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Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Recording Voices & Documenting Memories of Czech & Slovak Americans
Subject
The topic of the resource
Recording Voices & Documenting Memories of Czech & Slovak Americans was an oral history project launched by the National Czech & Slovak Museum & Library in 2009. The project captured and preserved the stories of Czechs and Slovaks who left their homeland during the Cold War and settled in New York City, Washington, D.C., Cleveland, Chicago and the San Francisco Bay Area. During the second phase of the project, the NCSML recorded the stories of immigrants who came to the United States after the fall of communism in 1989 as well. By the conclusion of the project in August 2013, the NCSML had collected more than 300 oral histories. <br /><br />Both phases of the project were made possible by grants from the Institute of Museum and Library Services. <br /><br />On the project’s website, you can read biographies of Czechs and Slovaks who began a new life in the United States, watch video clips from their interviews, and view photos and other archival materials they shared with us. <br /><br />Full length interviews are available for further research at the National Czech & Slovak Museum & Library. For more information, contact Dave Muhlena, Library Director, at dmuhlena@ncsml.org.
Oral History
A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
Transcription
Any written text transcribed from a sound
<h4>First Thoughts</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/48xKDHZld0k?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0" id="undefined"></iframe><p>“My neighbor was lent a dream book, and then his daughter gave me this dream book – I have it at home. In it was written that Pisces, which is my sign, not being close to the sea, will go to the other side of the world in search of the sea later on in life. And already then I thought: America! I don’t know why I didn’t think of Germany or… But the other side of the world meant a different continent…”</p><h4>Daughters</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/yLzrvqrwDnU?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0"></iframe><p>“Not from Czechoslovakia – they told me at the Embassy when I went in November that they would be here at the soonest in half a year, my daughters. But at the immigration office they lost their papers three times. And we went there, with my friend, and they said ‘We don’t have them. Next!’ As if we weren’t there… So then, I was so unhappy and going to English classes and a Polish woman came. She came to join her husband who had been her for seven years already. And so I told her about the problems I was having and she advised me ‘You know what? Go to Batavia, and there’s a congressman. You don’t need to speak to him, but he has a secretary, Zuzana – Sue, and she will help you.’… When I told her – and even now I don’t know English well, and then I was even worse – this one was little, I remember it was May when I began visiting her every week. I complained in May ‘What’s going on?’ They had gone to [the American] Embassy and were told there that they knew nothing about it.</p><p>“So she told me, ask once again for all of their documents, like birth certificates etc. So, once again, the family had to go and get all this, and I brought them to Sue. And she, from her own telephone, at three in the morning, called the Embassy in [Czechoslovakia]. She had to put in her own code and all of these numbers, told them I’m married here, that I have a Green Card, that my husband is an American citizen. And on the basis of this they got visas to come here. She did that for us, Sue.</p><p>“When the girls came here, we all put together a vase like the one over there on the stove and I don’t know what else – a fruit bowl – three things altogether. And we went to see her and thank her. It wasn’t a bribe, because she had already taken care of it. So we went to see Sue. But it was only her. I don’t know what would have happened if it weren’t for her. But you see – even in the worst cases, you can find a solution.”</p><h4>Citizenship Interview</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/v8_9Q87Jc6g?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0"></iframe><p>“I came to the lady and first they ask ‘Why did you come here?’ And I started from Adam and Eve about how I finished school, how I was thrown out of teaching and I went on for 40 minutes. She brought me a coffee and tissues, we cried together when I told her about how I was thrown out of teaching and how I went to the Virgin Mary to ask her for help, and how I had a husband who had shot my eye out. In the end when I left, we gave each other a hug!”</p>
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Anna Vesela
Description
An account of the resource
<p>Anna Vesela was born in Lipnica Mała – in what is today Poland – in 1945. She spent most of her childhood in the Orava region of Slovakia. Her father had trained as a joiner in Zakopane but spent much of his career working as an X-ray technician in a military hospital. Anna’s mother worked as a server in a canteen. Anna had two brothers and a sister. She attended teacher training college and graduated in 1974, but was thrown out of her job as a teacher the following year – she says on grounds of her religious beliefs. From then on, Anna worked as a cleaner. As a hobby, Anna played bass for the Slovak folk ensemble SĽUK, with which she traveled to Yugoslavia and the United States.</p><p> </p><p>Anna says her family on her father’s side had spent time in Pennsylvania and that she thought of traveling to America from an early age. Her brother emigrated to the United States and, in 1981, she came to visit him. She returned to Czechoslovakia after one year and a half. In Slovakia, Anna had two daughters, <a href="/web/20170612093341/http://www.ncsml.org/exhibits/bronislava-grelova-gres/">Brona</a> and <a href="/web/20170612093341/http://www.ncsml.org/exhibits/zuzana-lanc/">Zuzana</a>, both of whom she raised as a single mother. In 1987, Anna returned to the United States and applied to have her two daughters join her. She says this process was complicated when U.S. Immigration Services lost her daughters’ documents. Brona and Zuzana joined their mother in the Chicagoland area in 1988. In the United States, Anna met her husband, Zdeněk Vesely, and the couple had a daughter, <a href="/web/20170612093341/http://www.ncsml.org/exhibits/margret-vesely/">Margret</a>. Anna worked in a number of restaurants and as a housekeeper for a family in Saint Charles. She became an American citizen in the mid-1990s. Anna returns to Slovakia at least once every two years and still refers to Slovakia as ‘home.’ Today, she lives in Darien, Illinois.</p>
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
National Czech & Slovak Museum & Library
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
NCSML Archive
American citizenship
Arts
Cultural Traditions
Grelova
Lipnica Mala
Teachers
