Ája Vrzáňová-Steindler
<p>Ája Vrzáňová-Steindler was born in Prague in 1931. She began ice skating as a young girl and recalls training during WWII with little light due to blackouts. She says she felt a ‘whole new attitude’ that accompanied the end of WWII, as many international figure skaters came to Prague. In 1947, Ája moved to London to be coached by Arnold Gerschwiler. She lived and trained in London for six months of the year, and spent the rest of her time in Prague and Davos, Switzerland. Ája held the title of Czechoslovak national champion from 1947 to 1950 and competed in the 1948 Olympics. She won the World Championships in 1949 and, although Soviet authorities wanted her to travel to the Soviet Union to teach and coach figure skating, her mother convinced them to allow Ája to go to London in March 1950 to defend her title. Ája says that her parents encouraged her not to return to Czechoslovakia and so, after winning the championships, Ája stayed on with her coach in London. She says that after receiving threatening phone calls, she did not leave the house until receiving political asylum ten days later. Ája’s mother was able to leave the country as well; she was a passenger on an airplane that was hijacked en route to Prague and landed in Erding, Germany at a U.S. Army base. Ája’s father lost his job in the Ministry of Finance and ultimately decided not to leave Czechoslovakia permanently. It would be 13 years before Ája saw her father again.</p><p> </p><p>Ája signed a contract with the Ice Follies, moved to the United States, and skated with the tour for three years. She then joined the Ice Capades. During her 15 years with the Ice Capades, Ája was known as Ája Zanová. Ája’s mother, who had accompanied her on the Ice Follies tour, settled in Los Angeles where she became a voice and music teacher. Ája spent her breaks from the tour with her mother in California. In the late 1960s, Ája met her future Czech-born husband, Paul (Pavel) Steindler on a blind date. She married him in 1969, after leaving the Ice Capades. The couple lived in New York City where Paul owned several restaurants. Ája says that many Czechs congregated at their restaurants, which began her lifelong activity in the New York Czech community. After Paul’s death, Ája returned to the skating world, working as a judge, consultant and rink manager. She is a trustee of the Bohemian Benevolent and Literary Assocation (BBLA) and involved in the Association of Free Czechoslovak Sportsmen. In 2012, Ája received the Gratias Agit award from the Czech Ministry of Foreign Affairs, given to her for her “promotion of the good name of the Czech Republic abroad.” She was also awarded the Medal of Merit in Sports by the Czech president Václav Klaus in 2004. Ája has also been inducted into the World Figure Skating Hall of Fame. Today, Ája lives in Manhattan and frequently visits the Czech Republic.</p>
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Alex Cech
<p>Alex Cech was born in Kolín in Central Bohemia in 1927. His father Alois was the head of the Board of Civil Engineering in Kolín, while his mother Karolina stayed home and raised Alex and his older brother Vojen. Although there was little entertainment and he often went hungry, Alex says that the years during WWII were a ‘beautiful time’ as he developed very close relationships with his classmates. Alex was also involved in underground activities during the War, which involved sabotaging train tracks and highways used by the Nazi soldiers. He was detained for a short time by the Gestapo because of these activities.</p><p> </p><p>Upon graduating from gymnázium in 1946, Alex spent one month as a tour guide with a group of French students. That fall, he began studying medicine at Charles University in Prague. Following the Communist coup in February 1948, Alex was arrested, but soon released. In 1949, he was expelled from school during a time when the Communist Party undertook a massive review of university students. Alex believes that his expulsion was a result of an incident several months earlier when he was ordered to report to a labor camp, but was able to get a note from a doctor stating that he was not able to do so. In June 1949, Alex and a friend secured jobs at a farm cooperative in the Šumava region with the intention of leaving the country if the opportunity arose. Only a few days after arriving, Alex crossed the border into Germany. He was sent to a processing camp in Amberg, and then to a refugee camp at Ludwigsburg.</p><p> </p><p>In November 1950, Alex’s brother (who had left Czechoslovakia in 1947 and made his way to South America) sponsored him to come to Venezuela. His brother helped him to find his first job as a diesel mechanic in a cement factory. In 1953, Alex moved to Maracaibo and began working as a salesman for a large import company. He met his German-born wife, Katja, in 1957. In December 1958, Alex moved to New York City. Katja, who had returned to Germany, received a visa shortly thereafter. The couple married and settled in Queens. Alex’s first job in the United States was as head waiter at the Golden Door restaurant. In 1961, he worked for one year as a manager for an export agency which saw him traveling through Central and South America for all but two weeks out of the year. In 1964 Alex bought his own export company. He later bought a company that imported steel into the United States. After the fall of communism in his homeland, Alex began working for Pfizer as a liaison between the company and private buyers in Czechoslovakia.</p><p> </p><p>Over the years, Alex was an active member of the Czech community in New York. He was president of the Association of Free Czechoslovak Sportsmen, an organization that sponsored skiing competitions and tennis matches. Alex was also instrumental in the revival of the Bohemian Benevolent and Literary Association, which acts as an umbrella organization for a number of Czech and Slovak heritage groups, and served as president of the association. He lived in Bronxville, New York, with his wife until his death in late 2012.</p>
