From jumping off of moving trains to snapping shark attacks, escaping a communist country
can seem more like a terrifying game of Would You Rather. Today on Nutty History,
we’re retelling the incredible stories of those who have escaped a communist country. These
brave emigrants risked their lives and sacrificed everything for a shot at freedom. But before we
begin the journey, be sure to subscribe to our channel for more harrowing tales from history.
Jarek Jacubek was just eight-years-old when his country, Czechoslovakia, was invaded by Russia.
Nineteen years later he used his experience working as a geological surveyor in the mountains
to plot his escape. Jarek’s father was part of the anti-communist underground, and he was beaten and
interrogated early on during Russian occupation. Visas were difficult to acquire in any part of
the Eastern bloc, as the government didn’t want citizens defecting to non-communist countries.
But with a family member who was a known defector, Jarek was definitely not getting handed a visa.
With encouragement from his father, Jarek and his wife Dana decided to
illegally leave Czechoslovakia as a form of resistance against Russian occupation.
Dana and Jarek first took a train to Yugoslavia in 1987, which was permitted as it was also under
a communist regime at the time. The dynamic duo made several attempts to flee before they found
success. First, they tried to cross the Adriatic Sea, by paying off fishermen to get them to Italy.
No dice. Next, they tried via the railways - there was a station where some refugees
had managed safe passage to Italy, but Jarek and Dana found it heavily guarded. Finally,
as they were both young and in good physical condition, they decided to cross the Alps from
Yugoslavia into Austria. Third time’s a charm! Though it might seem like a treacherous journey,
in a piece for Post Magazine, Jarek says, “it wasn’t that difficult.” Then again,
if you aren’t a professional mountaineer, you might give the hike a different rating.
After crossing the mountains into Austria, Jarek and Dana made their way via train to Vienna. Can
they at least get a nap first? Once in Vienna, the couple had to spend a week in quarantine
with 60 other people. And let’s just say it was a mixed bag. According to Jarek, “Some of them
were really, really troubled individuals. There were some murderers. It was, basically, jail.”
In addition to the close quarters with other inmates, er,
refugees, all of their belongings were taken and they were interrogated daily by police.
Jarek and Dana spent six months as asylum seekers in Austria before they were processed and accepted
to Canada as refugees. During those six months, they weren’t allowed to work. Then they had to
find work in Canada, a new and foreign country where they didn’t speak the language. Sure, sounds
like a piece of cake...Jarek spent three or four months intensely studying English.
Despite his university education and geological experience, his lack of “Canadian” experience
meant it took five months before he landed a job across the country. Jarek used the little savings
that remained to buy a bus ticket. For Jarek Jacubek, leaving his family was the hardest part.
When they pulled away on the train to Yugoslavia, waving goodbye to his parents,
he had no idea when or if he would ever see them again. Communism in Czechoslovakia was
overthrown just two years later, and luckily Jarek was able to make his way back home in 1991
after the birth of his son for an emotional reunion with his parents.
How do you run when you’re surrounded by water? Fidel Albelo was born in Cuba in 1959,
just one day after Fidel Castro’s revolutionary army overthrew Fulgencio Batista’s dictatorship.
You might think your studio apartment is small, but growing up in communist Cuba, Albelo lived in
a 300 square-foot apartment with 8 other family members. But he was able to avoid the cramped
apartment when he attended boarding school, where he made a name for himself as an amateur wrestler.
To really pursue a wrestling career, however, Albelo would need to attend international
competitions. This meant entering into state custody and studying in the Soviet Union,
which his parents forbade. Rather than throwing a tantrum, Albelo began to plot his escape.
Leaving the island during this time period was a crime punishable by 1-10 years in prison,
as was helping someone else leave or even talking about leaving. After planning an escape with
friends for several years, one friend ratted out the group, and Fidel Albelo was arrested in 1980.
Rather than snitches getting stitches, spying on your friends and neighbors was
encouraged and rampant under Castro’s government. Albelo spent a year in prison.
