Ambroz Skrovanek
<p>Ambroz Skrovanek was born in 1928 in Senné, a small village in south central Slovakia. His father, Karol, was a state notary while his mother, Margita, stayed home and raised Ambroz and his two younger brothers, Tomáš and Pavol. When Ambroz was nine, the Škrováneks moved to Modrý Kameň for a short time, then to Devín, in order for Ambroz to attend <em>gymnázium</em> in nearby Bratislava. Shortly thereafter, Devín was occupied by German soldiers, and Ambroz says his family was encouraged to leave the area. They moved to Komárno, a town on the border of Hungary. Ambroz, however, stayed behind and lived in a dormitory while finishing school. From a young age, Ambroz was fascinated with radios and electronics. He attended Slovak Technical University (STU) in Bratislava where he studied mechanical engineering for his first two years, as his chosen field of study, electronic engineering, was not yet available. During his summer holidays, Ambroz worked at TESLA, which led to his being offered a job there following graduation; he subsequently worked as an audio electronic engineer at TESLA for over 20 years. Ambroz married Kamila, the daughter of a family friend, and they had two children together, Thomas and Eva.</p><p> </p><p>Following the Warsaw Pact invasion in August 1968, Ambroz began to consider leaving Czechoslovakia. Through letters exchanged with his brother-in-law who had already emigrated to the United States, Ambroz made plans for his family to leave. In July 1969, the Skrovaneks went to Yugoslavia for a vacation, but instead of returning to Czechoslovakia, crossed the border into Austria. Ambroz says that while waiting for permission to immigrate to the United States, a family friend arranged for them to stay in a private apartment in Vienna. In November 1969, Ambroz and his family flew to Washington, D.C. They lived with his wife’s sister’s family for nine months before renting a home. In 1972, Ambroz bought a house in Bethesda, Maryland. Ambroz’s first job was installing and repairing car radios. He soon found employment as an electronic engineer, and through his career earned several patents. In recent years, Ambroz has become involved in the Slovak American Society of Washington, D.C. Now widowed, he continues to live in Bethesda, Maryland.</p>
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Dagmar Lawrenz
<p>Dagmar Lawrenz was born in Bratislava in 1941. Her mother, Irena, was a secretary while her father, Jozef, was an engineer. The oldest of five siblings, Dagmar was often tasked with watching her younger brothers and sisters when her parents were working. As a child, Dagmar participated in the Pioneer organization and says that she and her siblings were ‘expected…to do well in school.’ After graduating from high school, Dagmar attended Comenius University where she studied to be a teacher. She says that the availability of jobs as well as the attractive schedule led her to choose this profession. Dagmar taught math and physics at a middle school for about seven years.</p><p> </p><p>In the wake of the Soviet-led invasion in August 1968, Dagmar recalls ‘a mood’ brought on by ‘everybody leaving Czechoslovakia.’ In addition to several friends who emigrated, Dagmar’s brothers left, as well as her sister-in-law. Although her brothers returned, she and her then-husband decided to leave the country as well. They crossed the border into Austria on December 28, 1968, only a few days before the borders tightened. After three months in Austria, Dagmar and her husband traveled to the United States and settled in the Chicago area, where Dagmar’s sister-in-law now lived. Dagmar found a job at Western Electric one week after arriving. One year later, Dagmar’s son was born.</p><p> </p><p>After several years in Chicago, Dagmar’s family moved to upper Wisconsin to join some friends in the restaurant business. In 1975, Dagmar bought the Village Square restaurant in Evansville, Wisconsin, which she ran for over 17 years. She also had a daughter while living in Wisconsin. Dagmar then returned to the Chicago area, where she has lived ever since. Dagmar first returned to Czechoslovakia for a visit in the late 1970s, and she describes Bratislava as appearing ‘gloomy.’ Since then, she has returned many times for visits, and has seen a difference in the country since the Velvet Revolution. Today, Dagmar lives in Itasca, Illinois.</p>
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Dusan Surovy
