brazil.

Twenty-seven-year-old Tomík is still in Canada and starts to manage a duplicate of Zlín called Batawa.

In Brazil, Jan founds his own duplicates. He asks the Indians what water is called. “Y,” they reply.

“And how do you say good?”

“Pora,” they politely inform him. And thus duplicate number one is born, the small town of Bataypora.

Duplicate number two is called Bataguassu, which means “Bata Great Stream.”

Since 1929, there has been a department store on Wenceslas Square in Prague called the Bata Palace, with a large display window. (It was designed by a Czech named Ludvík Kysela,
and in the twenty-first century it will be regarded as one of the most remarkable functionalist buildings in the world.)

On May 27, 1942, a group of Czechoslovak paratroopers trained in Britain makes an attempt on the life of Reinhard Heydrich, the most important official of the Third Reich in the Protectorate, who dies in the hospital. The attackers manage to escape. As punishment, Hitler orders the entire village of Lidice, near Prague, exterminated.
^§
Not only do the Nazis kill all the men, send the women to Ravensbrück and take the children to another camp or to Germany, not only do they burn down or blow up all the buildings and raze the village to the ground, but they also go under the ground—they drag the coffins out of the graves and remove the corpses. The operation is considered complete once all the trees have been uprooted and the stream bed has been diverted, so that no one can tell there was ever a village there at all.