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Alfonz Sokol
<p>Alfonz Sokol was born in Michalovce, eastern Slovakia, in 1956. He grew up in the village of Vel’ké Zálužie with his parents, Alfonz and Milena. His father worked in the office of a grain collection and processing facility while his mother stayed at home and raised him. Alfonz’s maternal grandfather had immigrated to the United States for economic reasons prior to WWII; his wife joined him after the War. When Alfonz was in fourth grade, his parents divorced.</p><p> </p><p>Alfonz attended school in his village until fifth grade when he went to a larger school in Michalovce. He recalls his involvement in the Pioneer youth group and says that many of his group’s activities focused on botany. In the summer of 1966, Alfonz and his mother visited his grandparents who had settled in Cleveland. Upon returning home, he says his mother began making plans to emigrate. It took three years before Alfonz and his mother were finally able to leave, as they had to sell their house and receive permission from Alfonz’s father. This permission was never given, and Alfonz left the country under an assumed name. In early summer 1969, Alfonz and his mother crossed the border into Austria. They applied for a visa at the U.S. Embassy, and, while waiting, rented a suite in a guest house. Alfonz’s grandparents sponsored the pair, which facilitated the process and, after five weeks, Alfonz and his mother flew to the United States. They settled in Cleveland where his mother quickly found a job cleaning hotels. On weekends, Alfonz helped his grandmother clean offices at an oil processing plant.</p><p> </p><p>Alfonz went to Hillside Middle School for eighth grade where he says studying was a struggle because he did not speak English. He communicated with a Russian language teacher and a Ukrainian student while learning English from a picture book. He says that biology and math were especially challenging subjects for him. His high school Russian teacher convinced him to study the language in college, and after taking some core courses at Tri-C Community College, Alfonz enrolled at Ohio State University. In 1976, he traveled abroad to Moscow and studied for three months at the Pushkin State Russian Language Institute. On the advice of a professor, Alfonz joined the U.S. Army Reserves as a Russian linguist; he went on active duty in 1981. In the mid-1980s, he was stationed in Munich debriefing Slovak refugees. Alfonz met his wife, Donna, at a Slovak dinner in Lakewood in 1990; the pair married in December 1991. They have three sons together. Alfonz has been involved in the Slovak community in Cleveland, attending dances and picnics and participating in organizations such as Bratislava-Cleveland Sister Cities. Today, Alfonz lives in Parma, Ohio, with his wife and children.</p>
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Alice Vedral
<p>Alice Vedral was born near Prague in 1928. Her father, who was Ukrainian, had moved to Czechoslovakia when Ukraine became part of the Soviet Union. Wen she was two, Alice’s father died, and she and her mother went to live with her grandparents and uncle in Nehvizdy, central Bohemia. In the summer of 1940, Alice’s mother and uncle were arrested by the Gestapo. Her mother spent thirteen months in prison in Leipzig, while her uncle was sentenced to two years in Austria. Alice recalls spending much of her free time assisting her elderly grandparents on their farm during this period. When WWII ended, Alice enrolled in the Akademie obchodní Dr. Edvarda Beneše [Benes Business School] to study accounting; she says that her love of mathematics led her to choose this field of study. While attending school, Alice lived with her mother (who had since remarried) in the Břevnov district of Prague and worked in the shop her mother ran.</p><p> </p><p>Following the Communist coup, Alice says that several of her friends were in contact with the CIA regarding uranium mining in Czechoslovakia; when a few of them were caught taking background files from the university, the authorities began arresting members of her group. In the spring of 1949, Alice received word that she too was in danger of being arrested and decided to leave the country. She crossed the border into Germany with three other people in April 1949. In her attempt to cross the border, Alice says she was assisted by a priest and spent part of the journey in a false-bottomed cart.