George Hauner
<p>George Hauner was born in Prague in 1949 and grew up in the Dejvice neighborhood with his parents and younger sister. His father, originally from Prague, studied architecture but worked in the finance department of the science ministry. His mother grew up in southern Bohemia and worked in a personnel department. George has fond memories of traveling to visit his maternal grandparents as a young boy. He says that because his mother’s village, Kasejovice, was liberated by American soldiers during WWII, she was sympathetic to the West and the United States in particular.</p><p> </p><p>George attended high school in the years during the Prague Spring and says that the liberalization of the times made school ‘quite exciting,’ as he and his classmates were exposed to new publications and information. He graduated a few months before the Warsaw Pact invasion in August 1968 and, although he considered leaving the country in the wake of the invasion, he decided against it as he was to begin university. George studied architecture at ČVUT (Czech Technical University in Prague) and graduated in 1975. He served one year in the military and began working at an architecture firm.</p><p> </p><p>On February 7, 1981, George and his then-wife left the country shortly after marrying. They obtained passports and visas for a trip to Austria and eventually made their way to the United States. Although they intended to move to Los Angeles, their plans fell through and they settled in New York City. George, who had visited New York twice before on short trips, describes the city as ‘a theater stage.’ Aided by a friend, he quickly started working at an architecture firm and has worked in the industry ever since. Starting in the late 1980s, George returned to Prague each year to visit family and friends. Although he lived in Wyoming for three years and, for a short time, returned to Prague to work, he considers New York City his home. Today, George works for Grimshaw Architects and lives in Manhattan.</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 Skoda
<p>George Skoda was born in Prague in 1927. His father, Josef, studied accounting and held several jobs in that field, and also owned a business in the city. His mother, Louisa, worked as a stenographer before getting married and later stayed home to raise George. After elementary school, George began studying at an English gymnázium, which was closed down by the Nazis in 1941. He then transferred to a Czech school, which was also closed, and entered an industrial school. In the waning months of WWII, George was recruited to dig ditches near Olomouc for the German war effort. After a short time, with the end of the War imminent, George escaped from his work detail and returned to Prague. After liberation, he finished school and, in 1947, entered ČVUT (Czech Technical University in Prague) to study mechanical engineering.</p><p> </p><p><img class="alignright wp-image-2551" src="http://web.archive.org/web/20170609141525im_/http://ncsml.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/Handler-41.jpg" alt="Handler-4" width="400" height="580" /></p><p>Following the Communist coup in February 1948, George decided that he didn’t want to ‘live under another occupation’ and left the country. After visiting a Sokol camp in southern Bohemia that July, George and a friend crossed the border into Germany. He spent several months in Regensburg and Schwäbisch Gmünd refugee camps; he then signed up with the European Volunteer Workers group and traveled to Britain where he was assigned to work in a brickyard in Peterborough. George worked there for over two years waiting for a visa to the United States.</p><p> </p><p>After receiving a visa, George sailed to New York in February 1951. He began working in a plastics factory before being drafted into the U.S. Army in July. George served in the Army for two years, one of which was spent in Germany working as a cartographer. After his discharge, George worked as a draftsman for an engineering company in New Jersey for one year and then moved to Malden, Massachusetts. In 1955, George married his wife, Ludmila, also a Czechoslovak émigré, whom he had met in New York. They had two children, Peter and Sandy, whom they raised speaking Czech.</p><p> </p><p>In 1962, George – who says he had always wanted to move to California – found a job at Stanford University working on a linear particle accelerator, the longest in the world. After five years there and a short stint in Philadelphia, George returned to California to work for GE’s nuclear energy division. In 1992, he retired from full-time work, but continued to act as a consultant until 2011. George also continued his education in the United States, earning a degree in engineering and management from Northeastern University and an MBA and master’s in mechanical engineering from Santa Clara University. Now a widower, George enjoys traveling and spending time with his children. He lives in Santa Clara, California.</p>
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Joseph Balaz
