“Sometimes the key arrives long before the lock. Sometimes a story falls in your lap.”

–Rebecca Solnit “The Faraway Nearby”

Though it is clear that I love the Fabry family very much, what might be difficult to believe is that I was not accepted by my mother-in-law, Olinka, and that I only met her once before she died. As much as I wanted to know her, there just wasn’t enough time, and I was very sad about that. So, you can understand how these papers have been a gift to me, to be able to get to know who Olinka was, to understand why she was difficult and the hell she had been through – I think of her with compassion and forgiveness.

Besides being a great cook(see photo above), one of the qualities I admire most about her was her skill at many languages – she was as gifted as her brother Vlado.

Here are a few pieces of ephemera from Olinka’s career:

It would have been easy for her to translate this document from the Prison de Saint Antione in Geneva(which is now the Palais de Justice), dated 1949, but it is not so easy for me. Who was in the prison? And why? Was it her father, Pavel? I am posting this here in hopes that Slovak readers will want to contribute a translation, if only to ease my curiosity. Please help!
(click image to enlarge)