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Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Recording Voices & Documenting Memories of Czech & Slovak Americans
Subject
The topic of the resource
Recording Voices & Documenting Memories of Czech & Slovak Americans was an oral history project launched by the National Czech & Slovak Museum & Library in 2009. The project captured and preserved the stories of Czechs and Slovaks who left their homeland during the Cold War and settled in New York City, Washington, D.C., Cleveland, Chicago and the San Francisco Bay Area. During the second phase of the project, the NCSML recorded the stories of immigrants who came to the United States after the fall of communism in 1989 as well. By the conclusion of the project in August 2013, the NCSML had collected more than 300 oral histories. <br /><br />Both phases of the project were made possible by grants from the Institute of Museum and Library Services. <br /><br />On the project’s website, you can read biographies of Czechs and Slovaks who began a new life in the United States, watch video clips from their interviews, and view photos and other archival materials they shared with us. <br /><br />Full length interviews are available for further research at the National Czech & Slovak Museum & Library. For more information, contact Dave Muhlena, Library Director, at dmuhlena@ncsml.org.
Oral History
A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
Transcription
Any written text transcribed from a sound
<h4>Melbourne</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Ay-8Yz7cx5Q?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0" id="undefined"></iframe><p>“Well, he [Anne’s father] obviously spoke fluent English, so people didn’t have a place to live, my father would help, people were in hospitals. So then this whole group of Slovaks then decided they were going to meet at St. Monica’s one Sunday a month, and then they started these dances. Six years they built a little church in the outskirts, the boonies, with all the money they made as profits from the dances.</p><p><em>Can you maybe tell me a bit more, for example, you’ve mentioned these dances a couple of times. How many people were coming along to them, and what sort of foods were you making?</em></p><p>“Well, the typical goulash and whatever they could haul on the trolley busses. I know all the ladies got involved, and of course they served beer and I guess hard alcohol. As a child I remember dancing a lot. But then the young men would have arguments, and so my mother took it over, Mrs. Gornal took it over. And there was no more trouble.”</p><h4>Indiana</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/7xW9FCksQYM?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0"></iframe><p>“Well, there were two Slovak churches. One for the people from Orava, and one for the people from the other side, St. John the Baptist, and Immaculate Conception. There was also a Slovak Lutheran church, and there was also a synagogue in the town. And yes, the Irish were on one side with Sacred Heart and the Polish were at St. Adalbert’s. Now this is a town of 10,000. There must have been a church on every block depending on what nationality you were. That’s the way it was, you went to your church. And it was very hardworking – hardworking people.”</p><h4>Education</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/coXszeLcqSs?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0"></iframe><p>“So everyone, all of these Slovaks in the ’50s, or that left in the ’40s, ’50s, the big thing for you was ‘You go to school!’ And of course, because this family was so bright, my mother would say, ‘If you don’t do your studies I’m gonna put my head in the oven!’ You had to study.”</p><h4>Return to Slovakia</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/YP8-T7fniQI?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0"></iframe><p>“You were very cautious about everything you did. With my mother’s first cousin, Oliver, he was probably about 60, we were in our 20s. And I can remember crossing the Austrian border and there was a border patrol, one gentleman at the Austrian border in a shack and he saluted us and he said, ‘Good luck.’ We go into the bridge into Bratislava, and everything there is machine guns, soldiers. There’s not a tree, there’s watchtowers every thirty feet. It was so frightening. They’re looking under your car with mirrors, they’re opening your car – frightening, frightening.”</p><h4>Mikulas Party</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/ZdjnDfrenfo?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0"></iframe><p>“I’d go to the events, but I wasn’t as involved. Then I became more involved. Then we started having the Mikuláš parties. And normally I was in charge, I was in charge of Mikuláš. We’d have volunteers make <em>holúbky</em> and desserts and things like that, and it’s just gotten bigger and bigger. Now of course, we go to the Slovak embassy. It’s become big. And then of course we invite the embassy staff. Last Christmas we had thirty children, which is a large amount. And we have an actor who plays Mikuláš. We’ve had other people, but he’s the best. And so we told him this year, ‘Do it fast, because we have thirty kids.”</p>
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Anne McKeown
Description
An account of the resource
<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>
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
National Czech & Slovak Museum & Library
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
NCSML Archive
Community Life
Cultural Traditions
Education
Gornalova
Holubky
Pribis
Svaty Mikulas
Women workers
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b97330c7d2e95903b4441427b185776b
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Recording Voices & Documenting Memories of Czech & Slovak Americans
Subject
The topic of the resource
Recording Voices & Documenting Memories of Czech & Slovak Americans was an oral history project launched by the National Czech & Slovak Museum & Library in 2009. The project captured and preserved the stories of Czechs and Slovaks who left their homeland during the Cold War and settled in New York City, Washington, D.C., Cleveland, Chicago and the San Francisco Bay Area. During the second phase of the project, the NCSML recorded the stories of immigrants who came to the United States after the fall of communism in 1989 as well. By the conclusion of the project in August 2013, the NCSML had collected more than 300 oral histories. <br /><br />Both phases of the project were made possible by grants from the Institute of Museum and Library Services. <br /><br />On the project’s website, you can read biographies of Czechs and Slovaks who began a new life in the United States, watch video clips from their interviews, and view photos and other archival materials they shared with us. <br /><br />Full length interviews are available for further research at the National Czech & Slovak Museum & Library. For more information, contact Dave Muhlena, Library Director, at dmuhlena@ncsml.org.
