Gene Deitch
<p>Gene Deitch was born in Chicago in 1924 to Ruth Delson Deitch and Joseph Deitch, a salesman. The Deitch family moved to California after the stock market crash in 1929 and Gene started school in Hollywood. Gene enjoyed creating classroom and neighborhood newspapers, and the different printing techniques he used over the years speak to his lifelong love of technology. He was also fascinated by the movie industry and especially enjoyed watching cartoon shorts. After graduating from Los Angeles High School in 1942, Gene joined the war effort and drew aircraft blueprints for North American Aviation. It was there he met his first wife, Marie. They married in 1943 and had three sons together. That same year, Gene was drafted and, although he trained to become a pilot, he fell ill with pneumonia and was honorably discharged in May 1944.</p>
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<p>Gene embarked on a career as a cartoonist and animator. He drew covers and cartoons for the jazz magazine The Record Changer and joined the animation studio UPA (United Productions of America). He later became the creative director of CBS Terrytoons. In 1959, Gene had started his own studio, Gene Deitch Associates, Inc, which was primarily producing commercials. He was asked to travel to Prague by a client who wanted him to direct a film there. As Gene was reluctant, this client promised to fund a project particularly close to Gene’s heart (the pet project was a film called Munro – which later won an Oscar). In October 1959, Gene arrived in Prague, and he recalls his first impression of the city as ‘creepy.’ However, he soon met Zdenka Najmanová, the studio’s production manager, and fell in love with both her and the city. Gene says that as soon as he returned to the States, he was ‘looking for ways to get back’ to Prague. He returned shortly thereafter and married Zdenka in 1964. Gene’s career flourished in Prague; he produced many films, including several installments of the popular series Tom and Jerry.</p>
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<p>Gene says that he was received with some suspicion in communist Czechoslovakia; his reasons for being there – love and work – were too simple for people to believe. Following the Warsaw Pact invasion in August 1968, Gene and Zdenka traveled to Vienna to contact his family back in the United States. When they attempted to return, Gene says they were not allowed back in, as the country had closed its borders. The two went to Norway to work on a project while the studio convinced the government that Gene’s work was beneficial to the country and that he should be allowed to return. He says that in the mid-1980s, the two considered moving to the United States, and even went so far as to buy a house in San Francisco; however, the event of the Velvet Revolution led them to stay in Prague. Gene remains an American citizen and over the years he has frequently traveled back to the United States. Today, he lives in Prague with Zdenka.</p>
<p><a id="ucRelatedViewer_dlRelated_ctl00_lnkView" class="lnkRelatedItem" href="http://web.archive.org/web/20170609114816/http://genedeitch.com/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Gene’s web site</a></p>
<p><a id="ucRelatedViewer_dlRelated_ctl01_lnkView" class="lnkRelatedItem" href="http://web.archive.org/web/20170609114816/http://genedeitchcredits.com/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Gene’s newest project, an online book about people who have influenced him</a></p>
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Yvette Kaiser-Smith
<p> </p><p>Yvette Kaiser Smith was born in Prague in 1958. Her father <a href="/web/20170609161810/http://www.ncsml.org/exhibits/karel-kaiser/">Karel</a> worked in theatre, and her mother Vlasta was a secretary. Yvette’s sister, Miroslava, was older by 18 months. Yvette recalls having ‘total freedom’ as a child in Prague, walking the city streets alone and taking the tram to extracurricular activities and doctor’s appointments. She participated in what she calls ‘typical’ after-school activities such as swimming and theatre. In January 1968, Yvette’s father traveled to the United States for work; although his visa was valid until 1969, he returned for a brief period following the Warsaw Pact invasion in August 1968 and made the decision for his family to join him in the United States. He then returned to the United States and Yvette’s mother went about securing passports for the family. In late December 1968, Yvette, her mother and sister left Czechoslovakia for England, where they stayed with a relative. After one month in England, Yvette’s father sent the family money for plane tickets, and they flew to Dallas, Texas.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>The Kaisers lived in an apartment in the Highland Park area of Dallas. Yvette’s father worked in construction and her mother found employment as a maid. She began school in March 1969 without knowing how to speak English. Yvette says she learned quickly, thanks to help from her classmates and teachers. She says that although the family spoke Czech at home and her parents kept a Czech household, once she became fluent in English she ‘became American overnight.’ In 1990, she earned a degree in fine arts from Southern Methodist University and married her husband Tim. They moved to Chicago in 1991 and she enrolled in a masters program at the University of Chicago. After receiving her MFA, Yvette began her career as an artist. Although she started out as a sculptor, Yvette says that her first trip back to Prague in 1998 changed her direction as an artist and she now crochets fiberglass. In 1999, Yvette’s parents moved back to Prague to live and she often went to visit them. She says that she has retained a few Czech traditions at home, mainly celebrating Christmas on December 24 and making traditional foods on other holidays. Today, Yvette lives in Chicago with her husband and father.</p><p><a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20170609161810/http://www.kaisersmith.com/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Yvette’s web site</a></p>