<p>Dusan Surovy was born in Bratislava in 1949. He was raised by his grandmother and says that his upbringing was ‘strict.’ He attended electro-technical school in the Slovak capital and emigrated just days after graduating. In 1967, Dusan spent a couple of months working in Vienna where he stayed with a family friend. He decided to repeat this experience in the summer of 1968, and subsequently claimed political asylum in Canada following the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia on August 21. Dusan says that at this time many countries were ‘really accommodating’ to the wave of Slovak and Czech refugees in Vienna</p><p> </p><p>Dusan arrived in Toronto on October 4, 1968 and moved to Kitchener, Ontario, four weeks later. He learned English through an intensive, six-month course which the Canadian government organized for refugees and then took a job as an assistant electrician. In 1970, Dusan came to Chicago. He married his first wife and became an American citizen eight years later. As soon as he became a U.S. citizen, Dusan made a visit to Czechoslovakia, which he refers to as a “strange” experience.</p><p> </p><p>In Chicago, Dusan established his own electrical contracting company which then expanded into property management. He says he was not initially extremely involved in the local Slovak community, but did enjoy playing soccer with other Slovaks in Berwyn. Now semi-retired, Dusan and his second wife, Ingrid (also a Slovak émigré), spend their time between Chicago and Florida. They have two children, both of whom ‘are proud’ to speak Slovak.</p>
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Frank Safertal
<p>Frank Safertal was born in the Holešovice district of Prague in 1942. His father, also named František, had been arrested shortly before Frank’s birth because of his participation in an underground resistance group. Frank’s father was sent to a labor camp in Krems an der Donau in Austria for the remainder of WWII and only saw his son for the first time after the War ended in 1945. During the War, Frank and his mother, Milena, lived with her parents in Holešovice. Upon returning home, František became a manager of a dental sales company, but when the business was nationalized in 1948, the family moved to Jablonec nad Nisou in northern Bohemia where he became the quality control manager of a factory. Four years later, the family returned to Prague. Frank says that his father was passionate about sports and passed the hobby on to him. From a young age, he skied and played tennis and soccer. Influenced by one of his teachers, Frank became interested in music and learned to play piano. After grade school, Frank attended an industrial school, and then enrolled at the University of Economics, Prague (VŠE) for industrial engineering. He says that his time at university was ‘eye-opening,’ both intellectually and politically, and that he began to realize ‘how bad the regime was.’ Frank started a jazz band at this time, and was jailed for advertising dances. He says he was also influenced by Western artists in Prague (such as Gene Deitch and Allen Ginsburg), from whom he heard about life in the United States. Frank graduated from university in 1966 and served one year in the military near the German border in Klatovy. In 1967, he began working as a computer engineer at ‘the nationalized IBM.’ The same year, he met and married his wife, <a href="/web/20170710095022/http://www.ncsml.org/exhibits/otakara-safertal/">Otakara Safertal</a>.</p><p> </p><p>Although Frank had been thinking about spending some time abroad, he says that, following the Warsaw Pact invasion in August 1968, the decision to emigrate was ‘very quick.’ He and Otakara received exit permits and, ten days after the invasion, took the train to Vienna. Frank was encouraged to stay in Austria and even interviewed for a job at IBM, but ultimately, he and Otakara decided to move to Canada. They arrived in Toronto in October 1968, where Frank began taking English classes and became in involved in the Czech theatre group Nové Divadlo with his wife. While working for Hughes Network Systems, Frank lived in Saudi Arabia for four years and Prague for three years (following the Velvet Revolution). In 1998, his employer transferred him to Maryland. While living in the Washington, D.C. area, Frank has been active in the Czech community. He served as the secretary-general of Czechoslovak Society of Arts & Sciences (SVU) for six years and helped organize numerous congresses. Today, he is a consultant for the U.S. Trade and Development Agency and lives in Bethesda, Maryland, with his wife.</p>
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George Knessl
