Browse Items (10 total)
- Tags: Catholicism
Sort by:
Paul Brunovsky
Paul Brunovsky was born in the spa town of Piešt’any, in western Slovakia, in September 1930. His father Štefan was a builder, while his mother Katarína stayed at home raising Paul and his five siblings. Paul says Piešt’any was ‘peaceful’ during the…
Oliver Gunovsky
Oliver Gunovsky was born in Trenčín, western Slovakia, in 1944. When he was four years old his father, Peter, left the country under the threat of arrest for his involvement in the black market, and his mother, Maria, felt pressure to move as well.…
Mila Kyncl
Mila Kyncl was born in Trhový Štěpánov, Bohemia, in 1935. her father was a businessman and worked the land that their family owned while her mother stayed at home to raise Mila. During WWII, Mila says German troops occupied her home, which was very…
Melania Rakytiak
Melania Rakytiak was born in Paris in March 1936. Her father was a Slovak laborer at a furniture factory while her mother, also Slovak, was a maid in the home of a wealthy French family. Melania’s mother died when she was only 10 months old. Her aunt…
Tags: 1968, 1968 emigrant/refugee, Catholicism, Catholics, Cierna Voda, Communist coup, Communist Party members, Divorce, Education, Family life, local, Lutherans, marriage, Marxism, Politics, Prague Spring, Refugee camp, school, Strecanska, Stredna pedagogicka skola, Surovce, Teachers, Warsaw Pact invasion, Women workers, World War II
Joe Gazdik
Joe Gazdik was born in the spa town of Trenčianske Teplice, in western Slovakia, in March 1940. His family had a small farm, which he and his brother helped look after. To make ends meet after WWII, Joe’s father worked on both the family farm and…
Jana Fiserova-Dadik
Jana Fiserova-Dadik was born in Prague in 1925. She was raised with her three siblings in the Smíchov district of the city, where her parents, Rudolph and Barbora, owned a restaurant. Jana speaks fondly of her childhood in and around the business;…
George Mesko
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…
Brother Gabriel Balazovic
Brother Gabriel Balazovic was born Julián Balažovič in Dolná Krupá, Slovakia, in 1949. His father worked as a forest ranger and then in a facility for the mentally ill, while his mother stayed at home and raised Julián and his six siblings. Upon…
Barbara Skypala
Barbara Skypala was born in Ružomberok, Slovakia, in 1930. She lived there until the age of eight, when she says the family was expelled from Slovakia due to her father’s Czech nationality. The Pellers spent WWII in Brno, where her father worked as a…
Anna Balev
Anna Balev was born in Olomouc, in Moravia, in 1950. She grew up outside the city in the small village of Březce with her parents, three siblings and grandparents. Prior to the Communist coup, Anna’s father, Jaroslav, was a language professor at a…