Oral History
A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
Transcription
Any written text transcribed from a sound
<h4>TELSA</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/BiBfJKMJu0A?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0" id="undefined"></iframe><p>“There were parts of the factory where I couldn’t go, that were marked secret. I don’t even know what they were doing. I started to work in the industry in TESLA and I found out, as we were saying in Czechoslovakia, that we were 100 years behind the apes in electronics. Because what they were doing, they were actually doing reverse engineering. They took a transistor, American-made or some other made, or integrated circuit, and they took it apart to find out how it was made and then they tried to make the same thing. But we were running a huge operation. I was a supervisor for a while on the epitaxy, on silicon wafers which were for power transistors. After I was offered membership in the Communist Party and I very politely refused, I was no longer supervisor. I worked as a technologist in integrated circuits and then I left the area to work in the office for inventions and patents – it was still in the same factory, but a different place – and improvement suggestions. I was there for a couple years, and after that, just took off.”</p><h4>Tramping</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/GxtTcUxH8Mw?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0"></iframe><p>“Tramp here means somebody who lives on the street; this was completely different, they just used the word – they were like Sokol, but unorganized. There were no leaders. On weekends, they went out and got on trains. Usually they had on soldiers’ dress, like old-time uniforms from the first World War, even backpacks and stuff. And they would sleep outside without a tent, because a tent was considered to be, I don’t know the word for it, but like spoiled. For people who really don’t belong in nature – they sleep in tents, they could as well stay home, or get in a car, drive somewhere and then put up a tent – it was like, no. You have to get on a train and walk. And it was really nice.</p><p>“It was just singing songs. I was even collecting tramp songs for a long time. I really liked it, because those are truly, truly romantic songs about America, which people in America have no idea. It’s just funny how people romanticized this country.”</p><h4>Banjo</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/LVNMRyUHt8A?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0"></iframe><p>“The five-string banjo, actually, I just fell in love with it – I was already playing the guitar. There was a movie, one of the movies they let through, because the movie didn’t contain any scene about a private [swimming] pool. There was a commission approving the films for distribution and one of the things, which I found out, if there was a private pool, the movie was out. It couldn’t be shown. This was not the case; the movie was Bonnie and Clyde – there were no pools in Bonnie and Clyde, just some shooting. And there was this track when the cars were going, it was a chase and there was this track. It was Earl Scruggs playing “Foggy Mountain Breakdown.” That was exhilarating. We went to see that movie maybe four times, just to hear that. And I couldn’t believe it. I was playing at the time the four-string banjo which is a completely different instrument, and I thought, how is his picking so fast? I was trying to copy it and there was no way.”</p><h4>Precautions</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/y74w22Uwsco?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0"></iframe><p>“So we have hidden all the documents in our luggage. There was a piece of luggage, it was this bag, and it had an inforced bottom. It was like thick paper. So I took it apart, sliced the paper apart. I dug out space on both sides, and our marriage certificate and documents which we needed to have with us, I put there, glued everything together, put it overnight under a piece of furniture. I also made it black on both sides, inside and outside, in case they would use some light or something, I thought maybe that would help, the black color would block it, and put it back together. I wouldn’t believe that it was there. And the money that I bought on the black market, where do you hide the money? Well, our son who was nine years old, Bobby, same name as me – our older son’s name is Mark, Marek – so Bobby had a little [stuffed] doggy. And I thought that the doggy, he had a inforcement in the neck, to keep the neck up. So Vilma carefully cut an opening in the bottom of the dog, we took out the inforcement and rolled the money into a roll, put it back on the inforcement, and she nicely sewed it back. So our son had the money all the time, in his doggy.”</p><h4>Refugee Camp</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/td2AJwEorao?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0"></iframe><p>“There was so-called isolation. They put everybody who was new in so-called isolation. You couldn’t talk to anybody else, you were going to meals at different times from everybody else, and we were not allowed to open a window and talk to anybody. The reason for that was that they needed to first separate any people who were escaping from the law, who killed somebody, and in those couple days they hoped they would be able to find out. But also, most important, there was an interview after those three days, and they didn’t want people to get smart, to know what to say, because based on that interview, the Austrian authorities decided if they give you political asylum or not. So if you got political asylum you could stay in Austria, if not, you had to go somewhere else.”</p><h4>Peet Seeger</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/fS0yEDouJPA?