No Man’s Land

In 1948, Marie Erhartova fled Czechoslovakia with her partner Karel Zajicek. Having fought in the RAF during the war against the Nazis, Karel, like all his ex-RAF contemporaries, was deemed to be a potential threat to the growing power of communism in Czechoslovakia. Many were being put into forced-labour, some were put in prison and others were executed. Marie decided to escape with Karel in search of freedom in "the West". We hear snippets of her story in her own words.

This piece was commissioned for Walking Festival of Sound taking place in Edinburgh and Krakow throughout April 2021.