<p>George Knessl was born in Volyně, southern Bohemia, in 1929. He was raised by his mother in Vsetín, near the Slovak border. George never knew his father as he was killed shortly before George was born. George attended technical school in Vsetín, which he says was severely disrupted towards the end of WWII, with classes being evacuated on account of bomb scares. When George turned 16 towards the end of the War, he received a letter conscripting him as a laborer to help with the German war effort. George says instead of responding to this summons, he remained at home and positioned himself so as to be able to run into the woods should officials come and investigate his whereabouts.</p><p> </p><p>George says he did spend several days in the woods at the very end of the War. When he returned to Vsetín, he recalls seeing corpses of Czechs accused of collaborating with the Nazis. Following WWII, George continued with his engineering studies in Vsetín, as part of which he says he learned English from a Czech soldier who had fought in the British Army during the War. Upon graduation, George went to work at MEZ Vsetín. He moved to Plzeň following his mother’s death in 1954, where he took a job at Škoda. He was employed by Škoda until leaving Czechoslovakia with his wife and son in 1968.</p><p> </p><p>George was on vacation with his family in Yugoslavia in August 1968 when he heard that Warsaw Pact troops had invaded Czechoslovakia. He says that the Yugoslav police informed Czechs and Slovaks in the country at the time that they could stay if they wished. George had a cousin in the United States, however, and so the family tried to immigrate there. The Knessls traveled to Austria, where they were housed at a number of refugee camps, including Traiskirchen, while their visa applications were processed by the American Fund for Czechoslovak Refugees. Within a couple of months, the family had visas and was flown to New York City.</p><p> </p><p>George’s first job was in a hotel in Pennsylvania, which he says in no way used his experience as an engineer. The Knessls ended up settling in Chicago, where George’s cousin found him a job as a draftsman in the factory in which he worked. In Chicago, George became involved in the Spolek českých inženýrů [Czech Engineers’ Club], through which he says he found a job at General Motors. In 1972, the Knessls bought a house in Berwyn, in which George still lives today. He calls his home ‘an American miracle.’ George continues to be active in the Chicago Czech community.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p>
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George Malek
<p>George Malek was born in Tábor in southern Bohemia. His father, Jan, owned a factory that produced auto parts while his mother, Marie, stayed home to raise George and his two brothers. Shortly after the Communist coup in 1948, George’s father’s business was nationalized and he was sent to prison for over one year. In the meantime, George’s mother began working at a co-op making stuffed animals. As a child, George was especially interested in woodworking and mathematics. He attended a technical school in Tábor where he studied building construction and equipment. Although he hoped to study at university, George was not initially admitted and, instead, joined the military. After training for one year as a paratrooper, he was stationed in Aš where he was tasked with manning a radio system and intercepting German military conversations and transmissions. George was then admitted to ČVUT (Czech Technical University in Prague) where he studied computer engineering. He began to think about leaving the country to improve his job prospects and, shortly after the Warsaw Pact invasion in 1968, crossed the border into Austria with his wife and young son, Robert. George’s father had helped them to secure visas under the pretense of visiting an uncle in Vienna.</p><p> </p><p>George and his family stayed in Vienna for just over a month while awaiting immigration paperwork. They arrived in Hamilton, Ontario, and settled in Toronto in 1968. After taking English classes for six weeks, George began working and was admitted to the University of Toronto where he earned his doctorate. It was in 1976 that George first returned to Czechoslovakia to visit his parents. That same year, his company transferred him to California. By 1981, George had switched jobs and was sent to work on a software project in Japan. There, he met his second wife, Yuko. The couple married in 1983, returned to the United States, and had a son, Alan. In 1988, George set up a company in California’s Silicon Valley called Apogee Software Inc; he remains the firm’s president and CEO. Ten years later, he set up Apogee.cz in Prague as an out-sourcing partner of Apogee Software. He and his wife Yuko (the firm’s CFO) often visit Prague, both for business purposes and to enjoy the opera, ballet, and concerts that the Czech capital has to offer. The couple are proud of an apartment they own in a 14th-century historical building in Prague’s Old Town. George and Yuko are planning to ‘retire partially’ in the Czech Republic in 2013. They are in the process of reconstructing an old hunting lodge in Mirovice in southern Bohemia, which was owned by the Schwarzenberg family until 1938. George and Yuko currently live in Los Gatos, California.</p>
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George Mesko