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0"></iframe><p>“We came to Baltimore, and I was here for just a couple years, and I heard that my huge idol, Pete Seeger, who I admired so much playing his five-string banjo and how he played guitar – just a tremendous influence on me, and he was in Baltimore, so I had to go see him, even when we didn’t have much money, but this is something I would regret for the rest of my life if I missed it. So I took my two sons and we went to the concert and I was so happy that he was there. But then, President Reagan was president at the time, and Pete Seeger started to sing a song – “This Old Man” – [which] was making fun of President Reagan. I couldn’t believe it, and I noticed all the policemen standing there and I thought, what are they going to do. They’re going to climb on the stage and take him down or turn off the speakers or something. And then I watched – they were standing with their backs to the stage, only watching the audience so nobody would cause any trouble. They were protecting the singer; they were protecting him if somebody didn’t like him so nothing would happen to him. That was just unbelievable. I saw democracy at work. And I was really impressed by that, even when I didn’t like the song.”</p><h4>Fujara</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/HxXpzEAPmrA?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0"></iframe><p>“I started to play at festivals, and right now I have about 80 performances behind me. I started to make workshops. The first American fujara workshop was right here, at this house. After that, I did a workshop in Rožnov where I used to work in the TESLA factory. It was just three years back. It was also a two-day workshop and I was playing at a concert. Of course, the most important thing was last year, about one year ago in the Library of Congress. It was really a highlight of my life so far because it was for the American Musical Instrument Society, and they were of course recording it and it’s ‘forever’ in the archives, I mean, the archives of Congress. And I knew it, unfortunately, ahead of time. So you can just imagine the pressure that I had performing in a room full of experts on instruments and music and they wanted me to talk to them about the fujara and about everything concerning the fujara and the overtone flutes. And then it was recorded and everybody will be able to see it on the internet, all my friends. It was really a lot of pressure, but I somehow got through it.”</p>
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Bohuslav Rychlik
Description
An account of the resource
<p> </p><p>Bohuslav Rychlik was born in Krnov, Moravia, in 1950. His parents, Bohuslav and Františka, had moved to Krnov after WWII, because their home in Pustiměř had been destroyed by Americans who were bombing a nearby airport. Under the communist regime, Bob’s father lost his job as a senior office clerk and began working as a laborer, while his mother stayed home and raised Bob and his two sisters. Bob’s father, who died when he was 10, was a keen musician who played piano and violin and passed his talents on to his children. Bob was taught piano first by his sister and later in music school, and taught himself to play the guitar. Although he was fond of filmmaking, Bob says that he had ‘no chance’ to pursue this interest, and that he went to a technical high school in Rožnov pod Radhoštěm to prepare for a career in electronics. After high school, Bob says he decided not to attend university, as he did not want his mother to sacrifice anymore for his education. He got a job at the TESLA factory in Rožnov where he held several different positions before leaving the country.</p><p> </p><p>In August 1983, Bob and his wife, <a href="/web/20170710094829/http://www.ncsml.org/exhibits/vilma-rychlik/">Vilma</a>, decided to leave Czechoslovakia with their two young sons when they had the opportunity to vacation in Split, Yugoslavia. While there, Bob tried to buy tickets for a day trip to Italy, but says he was denied because his passport was valid only for Yugoslavia. They traveled to Belgrade where they learned about the UN High Commissioner for Refugees office. After an interview and a 6-week wait, Bob and his family were given papers allowing them to leave Yugoslavia and enter Austria. They spent about seven months in refugee camps in Traiskirchen and Ramsau before receiving permission to move to the United States. Bob and his family arrived in Baltimore, Maryland, on May 17, 1984. Having learned English at school, Bob says he was able to find work fairly quickly, while his wife took English classes at a community college. The Rychliks became American citizens in the spring of 1990.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Bob says that he is very proud of his sons, who were both valedictorians at Baltimore Polytechnic Institute and earned full scholarships to college. He continues to play music, and more recently has focused on the <em>fujara</em>, a large, flutelike, traditional Slovak instrument. Bob engineered the first <em>fujara</em> workshop in the United States, which he held at his home, and included participants from several different countries. He frequently performs around the Washington, D.C. area and, in 2010, Bob presented a lecture at the Library of Congress for the American Musical Instrumental Society. He has returned to the Czech Republic several times and currently lives in Mount Airy, Maryland, with his wife, Vilma.</p><p><a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20170710094829/http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Y5fonktBzQ" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Bob’s lecture on the fujara at the Library of Congress, 2010</a></p>
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
National Czech & Slovak Museum & Library
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
NCSML Archive
American citizenship
Arts
Cultural Traditions
Education
English language
Pustimer
Refugee camp
Roznov pod Radhostem
Tramping
Western/Pop culture
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Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Recording Voices & Documenting Memories of Czech & Slovak Americans
Subject
The topic of the resource
Recording Voices & Documenting Memories of Czech & Slovak Americans was an oral history project launched by the National Czech & Slovak Museum & Library in 2009. The project captured and preserved the stories of Czechs and Slovaks who left their homeland during the Cold War and settled in New York City, Washington, D.C., Cleveland, Chicago and the San Francisco Bay Area. During the second phase of the project, the NCSML recorded the stories of immigrants who came to the United States after the fall of communism in 1989 as well. By the conclusion of the project in August 2013, the NCSML had collected more than 300 oral histories. <br /><br />Both phases of the project were made possible by grants from the Institute of Museum and Library Services. <br /><br />On the project’s website, you can read biographies of Czechs and Slovaks who began a new life in the United States, watch video clips from their interviews, and view photos and other archival materials they shared with us. <br /><br />Full length interviews are available for further research at the National Czech & Slovak Museum & Library. For more information, contact Dave Muhlena, Library Director, at dmuhlena@ncsml.org.