</p><p> </p><p>Alice arrived in Ludwidsburg refugee camp and, six months later, was reunited with her companion from Prague, <a href="/web/20170612093138/http://www.ncsml.org/exhibits/eda-vedral/">Eda Vedral</a>, whom she married shortly thereafter. While in Ludwigsburg, Alice found a job as a receptionist in the camp’s X-ray office. She gave birth to her first child, also named Alice, in 1950, and moved with her husband to Munich in 1951, when he took a job at Radio Free Europe. Alice describes the family’s journey to the United States as eventful, as she was seven months pregnant, they had to make several stops to repair the plane, and the Vedrals’ baby fell ill. In June 1952, one week after leaving Germany, the family arrived in New York and subsequently settled in Chicago. Alice found a job in a factory making coils for radios, but stopped working when their family expanded. Alice and Eda eventually had eight children. Many of their children, and some grandchildren, speak Czech fluently. Alice became involved in the Chicago Czech community and participated in groups such as Czechoslovak Exiles in Chicago and Orel in Exile. She returned to Czechoslovakia for the first time in 1969, and witnessed the Velvet Revolution while on a trip to Prague in 1989. Today, Alice lives in Cicero, Illinois, with her husband, Eda.</p>
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Andrew Hudak
<p> </p><p>Andrew Hudak was born in Kecerovské Pekl’any, in the Šariš region of Slovakia, in 1928. His father (also called Andrew) owned a farm, which he had purchased after returning to Slovakia from the United States, where he had raised money working in an Iowa mine. Andrew says that growing up, he and his family ‘produced everything they ate’ and that the farm his family lived on employed ‘progressive’ agricultural methods, which his father had learned in the United States. Andrew attended elementary school in his village before being sent to Nitra to study at the Mission of the Society of the Divine Word. He returned to Kecerovské Pekl’any at the end of 1944 when the seminary was closed because of WWII. He says it was at this time that he decided not to become a priest. Following liberation, Andrew moved to the Czech border town of Aš, where he says many hundreds of Slovaks settled following the expulsion of Sudeten Germans under the Beneš Decrees. There, he helped establish The Slovak Catholic Youth Association and had a radio broadcast, called <em>Hlas Slovenska</em> [<em>Voice of Slovakia</em>]. He moved back to Podbrezová, Slovakia, after a short time having lost his job, for what Andrew says were political reasons. Again unemployed in the fall of 1947, Andrew decided to move to the United States and join his father, who had been working in Cleveland for a year already.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Andrew arrived in Cleveland on January 8, 1948. He quickly found a job at the White Sewing Machine Corporation. He says he was pleasantly surprised by the amount of Slovak activity he found in the city and subsequently established the Slovak Catholic Youth Club (later the Slovak Dramatic Club) with some of the new immigrants he met at English-language night classes. After two and a half years in his first job, Andrew bought a restaurant called the Lorain Square Lunch Room, where he worked as a chef. He became involved in property development and construction and eventually established his own travel agency, Adventure International Travel Service, which he opened a branch of in Bratislava in 1992. Andrew remained extremely active in the American Slovak community, as president of the Lakewood Slovak Civic Club for ten years and founder of two branches of the Slovak League of America, in Parma and Strongsville, Ohio. In 1982, he became president of the Slovak Garden retirement community in Florida – a position he held for fourteen and a half years. In 2002, he became head of the Cleveland Slovak Institute, an organization which aims to preserve and protect the history of Slovaks in America. Andrew is married to Sophia Beno Hudak and the couple have three children, Andrew, Paul and Steven. In 1993, Andrew became a dual citizen of Slovakia and the United States.</p><p> </p><p><a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20170609120152/http://www.slovakinstitute.com/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Link to the Slovak Institute’s web pages</a></p><p><a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20170609120152/http://ncsml.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/e-Hudak_-_FINAL.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Full transcript of Andrew Hudak’s interview</a></p>
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Anna Balev
<p><img class="alignleft wp-image-2339 size-full" src="http://web.archive.org/web/20170609072058im_/http://ncsml.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/SQ-Anna-Balev.png" alt="" width="235" height="235" /></p><p>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 nearby <em>gymnázium</em>. Anna describes him as an ‘avid Catholic’ who ‘went out of his way to provoke’ the communist authorities. He was arrested and sent to prison for two years. Anna’s mother, Blažena, returned to school to become a nurse in order to support the family once her father ran into trouble. Anna says that she was the only one in her class who was not a Pioneer and was instead sent to religion classes. Each year Anna spent the summer with her maternal uncle and aunt in Krnov, times she fondly recalls. Following the 1968 Warsaw Pact invasion, Anna’s brother left the country and settled in Canada.