<p>George Mesko was born in Košice in March 1928. His father worked as a senior official on the Košice-Bohumín Railway, while his mother stayed at home and looked after George and his older sisters. With the signing of the First Vienna Arbitration in 1938, the Mesko family found itself living in Hungary as Košice was handed over to Regent Miklós Horthy. The family made plans to move to Vrútky, Slovakia, where they had relatives, but George’s father had a stroke and so the family remained in Košice for the duration of the War. In 1944, George and the other 16-year-old males in Košice were summoned to Germany to man the country’s understaffed factories. George did not end up going as he suffered a serious allergic reaction shortly before being dispatched, which his mother then used as a reason to send him to Slovakia to convalesce with relatives (and therefore avoid enlistment).</p><p> </p><p>Upon graduation shortly after the War, George began his studies in Bratislava at the Medical Faculty of Comenius University, where he remained for six years. He has written a book about the atmosphere he remembers at the medical school in the early 1950s, entitled <em>The Silent Conspiracy</em> (published in both Slovak and English). Following university, George returned to Košice to work at the city’s children’s hospital. This job was followed by stints at the children’s hospital in Sliač and then back in Bratislava. In 1960, George married his wife, Judith; the couple had both a civil ceremony and a church wedding in secret in Budapest, he says. At the time of the Soviet-led invasion in August 1968, George was on holiday in Yugoslavia with his wife and two children. In light of the invasion, the family decided not to go home.</p><p> </p><p>A leading cardiologist, George accepted an Alexander von Humboldt scholarship in Tübingen, where he and his family subsequently stayed for ten months. In 1969, the Meskos came to Boston, when George was offered a position at Harvard Medical School. Twenty years later, George set up the Heart to Heart Foundation with other members of the Slovak-American Cultural Center – an institution based in New York City. The fund sponsored, among other things, study visits for Slovak healthcare professionals abroad. George retired in 1996. He now lives in McLean, Virginia, and devotes much of his time to writing, primarily about 20th-century Slovak history.</p>
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Helena Stossel
<p>Helena Stossel was born in Prague in 1946. Helena’s parents both worked at a small silk-screening operation – her father as the manager and her mother as a silk-screener. Helena and her younger brother, Tomas, were watched by her grandmother and spent a lot of time at the <em>chata</em> her grandfather built outside the city. Helena says that she learned to ‘appreciate nature’ from camping, canoeing, and white-water kayaking. She also enjoyed reading and poetry. Helena went to <em>gymnázium</em> where she focused on the sciences and then studied chemistry at the Institute of Chemical Technology in Prague. She married her first husband, Lev, in 1967. The Warsaw Pact invasion in August 1968 left an impression on Helena, as she congregated on Wenceslas Square with other young people and talked with the Warsaw Pact troops. Her parents and brother immigrated to the United States in July 1969 and, although Helena was reluctant to leave as she wanted to ‘fight for freedom,’ she joined her husband when he decided to leave in the autumn of 1969. The pair lived in Vienna for one month and then flew to New York City in December 1969.</p><p> </p><p>After spending two weeks with family friends in Ossining, New York, Helena moved to the Boston area where her parents had settled and opened a Czech restaurant. Helena spent a few months becoming comfortable with the English language and then began working in a hospital kitchen. Her next job was in the lab of Glover Memorial Hospital and, at the request of a pathologist, she transferred to what is now Brigham and Women’s Hospital, where she worked for 40 years, retiring only a short time ago. Helena gave birth to her daughter Johana in 1974 and bought a house in Holliston (a suburb of Boston) in 1976. She married her second husband, Frank Stossel, in 1981 and first returned to Czechoslovakia in 1987. She has visited her home country many times since. Helena says that it is only recently that she became ‘at peace’ with her emigration, citing her reluctance to leave Czechoslovakia in the first place as preventing her from feeling at home in the United States. In her retirement, she hopes to travel more and go on a canoe trip in the Czech Republic. Today, Helena lives in Holliston with her husband Frank.</p>
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Ivan Vaclav
