Consuela Moravkova
<p>Consuela Moravkova was born in Chrudim in eastern Bohemia in 1944. Her father, Ferdinand, owned a goldsmith business while her mother, Růžena, was an administrator. Consuela had two sisters and one brother, all of whom had names inspired by her grandfather’s (Emanuel Morávek) international travels as a composer and conductor. Influenced by her parents, who taught ballroom dancing, and her grandfather, Consuela showed an artistic bent from an early age and says she was often ‘singing all over the house.’ When Consuela’s father’s business was nationalized and he was arrested, she was not allowed to continue her education and was sent to train in a factory for three years. While there Consuela was active in an amateur theatre organization, which she says was a ‘beautiful time.’ After her work in the factory, Consuela acted in the České Budějovice theatre for a few years and then moved to Prague where she applied to a performing arts academy that did not accept her because she lacked a high school diploma. With her performing experience and some music training, Consuela became a professional actress and worked in movies, television, radio and theatre.</p><p> </p><p>In 1979, Consuela and her husband traveled to Britain with a state-sponsored program to learn English. Instead of returning to Czechoslovakia, they were sponsored by a cousin who lived in the United States and moved to New York City. Consuela says that she loved the ‘energy’ of the city, and she quickly found a job at a hospital cafeteria. She also began teaching yoga, a practice that she had first taken up as a teenager. Although Consuela had a role in an off-Broadway production of <em>Oedipus</em>, she decided not to pursue acting as a career, in part because of the language barrier. She did, however, do some acting and poetry readings with the local Czech community for a time. Today, Consuela is a yoga instructor with the New York Health and Racquet Club (where she has been teaching for over 30 years) and also works with private clients. She lives in Manhattan.</p>
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Dusan Schejbal
<p> </p><p>Dusan Schejbal was born in Prague in 1934. He spent most of his childhood, however, in Moravia – in Brno and then the village of Vranov during WWII. His father, Josef, was an officer in the Czechoslovak Air Force who fled to Britain to become an RAF pilot following the Nazi invasion. Dusan’s mother, Dobruška, meanwhile, was sent to a Nazi internment camp in Svatobořice between 1941 and 1943. Dusan and his mother spent the final years of the War together in Vranov, hiding in the woods, says Dusan, during the last few days of the conflict. They were reunited with Dusan’s father upon liberation in Prague in May 1945.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Dusan’s father had risen to prominence in the RAF during the War, achieving the rank of group captain and receiving an honorary award for his service from King George VI. Upon his return to Czechoslovakia in 1945, he became the commander of České Budějovice airfield. In 1947, he was appointed Czechoslovak military attaché to the United States and moved to Washington, D.C. to serve alongside Ambassador <a href="/web/20170612014146/http://www.ncsml.org/exhibits/juraj-slavik/">Juraj Slávik</a>. Dusan and his mother followed in 1948.</p><p> </p><p>Following the Communist takeover in 1948, Josef resigned from his post and the family moved to the suburbs of Maryland. Dusan says his father took a job as a gas station attendant, while his mother went to work as a sales lady at Garfinckel’s department store. Dusan attended Northwestern High School in Hyattsville and then the University of Maryland, where he majored in history and studied Russian as a minor. In 1957, Dusan was drafted into the U.S. Army and spent two years in Zweibruecken, Germany. Upon his return, he worked for the IRS and the Navy as a civilian employee. He married in 1962 and has three children. Today, Dusan lives in University Park, Maryland, with his wife, Krista. The pair travel extensively and Dusan says he still audits Russian classes at the University of Maryland.</p>
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Eda Vedral