</p><p> </p><p>Anna attended <em>gymnázium</em> in Šternberk and hoped to study languages at Charles University (she was taught French, German and Latin by her father), but was not accepted. She instead decided to study nursing, recognizing that a practical profession would make it easier to start a life elsewhere if she left the country. Anna studied for two years in Olomouc and moved to Prague where she worked at a psychiatric hospital. She then took a job in Karlovy Vary, where she was hired because of her German language skills. In 1975 Anna reconnected with her future husband, an American who had emigrated from Ukraine. The pair had met while she was living in Prague and he was visiting the capital city. They decided to marry in order for Anna to legally leave the country. After getting married in Karlovy Vary, Anna immediately set about getting permission to immigrate to the United States. She arrived in New York City in May 1976 and was handed her green card at the airport.</p><p> </p><p>Anna says that she ‘fell in love immediately’ with the city and was astonished at the freedom she now enjoyed. While studying for her RN exam, Anna found a job at a women’s clinic. She subsequently worked at Roosevelt Hospital and for a plastic surgeon. Anna stopped practicing nursing when her first daughter was born in 1980. Her second daughter was born two years later. Anna also attended Hunter College part-time from her first year in New York. In 1985 she received degrees in English and theatre arts. Today Anna is the owner of a rental company and owns property in the Czech Republic as well as New York.</p><p> </p><p>Anna has returned to the Czech Republic nearly every year since she left and has recently become a dual citizen of the Czech Republic and the United States. She is active in the Czech community in New York as a member of Sokol and the local chapter of SVU (Czechoslovak Academy of Arts and Sciences). Today, Anna lives in New York City with her husband.</p>
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Anne McKeown
<p> </p><p>Anne McKeown was born in Pribiš, Slovakia, in 1945. Although her parents were living abroad due to her father’s position as a diplomat, her mother returned to her family home to give birth to Anne. They returned to Marseille, France, when Anne was six weeks old and lived there for the next five years. Anne’s brother, Patrick, was born in 1949. That same year, Anne’s father, knowing that he did not want his family to live under communism, resigned from his government position and applied for asylum in the United States, Canada, and Australia. In 1950, they received permission to move to Australia, and settled in Melbourne where her father got a job with Caterpillar and her mother took in boarders. Anne says she had a ‘wonderful’ childhood in Melbourne and particularly remembers attending the Slovak dances that her mother helped organize.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>In 1957, Anne and her family moved to Whiting, Indiana, under the sponsorship of old friends who were from the same town in Slovakia. She graduated high school at the age of 16 and enrolled in the nursing school at Purdue University. After graduating, Anne moved to the Virginia suburbs of Washington, D.C. and began working at Northern Virginia Doctors’ Hospital. She subsequently worked as a doctor’s assistant in a private office and then as the assistant to the chief of surgery at Columbia Hospital for Women in Washington, D.C. Anne met her husband in 1968, and they married two years later in Whiting. Anne says she vividly recalls her first trip back to Czechoslovakia in 1973 where she was viewed with suspicion because of her Slovak origin.</p><p> </p><p>As an active member of the Slovak American Society of Washington, D.C., Anne has recently been involved in planning the annual Svätý Mikuláš [St. Nicholas] party. Her husband, Jim, has taken an interest in her Slovak heritage and enjoys painting traditional decorated <em>kraslice</em> [Easter eggs]. They split their time between Falls Church, Virginia, and Bratislava, where they own an apartment.</p>
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Antonin Varga
<p>Antonin Varga was born in Šternberk, Moravia, in 1966. His mother was a waitress and his father worked in a number of different jobs, notably as a butcher and waiter, and then as a guard. Antonin says that, prior to his birth, his father had spent one year in prison for attempting to emigrate. Antonin grew up with an older sister, Ludmila, and a younger brother, Roman. From an early age, Antonin says his dream was to become a DJ. In the 1980s he would record music he was lent onto Polish cassette tapes, and says he played parties and special events in villages close by.</p><p> </p><p>Antonin came to the United States in 1997. He says he had wanted to travel for a long time, but had never had the money to do so. He came to America with two of his former colleagues after receiving severance pay from his employer. Antonin says the plan was to stay in the United States for one year before returning home. He quickly began to enjoy living in Chicago, however, and came to know many expatriate Czechs in the city. Antonin says he soon found DJ-ing jobs at Klas Czech Restaurant and Café Prague, and played in a band. At around about this time, Antonin says he felt that Czech and Slovak cultural life in Chicago underwent something of a revival. Today, Antonin says he can make a living playing music in Chicago in a way that he would not be able to in the Czech Republic. For this reason, he has no plans to return to Europe. Antonin adds that he has ‘no regrets’ about his decision to move to the United States, although he says he still feels totally Czech and ‘not at all American’ after 15 years in the country. He continues to DJ in Czech restaurants in Chicago three nights a week. Today, Antonin lives in Chicago with a collection of over 3000 CDs.</p>