Oral History
A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
Transcription
Any written text transcribed from a sound
<h4>Slovakia</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/gDC6_lANSak?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0" id="undefined"></iframe><p>“Grade school was kind of tough. It was communism, and we went to church so it was frowned upon. My uncle emigrated in 1968 and then my mom went to church, so since those two elements we had against us, it was really tough. The teachers were really tough on us, so instead of giving us a break, let’s say, because we had no father they were tougher on us, and therefore we had worse grades than other children.”</p><h4>Learning English</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/duwqMK6EztY?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0"></iframe><p>“We got a tutor. Her name was Raida. She was from Cuba, and she was from a communist country. So the city of Aurora got us a free tutor, and twice a week she came to our house or we went to the library or we went to her house and she was trying to teach us by books, by pictures – pointing and telling us ‘These are scissors; this is a camera; this is a computer.’ That’s how we started communicating, and I think it went on for about six months. She went to the mayor of Aurora and she basically got us into Waubonsie Valley High School. Because they said that we are already 18 and they cannot take us in, but she went and talked to the mayor of Aurora and the mayor of Aurora called the high school and he said ‘You have to take them.’ So they took us and we were juniors. So we went there and we got ESL teachers. For the first six months we were in a bunch of ESL classes, and then senior year we joined regular, normal history, math, English, geography – whatever classes we had to take in order to graduate, because our education back home was only three years. So they figured out how many classes we need, how many more credits we needed. So they told us what kind of classes we needed to take in order to graduate in the United States.”</p><h4>First Impressions</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/N5DTpWwyrCA?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0"></iframe><p>“First thing I remember when we arrived in Switzerland: the airport was like ‘Wow!’ We saw bananas; we saw oranges; we saw all this under-the-table material that was in Slovakia and we were really, really shocked. And this was little boutiques only. And then we came here and we went to, let’s say, Kmart or Walmart or something like that. So to us it was like this super-duper shopping mall. My mom never went to the shopping mall; she went to these local stores only, so to us it was like, ‘Wow.’ Coming from a communist country to Kmart, it was like luxury. Like Gucci or something like that at the time. So that’s what I remember.”</p><h4>Heritage</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/_UNQls61shk?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0"></iframe><p>“We go to all these picnics and everything, and at home we do Christmas traditions, Easter traditions. We have pictures of Slovakia, we listen to Czechoslovakian radio all the time. We, at home, only speak Slovak to my children – my husband is Slovak so we only speak Slovak at home. I cook Slovak food. We try to live like we used to live at home, but in America.”</p><h4>Czechoslovak Community</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/KdpvCmehu6s?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0"></iframe><p>“When you go to the Czech Republic or Slovak Republic, there is more hatred between each other. Prague people will say ‘Oh, we don’t like Slovaks,’ or Slovak people will say ‘I don’t like Czechs.’ But here I never hear anybody say that we don’t like each other. Here we are like one big community, and it’s like a brotherhood over here. If you go back home, I noticed that over there they distance themselves. They try to be… ‘We are Slovaks.’ They try to be really proud Slovaks or really proud Czechs. Here we try to help each other and over there they try to be individuals more.”</p>
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Bronislava Grelova Gres
Description
An account of the resource
<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>
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
National Czech & Slovak Museum & Library
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
NCSML Archive
Americanization
Child emigre
Community Life
Cultural Traditions
English language
Liptovkse Sliace
Liptovsky Mikulas
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Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Recording Voices & Documenting Memories of Czech & Slovak Americans
Subject
The topic of the resource
Recording Voices & Documenting Memories of Czech & Slovak Americans was an oral history project launched by the National Czech & Slovak Museum & Library in 2009. The project captured and preserved the stories of Czechs and Slovaks who left their homeland during the Cold War and settled in New York City, Washington, D.C., Cleveland, Chicago and the San Francisco Bay Area. During the second phase of the project, the NCSML recorded the stories of immigrants who came to the United States after the fall of communism in 1989 as well. By the conclusion of the project in August 2013, the NCSML had collected more than 300 oral histories. <br /><br />Both phases of the project were made possible by grants from the Institute of Museum and Library Services. <br /><br />On the project’s website, you can read biographies of Czechs and Slovaks who began a new life in the United States, watch video clips from their interviews, and view photos and other archival materials they shared with us. <br /><br />Full length interviews are available for further research at the National Czech & Slovak Museum & Library. For more information, contact Dave Muhlena, Library Director, at dmuhlena@ncsml.org.