<p>Eda Vedral was born in České Budějovice in 1927. His mother, Ludmila, was a teacher and his father, also named Eduard, was a journalist. When Eda was six, the Vedrals moved to Mladá Boleslav where his father worked as writer and editor for the local newspaper. Eda says that the year before he graduated from <em>gymnázium</em>, his class was sent to dig trenches for the German war effort. Since Eda had knee problems, he was sent back to Mladá Boleslav and became a firefighter to provide assistance in case of a bombing. At the end of WWII and in light of his training as a fireman, Eda took part in watching over and transporting Nazi prisoners. In the summer of 1945, Eda’s father again changed jobs and became a political writer for a newspaper in Liberec. Eda graduated from <em>gymnázium</em> there in 1946 and began studying journalism at Charles University in Prague. After the Communist coup in 1948, Eda switched his course of studies to law; he says he was eventually kicked out of university in 1949 because of his father’s political background. Back in Liberec, his uncle helped him to find a job as an accountant in a factory. He was fired three months later, but soon became an accountant for Liberec’s municipal services [<em>komunální služby města Liberec</em>].</p><p> </p><p>In April 1949, Eda’s future wife <a href="/web/20170612093232/http://www.ncsml.org/exhibits/alice-vedral/">Alice</a> (whom he had met in Prague while she was at business school) escaped from Czechoslovakia. He spent the next several months attempting to join her. On October 14, Eda crossed the border into Germany with 12 other people. He was sent to Ludwigsburg refugee camp where he was reunited with Alice. They soon married and had their first child, Alice. In early 1951, Eda joined the ranks of Radio Free Europe as a writer on the Czechoslovak desk and moved to Munich. In June 1952, the Vedrals received visas for the United States and arrived in Chicago. Eda says that they were helped by the Czech community there and he quickly found a job in a steel factory, which only lasted a short time. He then started working on the assembly line at Hotpoint, making washing machines and dryers. The Vedrals moved to Cicero, Illinois, and Eda and Alice had seven more children. Eda says that he made a point to speak to his children only in Czech; today, most of them still speak the language fluently. Eda also became very active in <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20170612093232/http://recordingvoices.blogspot.com/search/label/Tramping" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">expatriate tramping circles</a>. He has been the ‘sheriff’ of a group called Dálava for many years and has traveled to places like Canada, the Czech Republic, and the American West for tramping get-togethers.</p><p> </p><p>Eda became an American citizen in 1965; he says that he waited so long because he believed he would be returning to Czechoslovakia to live. In 1972, he made his first trip back to visit his mother in Písek. His father, whom Eda had not seen since he left the country, died shortly before his visit. Eda says he feels at home in both countries and, if not for his children living in the United States, would consider returning to the Czech Republic to live. Now retired, he lives in Cicero with his wife Alice.</p>
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Martin Herman
<p>Martin Herman was born in České Budějovice in 1948. He was only a few months old when he moved to Prague, where his father, Karel, had a job at a glass export company. While Martin and his siblings Jana and Peter were growing up, his mother, Jana, stayed at home, and Martin remembers her hosting many parties. Later, Jana had several good jobs, first working in a hotel and then in the Ministry of Finance. As a boy, Martin participated in recreational and competitive sports; he was on a basketball team, and also enjoyed soccer, tennis, and hockey. After elementary school, Martin attended Secondary Agricultural School in Čáslav. He graduated in 1968 and spent one year working, traveling, and studying for the entrance exams for university. Martin was in Vienna during the Warsaw Pact invasion in August 1968, and he says that he considered staying in Vienna, but his mother convinced him to return home. In the fall of 1969, he started studying at VŠE (University of Economics, Prague). While in school he worked as a night watchman and wrote summaries of foreign economics articles for the National Academy of Sciences. He also learned English and played tennis regularly.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Well before his graduation from university in 1974, Martin had been thinking seriously about leaving the country. A very close family friend, Litti Manzer, lived in Miesbach, Bavaria, and Martin decided to get a tourist visa to visit her. He did not have any luck obtaining the exit permit until an acquaintance with connections assisted him. In April 1975, Martin arrived in Miesbach and quickly found a job playing, coaching, and teaching lessons at a tennis club. Martin says that his time in Germany ‘exceeded expectations’ and that he lived in ‘extreme luxury;’ however, it was always his desire to go to the United States. He received sponsorship from the International Rescue Committee and arrived in New York in October 1976. Martin was accepted to a doctoral program in economics at Cornell University which he started in January 1977. A summer job at the World Bank in Washington, D.C. led to a full-time job there in 1978, first as a research assistant and later as an economist. Having left Cornell to pursue his career, Martin finished his master’s degree at George Washington University. In 1980, Martin married his wife Eva, a process which he says was made very complicated because she was told she needed permission from the Czechoslovak government to marry a foreigner. They were able to convince a German judge to waive this requirement, and they married at City Hall in Miesbach. Martin traveled a lot for work, but he says he was repeatedly denied requests for a visa to visit Czechoslovakia. After numerous attempts, in 1984, he was able to visit Prague.