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Vit Horejs
<p>Vit Horejs was born in Prague in 1950. His father, Jaromír, was a teacher and author (who published over 50 books), while his mother, Věra, taught gym and Czech. Vit was the youngest of three siblings. Growing up in communist Czechoslovakia, he says he ‘believed in the system’ and even became Young Pioneer of the Year when he was around ten years old. Vit says he became disillusioned following the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968. That same year, he made his first trip to France. It was at this time that Vit began studying French, philosophy and theatre at Charles University in Prague. He returned to France in 1969, having faked an invitation to secure himself an exit permit. Also during his studies, Vit visited England which, he says, made him ‘fall in love with English’ and consider a life abroad. He stayed in the United Kingdom for longer than his exit permit allowed and so had his passport confiscated upon his return to Czechoslovakia.</p><p> </p><p>Vit graduated from university in 1975 and went to the Moravian town of Šumperk to take an acting job in the municipal theatre. He left the theatre after one year so as to move back to Prague, where he worked as a freelance actor and developed plans to leave the country. The chance came in 1978 when Vit was translating Primo Levy’s <em>Il Sistema Periodico</em>; he says he managed to procure an invitation from the author to consult with him on the translation in Italy. Vit left Czechoslovakia in March 1978. He did travel to Italy, but continued on to France, where he spent one year in Paris, studying mime and waiting for either the United Kingdom or the United States to process his visa request. He arrived in New York City in February 1979, sponsored by the American Fund for Czechoslovak Refugees. Vit settled briefly in Queens, working first as a bike messenger and then a cab driver. He subsequently moved to Manhattan and became involved in the Czech-American black light theatre company <em>Divadlo Ta Fantastika</em>. He stayed with <em>Ta Fantastika</em> for a number of years, moving to Florida in the mid-1980s with the company. Towards the end of the 1980s, however, Vit embarked upon his own venture, the Czechoslovak-American Marionette Theatre – using (among other props) puppets unearthed in the attic of New York City’s Jan Hus Presbyterian Church.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Vit has toured the United States with the Czechoslovak-American Marionette Theatre on several occasions, often performing his adaptations of traditional Czech fairytales (such as Rusalka and Jenůfa) in American schools. He serves on the board of the Bohemian Benevolent and Literary Association and lives in Manhattan with his wife Bonnie. The couple have one daughter, Sarazina, who is currently in the Czech Republic on a scholarship learning Czech.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p>
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Veronika Heblikova-Balingit
<p>Veronika Heblikova-Balingit was born in Havlíčkův Brod in southeastern Bohemia in 1973. She lived with her mother, Milena, a secretary; her stepfather who worked in construction; and her younger sister. She regularly visited her father who lived in Prague and worked as a sound engineer for public broadcaster Czechoslovak Television. Veronika spent many weekends and vacations at her family’s cottage in Slavníč. She was interested in art and participated in after school art programs. At the age of 14, Veronika moved to Prague to attend an art school where she studied furniture design. She was 16 in November 1989 at the onset of the Velvet Revolution and, although she was not in Prague during the major student demonstration on November 17, Veronika says that she had participated in earlier protests and continued to gather in the city with other students in the following weeks. In the summer of 1990, Veronika took advantage of the newly-opened borders and traveled throughout Europe. Upon graduating, she took a job as a sales assistant in a clothing store and also did freelance work creating posters and flyers. Later, she worked for a new architecture firm designing office layouts. Her father helped her to secure an apartment in the Černý Most area of the city, and she was able to rent out several rooms. Veronika also took private English lessons.