Toman

Fellow countrymen! This is Jan Masaryk broadcasting!

Once again, but this time definitively for the last time,

allow me to wish you a Happy New Year via the BBC from London.

What are our hopes and aspirations for 1945?

It will be the year of victory in Europe.

We citizens of Czechoslovakia, the beautiful heart of Europe,

what can and should we expect from victory?

First, we have to promise that we will stick together,

that there will be no civil conflicts

and that we will not need the Allied forces to govern us.

Our foreign policy in 1945 will be based on the solid, unshakeable,

mighty foundation of the agreement with the Soviet Union.

It is my joyful duty to express our gratitude

to that great statesman and commander, Josef Stalin,

to the Soviet Government and to the mighty Red Army,

whose heroic deeds have brought about this wonderful reality

which all us Czechoslovak citizens had hardly dared to trust in.

Our Carpatho-Ukrainians are already welcoming their Slavic liberators.

The armies of the Third Ukraine Front are at the Slovakian border as we speak

and it is only a matter of days

before they start liberating the rest of our beloved country.

So which one are you then?

Zoltan Goldberger?

Zoltán Toman?

Or Zdeněk Toman?

Just a dirty little Jew though really, aren't you?

Can I have a cigarette, Inspector?

- What else have you got in there? - Worked in London from 1941,

escaped through Poland, worked as an official in the Government in Exile.

- Tried to join the Communist party. - Who stopped you?

Communist and they didn't want you in the Party even in Britain?

Perhaps because your old man wanted you to be a rabbi, eh?

The Party didn't recognise his membership in the Prague Young Communist League.

For ten years, all through my law studies in Prague,

I was head of their Publicity Department.

Charles University. That was before the war, 1926 to 36, cover name Vasil.

Vasil?

So Carpatho-Ukraine?

Eastern Slovakia, born in Sobrance, 2 March 1909.

Father a practising Jew, Hungarian, owned a grocery shop.

So then, Vasil, Hungarian,

Goldberger, rabbi,

Communist.

What a mess.

Changed his name to Zoltán Toman in London during the war.

All those different names. How did you remember them all?

Joined the Party at the end of the War and changed his name again, to Zdeněk Toman.

Sent to Carpatho-Ukraine in March '45 by the Government in Exile

to organise the repatriation of Czechs and Slovaks.

Attention: Dr Edvard Beneš...

REPATRIATION OFFICE

...Mr Jan Masaryk.

List of Czechoslovak citizens

- to be repatriated... ...citizens to be...

...as soon as possible.

Compiled by Dr Zdeněk Toman,

on behalf of the Repatriations Department of the Czechoslovak Government.

Franta, in those lists of Jews who survived the concentration camps

that you're always reading,

is there a Goldberger or Goldbergerová?

There's a few of them.

I seem to remember Auschwitz.

Here, for example.

And there's an Aurélie Goldberger here, 8 April 1918, Sobrance.

Franta...

Best not to specify "faith" for the Jews.

It can be hard to explain that they are Czechoslovak citizens.

Is Comrade Toman here?

Is Comrade Toman here?

- Comrades, you not go there now. - Out of my way, bitch!

Comrade, we have received information that your assistant is signing passports

for what are claimed to be your citizens.

Carpatho-Ukraine is territory of Czechoslovakia.

According to the will of the Rusyns, it will soon become part of the Soviet Union.

Comrades, according to the treaty, our people from Carpatho-Ukraine

are entitled to decide between Czechoslovak and Soviet citizenship.

If they have a single drop of Russkoy blood in them, they ours.

We find them anyway.

You still have a lot to learn.

Yes!

You've got a visitor, Comrade.

Waiting for you in the corridor, and urgently wants to speak to you.

I look like a mess, don't I?

Zoltan.

Zdeněk.

Forget Zoltan. I'm Zdeněk around here.

This is Imrich. He helped me to get all the way here from Poland.

We know each other.

Come in.

Things were different, in London.

You're lucky, Imrich, that you helped my sister.

I have got something for you.

It's OK, to tell you the truth I've been expecting you.

The lady in the photo looks rather like you.

Comrade Třískalová. Please take care of my sister.

Make her tea and give her something to eat.

Make sure you sign it.

