Work in Soviet-controlled Eastern Europe
Further information: Jan Hus Educational FoundationDuring her time at Oxford, she worked, often in secret, for the education systems of eastern Europe. In 1979 she was the first of Oxford university's philosophers to respond to an invitation from the dissident philosophical community in Prague to conduct secret seminars there. She showed extraordinary courage in conducting secret meetings in crowded flats with groups of philosophers. Despite her large frame and ungainly walk, she would lead the secret policemen who followed her on wild goose chases through Slavic cities, unconcerned by their harassment. She made the difficult and risky trip many times, smuggling in banned books and taking out samizdat manuscripts. With her western friends, she created the Jan Hus Foundation, which was to become a major source of support for the dissident community. She encouraged and financially supported dissident intellectuals, finally bringing the Czech philosopher Julius Tomin and family to England. Having lost her Czech visa, she achieved this by returning to Prague with a new passport in her full name "Vaughan-Wilkes" in order to confuse the authorities. Having never driven there before, she drove the family precariously in a heavily overladen Zhiguli to the west knowing that the slightest traffic infringement would bring down the law. Back in England she arranged housing and paid for the children’s education.
Read more about this topic: Kathy Wilkes
Famous quotes containing the words eastern europe, work, eastern and/or europe:
“Should the German people lay down their arms, the Soviets ... would occupy all eastern and south-eastern Europe together with the greater part of the Reich. Over all this territory, which with the Soviet Union included, would be of enormous extent, an iron curtain would at once descend.”
—Joseph Goebbels (1897–1945)
“The work of the miner has its unavoidable incidents of discomfort and danger, and these should not be increased by the neglect of the owners to provide every practicable safety appliance. Economies which involve a sacrifice of human life are intolerable.”
—Benjamin Harrison (1833–1901)
“In the dominant Western religious system, the love of God is essentially the same as the belief in God, in God’s existence, God’s justice, God’s love. The love of God is essentially a thought experience. In the Eastern religions and in mysticism, the love of God is an intense feeling experience of oneness, inseparably linked with the expression of this love in every act of living.”
—Erich Fromm (1900–1980)
“Can we never extract this tape-worm of Europe from the brain of our countrymen?”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)