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>In 1994, at the suggestion of an American friend who was renting one of her rooms, Veronika and a friend traveled to the United States. She arrived in Chicago and quickly became involved in the Czech community there. Her first job was working at a carpet store, but she soon began waitressing and found a job at Klas, a Czech restaurant in the Chicago suburb of Cicero. Veronika married and decided to stay in the United States. She took English classes to improve her language skills and also received a certificate in computer graphics from the International Academy of Merchandising and Design. She was offered a job building web sites at Apartments.com. After the company changed hands several times, Veronika took a job at Bank of America editing the firm’s internal web site. She has been with the company for over 12 years and has had various job titles and responsibilities.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Veronika says that she tries to visit the Czech Republic once a year and loves that her teenage daughter is aware of her heritage and history. She hopes to send her daughter to school abroad and to spend more time in the Czech Republic as a result. Veronika is active in the Czech community in Chicago and volunteers her time and talents to the Chicago-Prague Sisters Cities organization.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p>
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Tomas Opatril
<p>Tomas Opatril was born in Pardubice, eastern Bohemia, in 1974. His parents worked as technical assistants at the Institute of Chemical Technology in the city, which was largely industrial. Tomas’s father, Petr, was an assistant researcher, while his mother, Helena, worked in the explosives department. Tomas enjoyed the outdoors and was a member of the Pioneers, which allowed him to attend summer camp and go on weekend outings. When he was older, he joined the Brontosaurus group, which was a volunteer organization that focused on the environment and nature and planned trips to work on conservation efforts. Tomas attended a mechanical high school.</p><p> </p><p>Tomas was 15 when the Velvet Revolution occurred. He was taking dance classes at the time and, against his parents’ wishes, joined the demonstrations in downtown Pardubice rather than attending his lessons. He has vivid memories of this time, although he admits that he was very young and didn’t fully understand what was going on. The fall of communism, however, was a ‘huge change in the life of every teenager, says Tomas, and was especially significant because of the resulting freedom to travel.</p><p> </p><p>After graduating from high school, Tomas performed civil service in lieu of a one-year stint in the military. He found a job at the famed Barrandov Studios as a production assistant on documentary films for a foundation that supported the arts. Tomas moved to Prague and, while working at Barrandov, took classes at FAMU (the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague). Upon finishing his work at Barrandov, Tomas started his own web design business. In 2004, Tomas applied for the green card lottery and was awarded one in 2006. He moved to the United States in the fall of 2007 and settled in Chicago where he had several acquaintances. He has held several jobs and today is a freelance web designer and developer. Tomas lives in Chicago.</p>
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Thomas Hasler
<p>Thomas Hasler was born in Prague in 1941. His mother, Charlotte Jurdová, was a linguist with a doctorate in philology from Charles University, and his father, Karel Hašler, was a very popular Czech songwriter, actor, director, and playwright who, before his son’s birth, was arrested by the Gestapo because of the patriotic nature of his songs. Karel Hašler was killed at Mauthausen concentration camp one month after Tom was born.</p><p> </p><p>Tom says he does not have many memories of Czechoslovakia, as he left the country when he was only seven years old. His mother was able to secure exit visas in 1949 when the department she worked for at the Dutch embassy came under scrutiny after her supervisor was named as a spy. Tom and his mother moved to Australia, where, he says, he did not make an effort to retain his Czech heritage. In 1958, Tom and his mother were sponsored by an acquaintance to come to America.</p><p> </p><p>They arrived in Santa Barbara, California, but shortly thereafter moved to Connecticut. Tom began college at age 16, due to the differences in the American and Australian education systems. He studied political science at Hobart College (in New York) and received his master’s degree in journalism from University of Michigan. Tom interned at<em>The Daily Star, </em>the English-language newspaper in Beirut, in 1968, where he remembers hearing about the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia. He also met and married his wife, Bonnie (a New Yorker) while in Beirut. Upon returning to the United States, Tom accepted a job offer from the Baltimore <em>Evening Sun</em>. He became an American citizen in 1975, but says he recently also got his Czech citizenship back.</p><p> </p><p>While growing up, Tom knew little about his father. However, more recently he says he has made an effort to discover as much as possible. In 2007, Tom was the co-producer and subject of a documentary titled <em>The Immortal Balladeer of Prague</em> <em>[Písničkář, který nezemřel</em>] which chronicles his search for his father’s work and legacy. He says he is fascinated by the ‘political side’ of his father’s music, which, he adds, led ultimately to his father’s death. He also discovered his mother’s memoirs and diaries which has given him insight into his father’s personal character. Tom has visited Prague several times and says that he no longer feels like a tourist there. He currently lives in Baltimore, Maryland.</p><p> </p>