I assume you don't need a passport.

Not for myself, no.

But I've brought a group of people from the camps.

Jews from Slovakia and Carpatho-Ukraine, with no papers.

The Russians want to send anyone still on their feet to the front.

Anyone repatriated has to pay for their citizenship, in roubles.

One rouble equates to one crown.

I've got money.

But don't bring the people here. Just bring a list with their details.

And hurry, because I'm leaving for Košice.

Gottwald wants me to find somewhere for the Interim Government to sit.

The new post-war National Front Government,

born from negotiations between the Government in Exile in London

and the Moscow-based leadership of the Czechoslovak Communist Party,

was set up in Košice, in the liberated part of Slovakia in April 1945.

On 5 April the new Government was sworn in

by Dr Edvard Beneš, the President of Czechoslovakia,

and it then passed

the Košice Government Programme of National Democratic Revolution,

which sets out the policies of the restored Czechoslovakia.

I think we have a bright future ahead of us.

It went rather well.

Zdeno! Is that you? You're looking more distinguished than when I last saw you.

Václav, really nice to see you again.

Want to come in? Slánský will be happy to see you.

No, not today. Just tell me what happened there, in a nutshell.

In a nutshell?

The democrats came to Moscow completely unprepared.

Everything worked out just as we had planned.

Gottwald wanted Slánský to head the Interior Ministry.

That was too much for the Socialists and the Christian-Democrats.

So I was given the Interior Ministry. In a nutshell!

Really? Congratulations.

Before you know it, you've got a political post.

But don't worry, you won't be left behind. Gottwald's counting on you.

Thanks.

Be careful, Zdeno. The NKVD is all over the place.

We're not in London any more.

- Good bye, Comrade. - Good bye.

We'll be in Prague before you know it, so drop by!

MINISTRY OF THE INTERIOR

Minister, Mr Toman is here.

Good, show him in!

Shall I take that for you?

- Zdeno! - Comrade. - Good to see you.

Sit down. I'm just picking my team.

Won't you sit down?

I need someone reliable as Director of the Intelligence Service.

Well then?

Director of the Secret Service?

Me? Are you being serious?

And why not? I've talked about you with Slánský.

- Do you think you'd be up to it? - May I?

For the time being you would report to Bartík.

We had to put him up there for political reasons, as a concession to the democrats.

He also recommended you, by the way.

Alright then, I'll do it.

It belongs to a relative of Kuracina, my driver.

That's the lavatory.

We'll manage here for a few days and then I'll get something better.

That's the neighbours in there.

Yes?

Excuse me, but it's time to go.

Take some rest.

Zdeno!

How long has it been? Where do all the years go?

Yes, time flies. I spotted you in Košice, but there wasn't time to say hello.

I see you've hit the big time.

- Did you inherit this from the Germans? - Tell me now, how was London?

Blitzed to bits. You were lucky that you were sent to Moscow.

But you know London like the back of your hand now and have good contacts there.

I did during the war, Rudolf.

We were expecting a child but my wife had a miscarriage during an air raid.

She arrived back in Prague today.

If you want to go into politics with us, Zdeno, don't have kids.

What do you mean?

I don't know who suffers most, the children or us.

My daughter was abducted in Moscow, she was in a pram.

We never found her. People were dreadfully hungry.

I still have nightmares that someone ate my child alive.

I've heard you are a good businessman,

but you should really smoke the cheap stuff, at least in front of the Soviets.

So tell me, what's selling well in London at the moment?

I'm serious. The Party is going to need money now.

Lots of money.

And as a Goldberger, you know how to make that, don't you?

Now that the war is over, anything sells.

Someone would have to approve it, Rudolf.

And I'd need some initial capital.

I'll take care of that.

Come in!

Comrade General Secretary, Comrade Reicin is here.

Come in, Bedřich.

Comrade Reicin, Military Intelligence.

Comrade Toman, Foreign Intelligence.

- Comrade. - Comrade Reicin.

- I'll see you soon, Zdeno. Good bye. - Good bye.

How can you be in contact like that with someone who is working for the British?

- And he's a Hungarian on top of that. - We all work for someone, Bedřich.

Doctor!

Come in.

Very nice.

You know how it is, I work for a general now.