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Barbara Reinfeld
<p>Barbara Reinfeld was born in Prague in 1935. Her father, Miloslav, was a journalist who had also worked as a parliamentary stenographer for the National Socialist (or Beneš) Party. Her mother, Zdislava, who studied in the United States for two years, taught English and physical education before Barbara and her older brother, Erazim, were born. In 1941, Barbara’s father was arrested for resistance activity and sent to Pankrác prison for one year. He was then sent to Mauthausen concentration camp for the remainder of the War. Barbara’s mother was taken to Terezín in 1944. While both of her parents were imprisoned, Barbara lived with her mother’s brother in Prague. Barbara’s parents survived Nazi detention and returned to Prague at the end of the War. In 1947, Barbara’s father, who was active in the YMCA, was sent to the United States on a goodwill mission. Soon after he returned, the Communist coup occurred and Barbara’s parents decided to leave the country. In March 1948, the family traveled to Kvilda in southern Bohemia where they met a guide and other escapees. They crossed into Germany on foot and were sent to Regensburg refugee camp. Barbara’s father, with his connections through the YMCA, secured an apartment for the family in Munich where they stayed for almost one year while waiting for permission to immigrate to the United States.</p><p> </p><p>In August 1949, Barbara and her family sailed to New York City. They were greeted by their sponsor, Mr. Sibley, whom Barbara’s father had met while on his mission to the United States. For a few months, Barbara’s family lived on a farm owned by Mr. Sibley in upstate New York. In 1950, Barbara’s father got a job with Radio Free Europe and they moved to the borough of Queens in New York City. Barbara attended Adelphi Academy in Brooklyn and then Carleton College in Minnesota. Meanwhile, Barbara’s parents moved to Munich where her father continued his work with Radio Free Europe and her mother became a librarian. Barbara received her master’s degree in history from Columbia University and began studying for her doctorate. She married and had two children. Barbara returned to Czechoslovakia twice in the 1960s. She finished her dissertation on the Czech writer and journalist Karel Havlíček Borovský and received her doctorate in Czech history from Columbia in 1979. Barbara taught history at the New York Institute of Technology and Hofstra University for over 25 years. In 2007, she took a group of students from Hofstra to Prague where they took classes and experienced the culture. Barbara has been a long-standing member of the Czechoslovak Society of Arts and Sciences (SVU). In her retirement, she volunteers at local landmarks and is looking forward to traveling to her home country once again. Today, Barbara lives in Carle Place, New York, with her husband, Bob.</p>
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Bronislava Grelova Gres
<p> </p><p>Bronislava (Brona) Gres was born in Liptovský Mikuláš in central Slovakia and grew up in the nearby village of Liptovské Sliače. She and her twin sister, <a href="/web/20170609044444/http://www.ncsml.org/exhibits/zuzana-lanc/">Zuzana</a>, lived with their mother, <a href="/web/20170609044444/http://www.ncsml.org/exhibits/anna-vesela/">Anna Vesela</a>, and their grandparents. Brona says that some aspects of her childhood were ‘tough,’ as her uncle had immigrated to the United States and her family attended church, which led to some unfair treatment at school. In 1987, Brona’s mother moved to the United States and married Zdenek Vesely, an American citizen. Although the plan was for the girls to follow shortly after, it took well over one year for Brona and Zuzana to be allowed to leave the country. Brona says that, although they had no trouble receiving visas, their passports were confiscated for awhile. They arrived in the United States in October 1988 and settled in with their mother and stepfather, who now had their younger sister, <a href="/web/20170609044444/http://www.ncsml.org/exhibits/margret-vesely/">Margret</a>, in Aurora, Illinois.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Brona says that the first few months in the United States were difficult as she was not comfortable with the English language. Brona and Zuzana received English lessons from a tutor who also helped them enroll in the local high school. In January 1989, they started as juniors in the ESL program, and the following year took regular classes as seniors and graduated.</p><p> </p><p>Brona married a fellow Slovak émigré and had two children. She and her husband spoke Slovak to their children, and she regularly cooked Slovak food and kept traditional Slovak customs during the holidays. Although an American citizen, Brona says that she felt like a ‘Slovak living in America’ and she returned to Slovakia every year with her family for visits. She was closely involved in the Czechoslovak community in the Chicago area and attended get-togethers. She lived with her family in Darien, Illinois, until her death in 2014.</p>
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