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Stanislav Grezdo
<p>Stanislav Grezdo was born in Piešt’any, western Slovakia in 1972. His father (also called Stanislav) worked at the local nuclear power station, while his mother Viera taught Russian and Slovak. Of his youth, Stanislav remembers disliking school and spending most of his time there drawing cartoons. He has fond memories of being a Pioneer and taking part in the annual First of May workers’ parades. In 1986, Stanislav moved to Bratislava to attend Polygrafická škola (Graphic Arts School). He was there when the Velvet Revolution happened, which he refers to as a ‘great time in his life.’ Stanislav graduated in 1991 and returned to Piešt’any, where he worked as a printer for eight years.</p><p> </p><p>In 1999, Stanislav traveled to the United States at the invitation of a girl he had met at a concert in Prague. He spent six months in New Orleans, which he says he ‘didn’t like much,’ before moving to Austin, Texas, where he met his wife Tracy Miller. The pair then settled in Chicago, where Stanislav took a job as curator at the Ukrainian Institute of Modern Art (UIMA). Stanislav says he enjoyed meeting Czechs and Slovaks once a week in the pub in Austin, but has not sought out members of the Slovak and Czech communities in Chicago, as he does not want to be part of a ‘closed’ society, the likes of which he sees in parts of the Ukrainian Village district in which he works. Stanislav remains a Slovak citizen and does not exclude the idea of returning to live in Europe later on in his life. He says he travels there with his wife at least once every two years and that each time they go, they stay for at least one month. Stanislav says that it has been good for his art to live in a larger city, as there is more ‘competition,’ which he finds stimulating.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Stanislav paints and creates mixed media pieces influenced by his surroundings. He says that he draws upon his memories from Slovakia, incorporating political and anti-political symbols in his work, as well as aspects of his country’s history, which is ‘very difficult to take out of your head.’ He recently exhibited a number of his newest prints and sculptures in Calgary at a solo show entitled <em>Icons & Altars</em>.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p><a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20170609111927/http://www.uima-chicago.org/index.php?cat=1" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Link to the Ukrainian Institute of Modern Art’s website</a></p>
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Richard Stilicha
<p>Richard Stilicha was born in Bratislava in 1971. His mother, Danica, a researcher, and his father, Peter, an editor, were both studying at university at the time he was born. Richard’s maternal grandparents helped to raise him in the family home in Bratislava’s Old Town. His maternal grandfather, Eugen Suchoň, was a very well-known composer who wrote the first Slovak national opera, and Richard himself began playing the piano at the age of four.</p><p> </p><p>Richard says that one advantage of living in Bratislava was being able to watch Austrian television and gaining some knowledge of happenings in the West. In 1989, Richard graduated from high school and began studying computer science at Slovak Technical University. He also acted in the Slovak National Theatre as part of the background cast of Carmen. On the night of November 18, Richard arrived at the theatre to be told not to dress for the show. To support the student protests in Prague that had happened the previous day, his company went on strike – a moment that Richard says was the beginning of the Velvet Revolution in Bratislava. A few days later, Richard heard that the borders had opened and drove to Austria for the day; he returned home and then took his parents across the border.</p><p> </p><p>Richard went to Finland for three months in 1990 to work on a translation project for computer systems, and he received his bachelor’s degree in 1991. He then enrolled at the University of Economics in Bratislava where he received his master’s degree in international business. In 1995 Richard went to the University of California, Santa Barbara, on a student work program where he developed the first web pages for the university. Although he was offered a full-time job there, he returned to Slovakia to finish his degree. For several years, Richard managed an internet service provider company. He married his wife, Monika (whom he had met during his time in the United States), in 1997. The pair decided to move to Canada in 1999. They arrived in Toronto where Monika quickly found a job with CitiBank. Richard worked as a project manager for five years before branching off to work as a project management consultant – a job he still holds today.</p><p> </p><p>With his friend <a href="/web/20170609053003/http://www.ncsml.org/exhibits/pavol-dzacko/">Pavol Dzacko</a>, Richard began a non-profit organization called Canada SK Entertainment, which brings contemporary Slovak music and cultural acts to Toronto. Richard has one son who visits his grandparents in Slovakia each summer and has learned to speak Slovak. Richard himself returns to Slovakia several times a year and says that he feels both Toronto and Bratislava are his homes. He lives with his wife and son in Toronto.</p>
