Uncle Vladimir and Grandpa Pavel Fabry.

When I think about the lives of my relatives, and spend time holding their personal belongings in my hands, there is a feeling of love so real that expands my heart, that reminds me I am connected to everyone and everything. It is like they are speaking in my ear, encouraging me to learn from their lives, to have a positive attitude in times of trouble, to greet the world with love and not with fear. Love is an energy that is open to the new and the unknown, that wants to know and to understand and heal what is broken, that believes in the best in others, and to love courageously is the greatest goal.

I have attempted in the past to translate the following document in German from Pavel Fabry, but it deserves a better translation, and I am posting it here for those fluent in German to help me.

The mention of Valerian Zorin in this testimony is the one thing that has always stood out for me. Valerian Zorin was the Soviet ambassador to Czechoslovakia from 1945-47, and in 1948 he helped organize the Coup d’état in Czechoslovkia; he was Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Soviet Union from 1947-1955 and 1956-1965, and also the permanent Soviet representative for the United Nations Security Council from 1952-53 and from 1956-1965. Valerian was not a friend to Pavel and Vlado or any Fabry, and because of his high rank he likely gave the order for the seizure of our home in Bratislava in 1948, making it their Russian embassy; and for ordering the arrest, detention, and torture of Pavel Fabry, on false charges, while he was on his way to Amsterdam to a meeting with the World Council of Churches. I am not sure how it felt for Vlado to work at the UN with Valerian – someone who hurt his family and friends – but good and evil has always existed, in high and low places, we have to work with our enemies and stay focused only on what is in our power to change.