<p>Ivan Vaclav was born in 1943. He was raised in Bošáca, a town famous for its slivovitz, in western Slovakia. He says he had a happy childhood there, and remembers stealing plums from the numerous fruit trees around the town. His father was the head of the local recreation area and Pioneer Camp. Ivan says that he took over this job when his father died. Ivan’s mother, meanwhile, worked at a restaurant and bar in nearby Inovec. Ivan has one older sister, who also came to the United States.</p><p> </p><p>Despite ‘having a good life’ in Czechoslovakia, Ivan decided to leave the country with his wife in September 1969. The couple spent four months in Austria, where Ivan’s wife gave birth to their oldest daughter, Jackie. The family arrived in New York City on December 29, 1969. Ivan remembers the city was ‘dirty,’ and that there were cockroaches in the Manhattan hotel in which they were accommodated. Almost straight away, the family bought a car and drove to Chicago, where they have lived ever since. In 1970, Ivan started a painting and decorating business in the city, which he ran for almost seven years. Ivan and his wife also became partners in the Czechoslovak restaurant called Bratislava which was located on North Clark Street during the 1970s.</p><p> </p><p>Eventually, Ivan set up a construction and remodeling firm and founded a car business, which he refers to as ‘practically my hobby.’ He says that the United States has provided him with a ‘great, great opportunity’ to pursue his interests and ambitions. He became an American citizen in 1976. Over the years, Ivan has been active in the Slovak and Czech communities in Chicago – he has been associated with the CSA Fraternal Life organization, as well as with the Slovak Athletic Association. Today, he lives in Glenview, Illinois, with his wife, Anna.</p>
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Jitka Volavka-Illner
<p>Jitka Volavka-Illner was born in Prague in 1939. Her father, Václav, was a successful businessman who owned two coal mines while her mother, Věra, who had studied law, stayed home to raise Jitka and her three siblings. Jitka’s parents were avid art collectors and she remembers walking to museums and galleries with her father each week. Her family often went skiing in the Krkonoše mountains and, at the age of 14, Jitka won the junior national championships in giant slalom and downhill. That same year, Jitka was the national singles champion in tennis and she says that she had to decide between the two sports. Her father eventually steered her towards tennis and she went on to have a successful career on the international circuit; she first played at Wimbledon at age 16 and several times was ranked in the top 20 in the world.</p><p> </p><p>Jitka studied linguistics at Charles University, focusing on English and Russian languages. After graduating, she taught at a high school for one year and then began teaching English to university students studying engineering. Jitka says this job was ‘great’ as it gave her time to train for tennis and compete internationally. In 1967, Jitka and her husband moved to London for one year where she taught English at an elementary school. They returned in the fall of 1967, a time which Jitka calls ‘wonderful’ because of the reforms that marked the Prague Spring. Immediately after the Warsaw Pact invasion in August 1968, Jitka and her husband left Czechoslovakia. While waiting for permission to immigrate to the United States, Jitka lived in Munich where she learned German and worked as a nanny. In March 1969, the pair moved to New York City. For one year Jitka worked as a Russian interpreter for the United Nations. She then began teaching lessons at a tennis club in Manhattan where her clients included Robert Redford and Walter Cronkite. Jitka says that her first years in the United States were ‘lonely’ and that she sought out Czech connections. She joined the Czechoslovak Society of Arts and Sciences (SVU) in the 1970s and is currently the president of the New York chapter. In 1973, Jitka had her daughter Nicole and moved to Long Island where she continued to teach tennis. She became the tennis director at Cold Spring Harbor Beach Club and worked there until the late 1990s. For a short time she also worked for Christie’s interpreting for Russian art dealers.</p><p> </p><p>Since moving to the United States, Jitka has become an art collector and has exhibited the work of Czech artists. She has been involved in charity work and often uses the connections she has made from tennis and with her fellow Czech émigrés for fundraisers and other events. Jitka has also hosted Czech students and opened her home to newly-arrived Czech immigrants. Although she loves to visit Prague, Jitka says that she ‘feels more American than Czech.’ She lives in Manhattan with her second husband, Pavel.</p>
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