Oral History
A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
Transcription
Any written text transcribed from a sound
<h4>Competitive Swimming</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/tE6sbqXEcF4?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0" id="undefined"></iframe><p>“When I was probably 13, they built a team and I started swimming, and that of course, took all of my time. I went to school and we had practice eight, nine times a week, so we went before school. In Kladno we did not have – and this is probably interesting for people, especially these days when they have everything – Kladno didn’t have a pool. They had a ‘city bath’ it was called, where all the people after work, all the steel mill workers and all the coal miners, went to soak themselves. So the water was very thick sometimes. Our pool in there was six by nine meters. It was very, very small. And the water was only – I would have to say, I am 5’8” and I have not grown since grade seven, so I’ve been this tall for a long time – and it was about to here [four feet], was the water. There was no deep end, there was nothing. So when I say thick, [it was] thick. And when people talk about chlorine this and chlorine that, we had a woman that took care of the water come with a bucket of chlorine, powdered chlorine, and just chuck it into the water over our heads.”</p><h4>Journey to the Border</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/RRC47MuNcV8?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0"></iframe><p>“We got into a convoy of Army cars, and then my mother started freaking out, and we of course too, because we didn’t know what was happening. You could look into the woods and there were soldiers dug into dirty, filthy… because they were there for a couple of days. You were getting closer to the border so the woods were there, but they were everywhere. So you could see them and that was a very scary thing. Probably not very much conversation going on in the car, not that I remember. I remember holding a doll and just sitting there, not knowing what was happening.”</p><h4>Refugee School</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Cwh8ZMJ3OTE?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0"></iframe><p>“My parents got a job at Siemens so they started working, and I went to gymnázium. I went to school; the weirdest school I ever went to was in Germany. My sister and I both went to school. The school was – for Germans, when you really think how structured they were and how strict – the school was like a zoo. I remember having a class and having a teacher, and somebody in the first row would start reading a book, tear the page out and send it through the class. They were throwing sneezing powder around so everybody would sneeze. We had an all-girls school across the yard, so the guys had binoculars and they were looking at the girls across the yard during class! Nobody stopped them. It was the weirdest zoo, I have to tell you.”</p><h4>Warsaw Emotions</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/fTCAHERhtzM?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0"></iframe><p>“In those days, you would go to the movies and there was a newsreel. There were still newsreels before the movie in the late ‘60s. A lot of the things, I had to get out, because a lot of it was about the occupation of Czechoslovakia and I couldn’t take it. To this day for example, if I watch, from time to time, The Unbearable Lightness of Being and the part of the occupation, I have to leave the room because I start crying. And it’s not a bad cry anymore and I don’t know if it ever was, but what I did not realize then and what I realized it much later when I was here and I was older, that it was a death of life, because the life that we knew was gone.”</p><h4>Importance of Heritage</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/ECDhzH7IVOU?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0"></iframe><p>“What changes is, I think, the need to do something with it and to leave something behind and have the younger generation continue with that. But it’s always been important for me. That’s why I learned a lot of the crafts and the specific crafts. When I was in Czech [Republic], I learned the wire work and doing those things. I did the blueprint, the fabric, I made my own clothes. When I was in Tampa, of all places, I did a lot of that because I was part of a program the city had called ‘Artist in the School,’ and they paid people to go and teach underprivileged kids. And that was one of the most satisfying things is to see these little kids and you teach them to weave and they leave you a note and write thank you, you were part of their Thanksgiving Day or whatever. I think that’s what I feel is important. As I grow older, I wish I could teach. As is popular, ‘nobody is really interested in doing this,’ that’s not true. You have to find the ways and teach the old ways.”</p>