While he faced inhumane conditions, like only getting two hours a week to even view the sun,
he was able to pursue an education and left prison with a physical education degree.
Despite his betrayal the first time around, Fidel Albelo did not give up his plans. But
now he was older and wiser. He spent the better part of the decade planning, telling no one of
his mission. It wasn’t uncommon for the planning stage alone to take years. Crossing the Carribean
was extremely dangerous, and you had better chances if you could find other people to go
with you. Then again, mentioning your intentions to anyone else was also incredibly risky. Plus,
to even attempt to build a raft, many had to spend years secretly collecting scraps and supplies and
hiding them from nosy neighbors. But Albelo had a stroke of good luck - after years of plotting,
he learned that two of his cousins were hoping to escape, and one owned a small
five-foot motor boat. Before setting off in 1990, Albelo even divorced his wife,
as the families of escapees often became government targets. He also bid farewell to
his daughter. As he recounted in an interview with Forbes, he thought he would never see her again.
Though it may have taken forever and a day, planning was actually the easiest part.
Cuban “Balseros' ' or emigrants who raft to the United States, face a terrifying
list of threats. Starting off, the first 12 miles are patrolled by Cuban officers.
Albelo and his cousins brought a bucket to make it look like they were fishing,
but if caught, they faced prison or possibly even murder. Once past the patrol, shark attacks were
the next grim possibility, snapping balseros from homemade rafts. Others have recounted
seeing blood stained waters and bitten off limbs floating in the water like a horror movie come
to life. Even though Albelo was in a boat, he had his own close encounter. He was squatting off the
back of the vessel to, uh, do his business, when a shark lunged at him from the water. After that,
he decided to hold it the rest of the trip. It’s also next to impossible to bring the necessary
supplies on a small boat or raft. The Carribean and temps in the high 80’s cause dehydration,
while at night, rafters soaked by waves or tropical rains can experience hypothermia.
Also missing from a lot of the DIY rafts? Any sort of motor or steering element.
They risked both being stranded at sea and being carried off course by the tides to another island.
Topping it all off, the human danger doesn’t end after the Cuban guard patrol.
With the lack of adequate supplies, Balseros have resorted to looting each other for survival.
And the U.S. Coast Guard isn’t always a pleasant welcoming committee. Initially,
Cubans were accepted as political refugees. But after the high numbers of immigrants became an
inconvenience to the U.S. government in the mid 1990’s, a “wet foot/dry foot” policy was adopted.
That meant that if an immigrant touched U.S. soil, they could become a citizen,
but if they were caught trying to enter the country on the water, they could be
sent back to Cuba where they faced government persecution as a defector. This sparked the
Coast Guard to treat some incoming Cubans less as refugees and more as criminals to be caught.
Aside from his casual shark attack, Albelo and his escape party faced a lot of problems on board.
Their motor exploded just four hours into the trip,
leaving them and their supplies covered in gasoline and a hole at the base of the boat.
You don’t have to be a sailor to know that a hole in a boat is probably not ideal.
Now, they had to manually propel themselves and constantly use a bucket to dump out the water that
gathered on the boat. This meant that for the next four days they went without sleep, food, or water.
It looked as if the end were near, and it wasn’t Florida. But the trio drank rum, the only thing
that wasn’t ruined from the gasoline explosion. Albelo credits the rum as their saving grace - it
contained at least some amount of water, and mentally numbed them from their current anguish.
Their harrowing journey miraculously landed them in a woman’s backyard in Miami.
Albelo spent weeks undergoing a screening process in a detention center, and worked
odd jobs the following three years. Finally he was able to continue his passion for wrestling when he
was hired as coach in 1993. In the late 90’s, as Cuba relaxed its restrictions on visitors,
Albelo was able to see his daughter again. He and his cousins never speak of the ordeal they
underwent. What do you think? Could you find our way out with the odds stacked against you?
Let us know in the comments and be sure to subscribe for more stories on Nutty History.