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Martin’s work at the World Bank put him in touch with leading Czech economists, politicians, and businessmen; upon retiring in 1998, he looked for business opportunities in the Czech Republic. Martin conceived of and is managing the American Fund for Czech and Slovak Leadership Studies’ Young Leaders and Young Talents programs; these programs provide opportunities for young people in the Czech and Slovak Republics to pursue a course of study and/or work in the United States. Today, Martin is an international consultant, and he lives in Arlington, Virginia, with his wife, Eva.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p>
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Paul Burik
<p>Paul Burik was born in the southern Bohemian town of České Budějovice in 1954. His father, Nicholas, was a doctor, while his mother, Vlasta, worked as a pharmacist. When Paul was still a toddler, the family moved to Prešov, in eastern Slovakia, which was where Paul’s father (who was ethnically Carpatho-Rusyn) had grown up. After nearly six years, however, the family moved back to Bohemia, first to Prčice and then Sedlčany, where Paul’s father worked as the chief surgeon in the local hospital. When Paul was still a teenager, his mother died of a terminal disease. His father worked long hours so Paul says he grew up fairly independently. In 1967 his father traveled to the United States to visit his brother (Paul’s uncle Alex) who had immigrated to Cleveland shortly after the Communist coup in Czechoslovakia. Paul says his father spoke with a number of American doctors during his visit to the States, but decided to return to Czechoslovakia because, at the time, ‘things were good there.’ Following the Soviet-led invasion in 1968, however, Paul’s father suggested to him that the pair resettle in America. Paul says he looked forward to the ‘adventure’ of emigrating and agreed with his father’s suggestion.</p><p> </p><p>The pair left Czechoslovakia on August 23, 1968 and spent almost three months in Vienna, Austria, where Paul attended English classes at the Berlitz language school. They lived in an apartment belonging to an Austrian physician who wanted to help Czech and Slovak doctors displaced by the invasion. Paul arrived in Cleveland on November 8, 1968 and says he was shocked at the size of the city, worrying in particular that it would prove ‘impossible to find his school’ in a town so large. He and his father spent their first couple of months living with Paul’s uncle Alex in Lakewood, Ohio, where Paul attended Harding Middle School. When Paul’s father secured a medical internship, the pair moved into an apartment provided by the hospital, where Paul says he spent a couple of ‘good, but challenging years’ as his father was so busy retraining as a doctor.</p><p> </p><p>In 1972, Paul enrolled at Kent State University where he studied architecture. He spent a term in Florence, Italy, and graduated in 1977. His first job was at Robert P. Madison International, an architecture firm in Cleveland. In 1985, he became an architect for the City of Cleveland. He retired in 2010. Paul says he is particularly proud to have worked on Cleveland’s Westside Market and Hopkins Airport, as well as City Hall and the municipality’s numerous recreation centers. Paul says that when he moved to Cleveland, his uncle Alex introduced him to local Rusyn and Ukrainian groups. Over time, however, he says he has become more involved in the local Czech community, joining the Czech American Committee of Greater Cleveland (Krajanský výbor) and the local chapter of the Czechoslovak Society of Arts and Sciences (SVU). He is currently president of Cleveland’s Czech Cultural Garden. Today, Paul lives in Avon, Ohio, with his wife Fran.</p>
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Pavel Opočenský