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Dagmar Benedik
Description
An account of the resource
<p>Dagmar Benedik was born in Kladno, Central Bohemia, in 1952. Her mother, Jarmila, taught at an after-school program and her father, Jiří, was a hockey coach. Dagmar recalls her childhood in Kladno as ‘fantastic.’ She says that many of her friends played on her father’s hockey team and she enjoyed traveling to Prague each week for French lessons and swimming practice and competitions. In the summer of 1968, Dagmar’s family planned to travel to Germany where her younger sister, Zuzana, was going to spend a few weeks with a family studying German. Because of a delay in processing, they received visas just a few days prior to the Warsaw Pact invasion on August 21, and Dagmar says her father made the decision to leave Czechoslovakia for good immediately following the invasion. Dagmar’s family drove toward the border at Rozvadov; because they entered the town through a local route instead of the main road from Plzeň, they avoided the barricade that had been set up to prevent travelers from crossing the border. Once across the border, they stayed with Dagmar’s sister’s host family for two weeks before spending six more weeks at Karlsruhe refugee camp.</p><p> </p><p><img class="alignright wp-image-2609" src="http://web.archive.org/web/20170609053007im_/http://ncsml.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/dagmar-dad.png" alt="" width="250" height="371" /></p><p>In October 1968, Dagmar moved with her family to Toronto. She says that her parents chose to immigrate to Canada because it was a neutral country. Her mother started working as a housekeeper and nanny, and her father found employment as a watch-maker – a trade he had learned in Kladno. Dagmar attended high school and took English lessons in the mornings before school. She continued to swim and, in 1969, won the Toronto Championships. After graduating from high school, Dagmar began working at a bank and married her first husband, Josef Benedík, who was also a Czech émigré. In the late 1970s, then divorced, Dagmar traveled around the United States and says she ‘fell in love’ with the country. In 1986, she had a business opportunity there and moved to Tampa, Florida. She received American citizenship when she married her second husband. In 1995, Dagmar went to Prague with the intention of working as a translator for one month; she stayed in the Czech Republic for six years, where she ran her own business and then worked for Strojexport and Adamovské strojírny.</p><p> </p><p><img class="alignleft wp-image-2610" src="http://web.archive.org/web/20170609053007im_/http://ncsml.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/Handler-53.jpg" alt="Handler-5" width="400" height="254" /></p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Dagmar says that she continues to keep Czech traditions at home and has learned several Czech crafts. She refers to herself as a ‘citizen of the world’ and exercises her voting rights in the countries of her citizenship. Today, Dagmar lives in Richmond Hill near Toronto, but is planning on moving back to Tampa, which she considers home.</p><p> </p>
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
National Czech & Slovak Museum & Library
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
NCSML Archive
1968
Child emigre
Cultural Traditions
emigrant
gymnazium
refugee
Refugee camp
Sports
Verflova
Warsaw Pact invasion
-
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Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Recording Voices & Documenting Memories of Czech & Slovak Americans
Subject
The topic of the resource
Recording Voices & Documenting Memories of Czech & Slovak Americans was an oral history project launched by the National Czech & Slovak Museum & Library in 2009. The project captured and preserved the stories of Czechs and Slovaks who left their homeland during the Cold War and settled in New York City, Washington, D.C., Cleveland, Chicago and the San Francisco Bay Area. During the second phase of the project, the NCSML recorded the stories of immigrants who came to the United States after the fall of communism in 1989 as well. By the conclusion of the project in August 2013, the NCSML had collected more than 300 oral histories. <br /><br />Both phases of the project were made possible by grants from the Institute of Museum and Library Services. <br /><br />On the project’s website, you can read biographies of Czechs and Slovaks who began a new life in the United States, watch video clips from their interviews, and view photos and other archival materials they shared with us. <br /><br />Full length interviews are available for further research at the National Czech & Slovak Museum & Library. For more information, contact Dave Muhlena, Library Director, at dmuhlena@ncsml.org.