<p>Joseph Balaz was born in Prague in 1960. His father Ladislav worked for the national railway system. Prior to Joseph’s birth, his father was arrested and worked in the uranium mines at Jáchymov for seven years as a result of his being abroad for several years following WWII. Joseph’s mother Milada, who still lives in Prague, was an office manager for a company that manufactured paint. Joseph often went to his mother’s home town in southern Moravia to visit his grandparents and other relatives. He says that immediately following the Warsaw Pact invasion in August 1968, his mother sent Joseph to live with his grandparents for several months, and he went to school while there. Joseph attended the Institute of Technology and then began studying civil engineering at ČVUT (Czech Technical University in Prague). In February 1982, while on a university ski trip in Austria, Joseph and a friend left the group and hitchhiked to Salzburg. When advised, they traveled to West Germany to seek asylum. Joseph stayed in Bonn for one year and a half while being debriefed (as he had been in the Czechoslovak Army before leaving) and waiting for permission to immigrate to Canada.</p><p> </p><p>In 1983, Joseph flew to Edmonton, Alberta. Five months later, he moved to Montreal where he began working in construction and development. Joseph’s first visit to New York was in 1985 and he spent a few years traveling between Manhattan and Montreal. He eventually settled in New York where he started his own construction business. Today, his successful company specializes in high-end residential development.</p><p> </p><p><img class="alignleft wp-image-3246" src="http://web.archive.org/web/20170609053011im_/http://ncsml.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/Handler-56.jpg" alt="Handler-5" width="400" height="339" /></p><p> </p><p>When Joseph first arrived in New York he says that he only knew two other Czech immigrants; however, almost 20 years later, he provided consultation for the renovation of the Bohemian National Hall (BNH) in Manhattan which began his involvement with the Czech community in New York. Joseph is on the board of the American Fund for Czech and Slovak Leadership Studies and the American Friends of the Czech Republic (AFoCR). Currently, he is the president of the Bohemian Benevolent and Literary Association (BBLA), an organization which operates out of and administers Bohemian National Hall and promotes Czech and Slovak culture in New York. Joseph frequently returns to Prague to visit his mother. He lives in Manhattan with Stephanie, his wife of 17 years.</p>
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Martin Holub
<p>Martin Holub was born in Prague in 1938. His father, Ján, was a lawyer who, after the Communist coup in 1948, was not allowed to continue practicing and sent to work at a cement factory. He later worked in a photography lab and then as a librarian at the Architectural Institute in Prague. His mother, Miloslava, has also studied law and went on to become a rather well-known art historian. During WWII, Martin spent a lot of time in Moravia where his mother’s parents lived. He says that rather than feeling afraid during the War, he recalls events such as air raids as ‘fun’ due to the excitement.</p><p> </p><p>In 1950, Martin’s mother was arrested on charges that she helped a relative illegally cross the border. After 18 months in prison, she was put on trial and released of all charges. While she was in prison, Martin was sent to a boarding school in Poděbrady, where he was a classmate of Václav Havel. Martin returned to Prague, graduated from high school and studied architecture at ČVUT (Czech Technical University in Prague). He went on to earn a postgraduate degree in architecture from the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague and worked for a state-owned building contractor.</p><p> </p><p>Martin says that since graduating from university he had been hoping to travel to the West, applying for work abroad. Although he was frequently offered opportunities (particularly in Great Britain), he was repeatedly denied a visa. In 1967, Martin had applied for and been offered a job with the Greater London Council. To his surprise, he was given a visa and he left Czechoslovakia in August 1967. Although Martin planned to return to Prague after one year, he was still in London when Warsaw Pact troops invaded the country and decided to stay in the West. In January 1970, Martin took a job with an architecture firm in New York City and moved to the United States. He settled in Manhattan and opened his own private firm in 1971.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Martin first returned to Czechoslovakia in 1983 and then again following the fall of communism. With a friend living in Prague, he opened a branch of his company there and continued to visit his hometown yearly. Initially reluctant to seek out his fellow émigrés, in recent years Martin has become active in the Czechoslovak community in New York, including assisting in the renovation of the Bohemian National Hall. Today, Martin continues his architecture practice and lives in Manhattan.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p>
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Otomar Hájek