<p> </p><p>Pavel Opočenský was born in Karlovy Vary in 1954. His parents, Gustáv Opočenský and Františka Horáková, were both well-known actors. Pavel says that he was artistically inclined from a young age and that he enjoyed hobbies such as building ship models. He was fascinated with construction sites to the point that he was often absent after coming across one on his way to school. At the age of 15, Pavel began an apprenticeship in a relative’s metal workshop in České Budějovice, restoring items from churches and museums in need of repair. It was here that he became interested in jewelry making and design. After the three-year apprenticeship, Pavel traveled to Prague, went to a trade school for custom jewelry design, and joined a co-op; however, he did not finish either of those programs and decided to concentrate on producing his own pieces. He recalls having difficulty establishing himself as a professional artist in Czechoslovakia. Because he was not a member of the Communist Party and did not have the requisite education, Pavel was not able to sell his pieces through official means, and he instead went into business for himself. In order to escape arrest or police harassment on account of his entrepreneurship, Pavel’s friend (who owned an antique shop) falsified documents that stated he was performing repair work. Through this, and his work as a janitor in the Prague metro (which he claims required minimal effort), Pavel supported himself for a number of years.</p><p> </p><p>In 1979, Pavel signed Charter 77 and says he was immediately visited by the police who threatened him with arrest if he did not give them information about his acquaintances. Later that year, Pavel crossed the border into West Germany with an altered passport. After two and a half years in Germany, Pavel moved to the United States. He arrived in New York City in 1982 and shortly thereafter held his first exhibition. Pavel spent much of his time in New York working with ivory. In 1990, he returned to Czechoslovakia for good – a decision that was spurred by a visit one year earlier. Just one week after his return, Pavel was put in police custody and jailed for two months following an incident in which he killed a skinhead in self-defense. Although the process took over four years, Pavel was cleared of all charges. In addition to producing his own work, which now included sculpture, Pavel became a consultant to others in the art community because of his business experience in New York City. In 2003, Pavel was arrested and served three years in jail for sex with minors. Since his release in 2006, Pavel has continued to produce jewelry and art. He lives in Prague with his wife and son.</p>
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Vladimir Cvicela
<p>Vladimir Cvicela was born in Kl’ačany, Slovakia in 1946. He came from a farming family and says that, after school, he would chase rabbits with dogs and play hockey with the other village children. Growing up, Vladimir wanted to become an electrician, but began working as a repairman on the local collective farm instead. When he was 19 years old, Vladimir was conscripted into the Czechoslovak Army and sent to České Budějovice, where he trained as a tank driver. He says his tank unit was disbanded two years later, however, following the Soviet-led invasion in August 1968.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Vladimir spent his last year of military service helping farmers in the Šumava region of the Czech Republic. Following his time in the military, Vladimir returned to work at the collective farm in Kl’ačany. He left Czechoslovakia in 1969 when he visited Vienna on a bus trip organized by his employer from which he did not return. He says that he was approached by two Slovak emigrants in the Austrian capital who gave him information about how he too could claim asylum. Vladimir spent five months in Austria, where he found a job as a glazier’s assistant and started learning English. He came to Cleveland in March 1970, where he was met at the airport by two of his distant relatives who had also recently arrived in the city.</p><p> </p><p>Vladimir says he almost immediately found a job in Cleveland, at the city’s Sherwin-Williams Paint plant. He worked at the company for 12 years until he was laid off and found employment at Joseph & Feiss tailors. Outside of work, Vladimir was a member of the Cleveland Slovak soccer team, where he played goalkeeper. He met his wife Maria in 1980 when she came to Cleveland from Kolačkov, Slovakia to visit her sister, Ludmila Anderko. The two were married at Sts. Cyril & Methodius Catholic Church in Lakewood, Ohio, later that same year. Vladimir and Maria have two children who were raised understanding Slovak and as members of the Lucina Slovak Folklore Ensemble. Vladimir says it was ‘important’ for him that his children maintained Slovak traditions and the language, and that he is happy his children’s involvement in dance troupe Lucina has taken the family back to Slovakia on several occasions. Today, Vladimir lives with his wife Maria in Parma, Ohio, and is a grandfather. In his retirement, he maintains several rental properties around the city of Cleveland.</p>
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