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Petra Sith
<p> </p><p>Petra Sith was born in Bratislava in September 1979, in Kramáre Hospital where her mother, Anna, worked as a nurse. Her mother married her stepfather, Peter Sith (a mechanical engineer for carmaker Škoda), when Petra was four years old. In 1983, Petra’s brother, <a href="/web/20170609122012/http://www.ncsml.org/exhibits/karol-sith/">Karol Sith</a>, was born.Petra started grade school in Bratislava, of which she says she still has ‘fond memories.’ She did not stay there too long, however, before her family left the country. The Siths went on holiday to Yugoslavia in 1986 and it was there that Petra’s parents told her and her brother they had no intention of returning home.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>The family spent about one year in refugee camps in Yugoslavia before moving to Traiskirchen camp in Austria. The Sith family spent another nine months in Traiskirchen before being sponsored by a distant relative in Illinois to come to the United States. They settled first in Chicago before moving to Fox Lake, Illinois, where Petra lived up until three years ago.</p><p> </p><p>Petra says her parents were not able to find jobs at first in the U.S. which reflected their qualifications; her father started sweeping floors at a factory, while her mother worked in a laundromat. Eventually, Petra’s mother became a nursing assistant, while her father became a factory technician. Petra says her parents impressed the value of education upon her; she graduated from Chicago’s Roosevelt University in 2007. She currently works as a billing processor at Robert Half International and is studying for her master’s degree. Petra plays bass in a band called Losing Scarlet, which she describes as making ‘user-friendly, heavier rock music.’ She has a U.S. green card, but still travels on a Slovak passport. She has returned to Slovakia to see her family twice since coming to America; in 1994 and 2007. Today, Petra lives in Ingleside, Illinois, with her husband, Brad.</p><p><a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20170609122012/http://www.myspace.com/losingscarlet" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Petra’s band Losing Scarlet on Myspace</a></p>
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Peter Demetz
<p>Peter Demetz was born in Prague in 1922. His mother, who was Jewish, was a seamstress and his father (of German ethnicity) worked in a theatre. When Peter was about five years old, he moved to Brno with his parents and lived there for ten years. While in Brno, Peter’s parents divorced and his mother remarried. Peter’s father, meanwhile, returned to Prague. With the signing of the Munich Agreement and the Nazi occupation of Czechoslovakia in 1939, Peter’s stepfather escaped to London and Peter and his mother moved back to Prague. In 1941, Peter’s mother was deported to Terezín where she died.</p><p> </p><p>Because Czech universities were closed during WWII, Peter says that he took private language lessons and read to keep up with his studies. In 1944, he was sent to a labor camp in Silesia. Shortly thereafter, he was arrested and transported back to Prague where he was interrogated by the Gestapo because of his association with a resistance group. He was then sent to a camp near the German border where he stayed until the end of the War. Upon his return to Prague, Peter began studying philosophy and comparative religion at Charles University, but switched to English and German literature. He spent one semester in Zurich in 1946 and one semester in London the following year. He received his doctorate in 1948 and began lecturing at Charles University. Peter recalls joining the student march to Prague Castle to protest the Communist government in February 1948.</p><p> </p><p>In 1949, Peter and his then-girlfriend Hana (whom he later married) left Czechoslovakia and crossed the border into Germany. While at a refugee camp in Munich, Peter and Hana were recruited to work at a school in Bad Aibling, a children’s refugee camp. They stayed there for one year and Peter says it was an enjoyable time, as they made frequent weekend trips to Munich and Salzburg. After being offered jobs at Radio Free Europe, the couple moved back to Munich. Peter worked as the editor of cultural features and also contributed to the exile journal Skutečnost.</p><p> </p><p>Peter and Hana received visas for the United States and, in 1952, arrived in New York City. Peter says that his main reason for leaving Germany and moving to the United States was to continue his studies and start a career in academia. He took courses at Columbia University and received his doctorate in comparative literature from Yale. He joined the faculty at Yale immediately after graduating and holds the post of Sterling Professor Emeritus for Germanic language and literature. Peter has also edited and authored many publications on subjects ranging from German literature to the history of Prague. He lives in Highland Park, New Jersey, with his second wife.</p>
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