Miro Vitek
| First name | Miro |
|---|---|
| Last name | Vitek |
| Country of Origin | Czechoslovakia |
| Date of Birth | 23/02/28 |
| Year of Arrival in Australia | 1952 |
| Submitted by | Stephanie Parker |
Story
Miro Vitek was born in 1928 in Ruzomberok, Czechoslovakia. His mother was unmarried and they were very poor. During World War 2 Slovakia was a puppet regime of Nazi Germany. After school Miro was apprenticed to a plumber. Towards the end of the war he became involved with Partisans and had adventures with them in the mountains.
Miro joined a Catholic youth organisation and was invited to a conference in Canada in 1947. While there he heard the Communists had taken over Czechoslovakia and it would not be safe to return. His passport expired and he became stateless. He managed to enter the United States where he stayed until December 1949, working for six months in a Pennsylvania coal mine and running a farm at a Catholic girls’ school.
Miro joined a group who left the US in December 1949 bound for Taiwan with the aim of helping prevent Communism from spreading to China. Stateless and without papers, Miro stowed away for part of the voyage. He entered Taiwan with the help of Madame Chiang Kai-shek in Manila, who provided him with a paper giving him permission to enter the country.
The group settled in Taipeh, giving lectures to Chiang Kai-shek’s army and doing missionary work in the villages. When they broke up Miro needed to find a new nationality.
Leaving Taiwan was difficult. With no legal status he could not go back to the US. A friend suggested Australia. As Miro was a qualified plumber, he was easily accepted. He made his way to Hong Kong and then to Sydney by air.
He arrived in Sydney on a Sunday afternoon in October 1952. The airport terminal was primitive and the bus ride to the city passed through an industrial area. In the city there was no sign of life. On Sundays everything was closed. He had no one to meet him and did not know where to go. In Grosvenor Street near St Patrick’s church he met some nuns who directed him to the Presbytery in Harrington Street. He told the parish priest he had just arrived and needed a place to stay. The priest sent him to a house in York Street where a room was to let. The landlady treated him kindly and he stayed there until he was married.
He found work as a journeyman plumber, joined the congregation at St Patrick’s and became a member of the choir where he made good friends.
Life in Sydney was unlike anything Miro had experienced, but he soon began to enjoy it. The Rocks in those days was a working class area, many of the people of Irish extraction. It was a good place to make a new beginning.
A friend in the choir introduced Miro to his singing teacher at the Sydney Conservatorium, who agreed to teach him. Private pupils were obliged to attend evening theory classes, and there Miro met his future wife, whom he married in 1955.
Miro had a passion for flying and while in the US had obtained a private pilot’s licence. He joined the Royal Aero Club in Bankstown and obtained his Australian licence in 1957. He was dissatisfied with plumbing and decided to try for a career in aviation. He got a commercial licence but was unable to find flying work which would enable him to support a wife and family. He was advised to apply for a traineeship in air traffic control with the Department of Civil Aviation, which he achieved in 1960.
By 1961 he had four children. In 1959 he bought a house in south-western Sydney and struggled to maintain it and the family. After a four months training in Melbourne and further training at Sydney Airport he got a post at Bankstown Airport.
Miro enjoyed his work and was proud of the fact that he was the only non-British immigrant working in air traffic control.
In 1969 he was made officer in charge of Camden Airport near Sydney, a centre for gliding and other traffic. Miro took up gliding and eventually became chief instructor of the club. His main achievement at Camden was to devise a system of separation of gliding and power traffic operations. During his 19 years at Camden he made many friends and found joy in flying.
At 60 Miro was obliged by Air Traffic Regulations to retire. He kept up gliding for some years afterwards.
Two of his children married and he has five grandchildren. In 2001 he moved from Sydney to Bungendore in NSW.
During his early life Miro had many adventures. In his retirement he wrote his story and in 2004 it was published by Ginninderra Press, Canberra, under the title of Alive: The Autobiography of an Immigrant.