<p>Otomar Hájek was born in 1930 in Belgrade, Serbia, where his father, František, a military officer and diplomat in the Czechoslovak Armed Forces, was stationed. When his father became head of military intelligence in 1935, Otomar’s family moved back to Prague, but then left again four years later when his father was appointed military attaché to the Netherlands. Following demobilization of the Czechoslovak military, Otomar’s father became an officer in the French Foreign Legion, and the family moved to Algeria. The Hájeks subsequently spent time in Southern France before they were evacuated to London in 1940. After his father died in a car accident in 1941, Otomar’s mother Ružena, despite having no work experience, found a job as a radio announcer at the BBC. During WWII, Otomar attended the Czechoslovak State School of Great Britain. Otomar, his mother, and his brother moved back to Czechoslovakia after the War, and he says they were very happy to be back.</p><p> </p><p>Otomar completed high school in 1949 and says he was lucky to be able to continue his studies in mathematics at Charles University, as many of his classmates were not given that opportunity. Otomar says that his university years passed relatively quietly because he was not politically active. He says he is proud of the fact that he was never asked to join the Communist Party, because officials knew he was a ‘hopeless’ cause. He remembers in particular being sent to a labor camp for one summer while still a student. Upon finishing his degree, Otomar applied for postgraduate studies, but, because of his father’s intelligence background, he was rejected. He was placed as a junior assistant at ČVUT (Czech Technical University in Prague), in the faculty of electrical engineering. Otomar says he was fired about six years later as a result of ‘political changes’ and had a very hard time finding a job, again because of his father’s previous intelligence position. He finally found work at a computer research institute where he and his colleagues were tasked with creating Czech computers. Otomar remembers this being very difficult, as they had little to no access to equipment and scientific knowledge from outside of the country. He was later able to return to research at Charles University, where he received his doctorate in 1963.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Otomar attempted unsuccessfully to leave the country several times, both legally and illegally. He finally had the opportunity in 1966 when he was permitted to accept a job at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland for one year and bring his wife, Olga. Otomar says that he felt obligated to return to Czechoslovakia after the year, but his brother convinced him otherwise. In Cleveland, Otomar and Olga had their son, Michael, and became involved in the Czechoslovak Society of Arts and Sciences (SVU). They became American citizens in 1974. Otomar is well known in his field of applied mathematics and was a Humboldt scholar at TU Darmstadt in the mid-1970s. His son Michael speaks Czech, and his wife Olga cooks traditional Czech, Slovak, and Hungarian food. Otomar and Olga frequently visit the Czech Republic and are in regular contact with their families there, thanks to Skype. They live in Fredericksburg, Virginia.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p><a href="/web/20170609072102/http://www.ncsml.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/e-Hajek_Final.pdf">Full transcript of Otomar Hájek’s interview:</a></p>
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Peter Palecek
<p><img class="alignleft wp-image-2531" src="http://web.archive.org/web/20170906231437im_/http://ncsml.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/Handler1.jpg" alt="Peter Palecek 2012" width="250" height="417" /></p><p>Peter Palecek was born in Prague in 1940. Prior to WWII, his father Václav was president of the National Union of Czechoslovak Students and served as secretary general of the Czechoslovak-Yugoslav Chamber of Commerce. With the outbreak of war, Peter’s father escaped to Britain, where he became a member of the Czechoslovak government-in-exile. <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20170906231437/http://recordingvoices.blogspot.com/2012/06/peter-palecek-on-his-father-general.html">Click for more about Peter’s father, General Václav Paleček.</a></p><p> </p><p>As a result of her husband’s activism, Peter’s mother was arrested by the Gestapo in 1943 and sent to an internment camp at Svatobořice for the remainder of the War. Peter was taken in by a family friend, lived on a farm in Krucemburk, and returned home shortly before the end of the War, where he was reunited with his parents in May 1945. After the War, Peter’s father was named chief of the Czechoslovak Military Mission in Berlin. Following the Communist coup in 1948, he was arrested and sentenced to 13 years in prison. In 1957, his sentence was reduced and, with poor health impacted by years of work in uranium mines, he returned to his family.</p><p> </p><p><img class="alignright wp-image-2530" src="http://web.archive.org/web/20170906231437im_/http://ncsml.