This last day was the hardest.
Five years of planning had gone into this, three years of working silently in the night to make every detail perfect. Now the day was finally here. This time tomorrow we would be free — or dead! Tonight my family and four others would attempt to crash through the Iron Curtain from Czechoslovakia in a homemade tank.
Only one job remained — to get through this day, pretending that it was no different from any other. We could not say good-bye to anyone, for their own safety as well as ours. When meeting a neighbor in the street we would only pass him quickly and hope that the strain inside us did not show in our faces. We could not allow our eyes to betray the thought in our minds: “This is the last time I will ever see you.”
In my automobile-repair shop, I pretended to do my usual work. The day dragged so slowly, I thought it would never end. Darkness came at eight o’clock. Now there was nothing to do but wait through the hours until the last light went out in the village. There was no need to pack. We could take with us only the clothes we wore.
After supper I found it impossible to sit still. I moved restlessly about the house, looking at the tables, the chairs, the stove, all the things that would be left behind. At nine o’clock I looked into the bedroom where my wife Marta had gone to sleep with my two children. They were too young for this kind of danger. Eva was four, Vaclav was six and Marta herself was only twenty-six. Even the children were not aware as yet as to what would happen this night.
I crossed the yard into my shop. I did not need a light. After these months and years of preparation I could have found every piece that was hidden there in my sleep.
Anyone coming into my shop during the day would have seen only heaps of rusty scrap metal and the stripped chassis of an old British tank. I had fitted this tank with a flatbed to haul wood from the forest.
Anyone surprising us in the night would have seen a very different vehicle. For three years we had been building, piece by piece, a top for the chassis. Dismantled, it looked like a pile of discarded scrap. Assembled, it was transformed into something that looked, at least in outline, like one of the tanks used by the border patrol.
We hid each piece as it was finished. One was under some old burlap, another behind a cabinet, a third in the rafters, a fourth under some scrap iron. By practicing every night we were able to put our tank together in thirty-five minutes.
In the dark I climbed up behind the wheel of the stripped chassis and started the motor. It turned over immediately, its sound smooth and encouraging. But would it hold up at sixty miles per hour on that long, forty-mile run to the border?
The desire to escape from communism was very strong in Vaclav Uhlik and his friends. Communism is a terrible wall that separated them from freedom. Sin is also a wall. It separates the sinner from God. “All have sinned, and come short of the glory of God.”
Romans 3:2323For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God; (Romans 3:23). To have freedom from our sins we need God’s help. Vaclav Uhlik and those with him worked hard to build something that would take them to freedom. For the sinner, the work has already been done. The Lord Jesus Christ took the punishment for our sins on the cross. God loved the sinner so much that He punished His Son instead. “God commendeth His love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” Romans 5:88But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. (Romans 5:8). If you will take Him as your Saviour, then you will be free from sin and its oppression. “If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed.” John 8:3636If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed. (John 8:36).
It was now past one o’clock in the morning. We began to dig out the hidden pieces of armor plate and bolt them into place.
At two o’clock I woke Marta. There was not much for her to do. There were no personal possessions to be packed. With eight people in the tank we could take only a feather mattress and a couple of blankets needed for padding the steel floor. All of us had never been in the tank together. Up to this time we dared not let the children see it. It was a tight squeeze now with each person jammed against the next. Sitting in the driver’s seat, I was the only one who could see out. When everyone was in place, I started the tank and turned it slowly into the sleeping street. I did not look back. The village was completely dark. We got through it without seeing anyone.
Once outside of town I increased the speed to forty. The bolted plates of the tank rattled and banged fearfully. We passed a car, then a milk truck. Then we passed two military policemen on foot. They waved a greeting to the tank, and I blinked the lights in reply. So far, so good! But it was still dark. I stepped up the speed to race the dawn.
Three miles before reaching the border we had to pass a large camp where five hundred border policemen lived and went on and off duty. I had never passed it at night. I did not know what time the shifts changed, nor what guards they had posted. I pushed the speed up to sixty miles per hour. We rattled and banged past the camp’s gate.
As we approached the fence that separated us from freedom, the road made a right-hand turn and ran parallel with the border. When we slowed to make the turn, my heart stood still. At the turn in the road stood a border guard!
I had to drive past him slowly, and he could not help getting a good look at us. The sky was growing light; dawn was creeping over the fields. In my mind’s eye I could see every mismatched bolt that would draw the guard’s attention.
I held my breath, expecting him to reach for his gun. He didn’t. It was still early, and he must have been half asleep. He waved me on.
The danger was still there. Three hundred yards from where he stood was the swampy place where I would have to make a full stop to raise the tires and lower the treads that would take us through the marsh.
I turned the steering wheel sharply toward the electric fence and came to a stop. With both hands I grabbed the lever that operated the treads and pulled with all my strength. Nothing moved. I pulled again frantically, and they still wouldn’t go down. I jerked and jerked again. Finally, with one last tremendous effort the treads went down.
I moved faster than I ever had before. I flung the tank into gear and floored the gas pedal. There was a bouncing jolt as we hit the wires and tore them loose. There were deafening roars as the land mines exploded and blinding flashes of light as the flares began to blaze all along the broken fence.
In the soft ground of the marsh, the tank wallowed and slowed to a crawl, but it did not stop. It slogged on through the swamp and finally plodded out on the other side on a road that led to a new life. We were out! We were free!
These brave people escaped from the slavery of communism. But there are many people still trapped in the slavery of sin who have heard there is a way of escape, but have not taken it. There is only one way, and it is very plain: it is through Christ and His death on the cross. Won’t you take Him as your Saviour today?
ML-09/21/1986