Liselotte Teltscherova and colleagues

This is the most recent photo I have. It was taken at a meeting with some of my former colleguages from the Research Institute of Experimental Botany. We meet every year, usually before Christmas, both old and new members. I returned to Prague in 1946. I didn't want to stay in Palestine because I felt my home was here, in the Czech Republic, and I had enough of emigrating. I didn't want to go to America and I especially didn't want to go to Mikulov because it was a cemetery for me: only four Jews returned there after the war. Some of them had emigrated before the war, that's true, part of the young people went to Palestine and some of them were in England, but they were only a few left anyway. Our lives were saved by emigrating because nobody else from our relatives in Mikulov or in Austria, apart from my father's two brothers, who had left for England, survived. I finished my PhD after I went to Prague. It was quite a formal thing because the studies in Palestine were much more difficult than the ones here. I started to work as a researcher in the Research Institute for Plant-Growing. I worked there until the 1960s, then I went to the Institute for Experimental Botany. I had to leave the Institute for Experimental Botany in 1977 for political reasons - they accused me of being a Zionist spy. There's no written record about that, but it's clear why it happened. I was a Jew and Jews had to leave their positions. Besides I had been to Palestine, which automatically meant that I was a Zionist, an imperialist, and had no rights. Each institution, research institute, ministry and other similar organization were given quotas of how many people they had to fire. And Jews had to leave first. So they threw me out. My life hasn't changed much after the Revolution in 1989 [the so-called Velvet Revolution]. Of course I was very happy and I hope that future generations won't have to live through what we had to. But there are many problems now as well, for example ecological problems. There weren't many changes for me personally, and I'm too old now. However, Jewish life in Prague has become more intense and I have joined in - I still do some social work. I go to visit people who need some help. I didn't want to have any official functions. I find this kind of social work very important. I'm still a member of the Council of Women and of WIZO. I go to the synagogue on high holidays and I light candles for the dead. I don't live kosher. Religion doesn't mean much to me; these things are more family tradition than religion for me. I've already been to Israel three times since 1990. There wasn't any possibility to go there before. I was only there for a couple of weeks each time. I have many friends there and they also come to visit me in the Czech Republic. I still teach German in two companies and I translate.