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/Handler-16.jpg" alt="Handler-1" width="350" height="584" />Peter attended Catholic school in Prague 6 until 1949, when he says the school was closed and the teachers and priests there were arrested. After elementary school, Peter attended a secretarial school for one year, and then transferred to Nerudovo gymnázium, from which he graduated in 1957. Peter worked for two years at a ČKD transformer plant and then, with the help of his father, enrolled in ČVUT (Czech Technical University in Prague) to study mechanical engineering. During his second year there, he was elected as a student trade union representative. Upon graduation, Peter began working at ZPA as an installation and start-up technician. A keen sportsman (he loved skiing and orienteering), Peter was named a master of sports in high-altitude tourism in 1964. It was also at this time that he met his future wife, Hana. He began studying for a master’s degree at VŠE (University of Economics in Prague) and, in the wake of the Prague Spring and the Warsaw Pact invasion in August 1968, decided to continue his studies abroad. He was admitted to a two-year MBA program at Stanford University and, in September 1969, traveled from Prague to the United States. Peter says he was ordered to return to Czechoslovakia in the midst of his studies. He decided to stay in the United States and complete his degree. Hana, whom he had married the previous year, spent the next nine months attempting to join him. She arrived in California in the summer of 1970. The pair became proud American citizens in 1977.</p><p> </p><p>Peter’s first job after graduation was with Philip Morris in New York City; the work required him to make multiple visits to Toronto and Montreal. In 1973, after the birth of their first son, David, the Paleceks moved with Philip Morris to Switzerland. They returned to California in 1975 and bought their current house in Atherton in 1979. Peter worked as senior management consultant at Stanford Research Institute from that time until 1986. Peter and Hana had two more sons, Misha and Tom, both born at Stanford and dual citizens of the United States and the Czech Republic. In May 1990, Peter was hired by Tomas Bat’a of Toronto to work on the re-establishment of Bat’a as a private company in Czechoslovakia. In 1995 Peter joined Arthur D. Little of Boston as managing director of their Prague office. He retired in Prague in 2002 and returned with his wife Hana to Atherton, California.</p>
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Pierre Dobrovolny
<p>Pierre Dobrovolny was born in Brno, Moravia, in October 1933. His father Ferdinand was an artist who worked with, among others, the Czech archeologist Dr. Karel Absolon. Pierre’s mother Růžena was a seamstress. Growing up, Pierre wanted to become a radio mechanic but, he says, this profession was a predominantly feminine one at the time of his graduation, so he went to ČVUT (Czech Technical University in Prague) to study electrical engineering instead. He graduated from technical university in 1958 and says he was ‘lucky’ to do so, given his outspoken nature and his critical view of the Communist government at the time. That same year, Pierre married his partner <a title="Vera Dobrovolny" href="/web/20170609055449/http://www.ncsml.org/exhibits/vera-dobrovolny/">Vera</a>. His first job upon graduation was at the Research Institute for Electrotechnical Physics, where he worked on equipment to measure radiation.</p><p> </p><p>When the possibility of pursuing a doctorate on top of his work presented itself, Pierre applied to do so, but says the background checks that were run on him by the school resulted in him being kicked out of his job at the research institute as well. Pierre was conscripted and spent six months in the Czech Army; upon his return from military service, he was told he had been let go from the research institute and was being sent to TESLA Hloubětín instead. At TESLA, Pierre’s job was to work on transmitters to be sent to Russia, which he says was somewhat of a poisoned chalice, because he could be penalized if the project went wrong, but had little authority to make changes where they were necessary. The project to develop these transmitters, however, was a success, and resulted in Pierre traveling to Vilnius, Kutaisi and Moscow to show technicians there how to operate them. In 1965, after being repeatedly refused, Pierre was allowed to embark upon a second degree in mathematics and physics. He left Czechoslovakia, however, before he could complete his studies.</p><p> </p><p>Following the Warsaw Pact Invasion in 1968, Pierre was part of a group which set up an illegal transmitter and broadcast non-official news about the invasion, first in the TESLA building in Hloubětín, then in Zahradní Město and finally in the Novodvorská suburb of Prague. He left Czechoslovakia with his wife Vera and their two children the following year. Once in Vienna, the family applied for visas to the United States and registered with the American Fund for Czechoslovak Refugees. Their youngest daughter Lucie, however, fell suddenly very ill and so the family returned to Czechoslovakia to seek medical assistance. Several months later, on the anniversary of the Warsaw Pact Invasion, the Dobrovolnys again left Czechoslovakia. After four months in refugee camps in Traiskirchen and Bad Kreuzen, Austria, they arrived in Chicago, where Pierre found a job at radio and television manufacturer Zenith. He stayed there until LG bought the company in 1990 and continued thereafter to do some external consulting for the firm. Today, he lives with his wife Vera in Hawthorn Woods, Illinois.</p>
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Viktor Solarik
<p> </p><p>Viktor Solarik was born in Prague in 1961. He lived in the Smíchov district of the city with his parents (who were both chemists) and his older sister, Helena, who still lives in the family home in Prague. Viktor began elementary school in 1968, right after the Warsaw Pact invasion, which occurred in August of that year. He says that it was apparent that the Communist Party had an ‘arm in every organization,’ including sport activities and youth organizations. After graduating from high school, Viktor attended ČVUT (Czech Technical University in Prague) where he studied architecture. An avid windsurfer, he asked permission to travel to Malta to represent Czechoslovakia in a global competition, but the dean of architecture refused to sign for him. Shortly after graduating from ČVUT, Viktor married his wife, Eva, whom he had known since high school, and they decided to emigrate. Viktor says that the pair had the full support of their families who, even though there was a chance they would encounter repercussions, felt fairly secure in their professional lives. They signed up for a tour going to Austria and Germany and, in August 1987, left the country. When the bus stopped in Munich, Viktor and Eva went to the police station where they claimed asylum. After two months in a refugee camp, Viktor found work with a surveyor and the couple were able to move into a small apartment while waiting for their paperwork to clear. They were granted immigration visas to the United States after 18 months and arrived in New York City in March 1989.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Viktor and Eva’s sponsors were friends of their parents who had emigrated in 1968 and lived in New Jersey. They stayed in New Jersey for a few weeks while looking for a job. Viktor was offered a position at the architectural firm Kaeyer, Parker and Garment in Mount Kisco, and the pair moved to Westchester County. In 1998, Viktor started his own firm (VKS Architects) which focuses on residential design and construction. Viktor and Eva have two daughters who are now in college. They both speak Czech and, when they were younger, spent summers with their grandparents and cousins in the Czech Republic. Viktor tries to visit his home country every year to spend time with family and friends. Today he lives in Carmel, New York, with his wife Eva.</p>
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Vladmir Pochop
<p><img class="alignleft wp-image-2533 size-full" title="Vladimir in 2012" src="http://web.archive.org/web/20170609195344im_/http://ncsml.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/vladmir-pochop.png" alt="Vladimir in 2012" width="283" height="283" /></p><p>Vladimir Pochop was born in Lázně Bělohrad in northeastern Bohemia in 1946. He grew up in the town of Nová Paka where his grandmother owned a fabric shop. When her shop was nationalized following the Communist coup in 1948, she hid part of the stock so that it would not be confiscated; however, she was found out and arrested. Vladimir’s father offered to take the punishment for her and was sent to a labor camp in the uranium mines of Jáchymov. Vladimir (who was not told where his father was) says that once he was released, he had trouble finding work and ended up working menial factory jobs for the rest of his life. Vladimir himself had trouble getting into high school and, at the age of 14, moved with his mother and stepfather to Ostrava where he attended mining school. In addition to classroom studies, Vladimir worked in the mines on the weekends. On the recommendation of the school director, he was admitted to ČVUT (Czech Technical University in Prague) and began studying electrical engineering. After two years, however, Vladimir was put into a special program for computer science. He graduated in 1969 and, the following year, married Jana Pochop, whom he knew from his home town.</p><p> </p><p>Vladimir worked for a technical consulting company which he said allowed him free reign to focus on his research in geometric modeling. In 1974, he was invited to spend one year at the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. He received his doctorate in mathematics from Charles University in 1977. Although Vladimir was satisfied with his professional life, he says that living under communism was a struggle, as he and Jana had had trouble finding a place to live in Prague and he felt stifled by the lack of certain freedoms. In January 1980, the pair received visas to London for two weeks and, on their way home to Prague, got off the train in Munich and made their way to the American Embassy. Vladimir was questioned by U.S. military intelligence for four months. They were given asylum in Germany, Vladimir found a job at BMW and they moved into an apartment.</p><p> </p><p>In 1981, the Pochops received permission to immigrate to the United States, but they had to wait eight months as Jana was pregnant. Their son Jan was born in September 1981 and, in April 1982, the Pochops flew to Atlanta, Georgia. Two weeks later, Vladimir went to California in search of a job. When he found one at a start-up tech company in Silicon Valley, his wife and son joined him and the family settled in Mountain View. Vladimir and Jana had another son, Martin, in 1984. That same year, Vladimir joined the company Autodesk and, as a chief scientist there, helped to develop AutoCAD and other products. He became an American citizen in 1989 and today holds dual citizenship. As both of their sons now live in Prague, Vladimir says that he and Jana have considered returning to the Czech Republic. Today, they live in Concord, California.</p>
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