Oral History
A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
Transcription
Any written text transcribed from a sound
<h4>WWII</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/iqS28OF33Mo?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0" id="undefined"></iframe><p>“I remember that the Germans came to my house a few times looking for some revolvers or some guns, trying to catch something that could make problems. It worked out all those years pretty good, thank god. We had the pastry shop, so I never knew what it meant to be hungry after all. For example, I walked with my friend home, and her father was working at the match factory. She opened the door and she was yelling, ‘Mom, I’m hungry!’ I thought ‘How does that feel?’ because I really didn’t ever have to feel that, until later when I was on my own.</p><p>“I had a curfew at 8:00 at night no matter what, so I had to be home. I had friends coming, actually even relatives from Prague, because they couldn’t go to their places in Šumava, so they stayed in Sušice and we had good times, because there was a couple of cousins and they’d bring their friends. I had four cousins in Sušice, so we all ganged up together and it was ok. We just had to be careful about what we were doing.”</p><h4>Immigration to Australia</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/SRjmW9ETevU?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0"></iframe><p>“We boarded a boat in Bremerhaven in Germany and [the ship] used to be a military boat before. It took us 38 days to go from there, through the Suez Canal – I should say Gibraltar first – the Suez Canal, and then we finally made it to Melbourne, Australia, and they had a strike so we couldn’t get off the boat. But anyway, we had a good time on the boat. There was about 18 Czech people, guys and women, and everybody had some little duties and I was an assistant to a doctor who was from <em>Podkarpatská</em> [Sub-Carpathian] Russia and he studied in Prague, so he spoke perfect Czech. And he helped us on the boat; we were able to go to the bridge, and the time passed okay. The sea was pretty nice to us; it wasn’t really too bad.</p><p>“So we came to Melbourne, finally made it out, and the Czech people who came already, who came before us, [saying] ‘Is there any Czech on the boat?’ and this and that. So they took us to Bonegilla which was another camp and we stayed a month. I had a month of a beautiful vacation. Beautiful weather; there were guys who rented horses so we went horseback riding; we had bicycles we could go around on; there was a lake we could go swim in; and they cooked for us! Can you imagine?”</p><h4>Pastry Shop</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/8-8hCD4GmPA?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0"></iframe><p>“We made Czech pastries, Czech <em>kolačky</em> and Czech turnovers. Czech this and Czech that and Czech cookies and Czech rye bread, and it was said that it was a very good bread. So we had a good recipe for it, I guess. I didn’t know how to make bread. My younger son, he would sit in the proof box, watching the bread rise, and when the oven was cleaned up, he would take a rest in there. He would lay down on one of the floors.</p><p>“Cermak Road in the main street in Berwyn and we were close to the crossing of Oak Park – it was like the center of town almost. There were about seven Czech bakeries at the time, and there were different Czech stores, like a furniture store and a clothing store [called] Pivoňka’s, and different things like that. A lot of people spoke Czech in the stores, but they spoke Czech like the Franz Josef Czech was which different. Then came the younger generation, younger emigration. We were not in the store anymore, but we still kept up with all that.”</p>
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Dagmar Kostal
Description
An account of the resource
<p>Dagmar Kostal was born in Klatovy (in southwestern Bohemia) in 1925 and grew up in nearby Sušice. Her parents, Karel and Marie, owned a bakery in town. Dagmar attended elementary school in Sušice, but after fifth grade was sent to a school in Hartmanice, a town close to the German border. When the Munich Agreement was signed in September 1938 and Hartmanice (as part of the Sudetenland) was annexed to Germany, Dagmar returned home and finished her schooling there. She then went to school in Písek to learn the baking trade. Following the War, Dagmar apprenticed in Prague, where she also took English classes at Charles University. In 1946, Dagmar continued her training in Basel, Switzerland. When this was complete, she found a job in a pastry shop in Neuchatel where she met and befriended other Czechs. She says that her father urged her to stay abroad, as he was anticipating a communist takeover. When the coup occurred in February 1948, Dagmar knew that she would not be able to return to Czechoslovakia and turned to the International Refugee Organization (IRO). The IRO helped her immigrate to Australia in 1949 where she, after a 38-day boat trip, arrived in Melbourne.</p><p> </p><p>Dagmar stayed at Bonegilla refugee camp for one month – a time that she calls ‘a beautiful vacation.’ She found a job at a bakery and took a room in a house with her fellow Czech émigrés. In 1950, Dagmar married Miroslav Kostal. The pair bought their own pastry shop in a suburb of Melbourne and, shortly after, had their first son, Michael. Eight years later, the Kostals moved to the United States with the idea of going into business with Miroslav’s uncle. In 1959, they sailed to San Francisco and drove to New York while stopping at landmarks throughout the country. After a short time in New York and New Jersey, Dagmar and her family moved to the Chicago suburb of Berwyn where they had friends and had enjoyed the large Czech community while passing through. Dagmar and Miroslav again bought a pastry shop which they owned and operated for a number of years. They were active in the Chicago Czech community. Dagmar says that the family spoke Czech at home and both her sons (their younger son Martin was born in the United States) went to Czech school. Dagmar is a dual citizen of the United States and the Czech Republic and says that despite more than 50 years in the United States, her ‘heart is completely Czech.</p>
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
National Czech & Slovak Museum & Library
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
NCSML Archive
1948 emigrant/refugee
Community Life
Cultural Traditions
Hlavata
Refugee camp
school
Susice
World War II
-
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6a889c6152e099aa86cb72c9d573d8e4
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Recording Voices & Documenting Memories of Czech & Slovak Americans
Subject
The topic of the resource
Recording Voices & Documenting Memories of Czech & Slovak Americans was an oral history project launched by the National Czech & Slovak Museum & Library in 2009. The project captured and preserved the stories of Czechs and Slovaks who left their homeland during the Cold War and settled in New York City, Washington, D.C., Cleveland, Chicago and the San Francisco Bay Area. During the second phase of the project, the NCSML recorded the stories of immigrants who came to the United States after the fall of communism in 1989 as well. By the conclusion of the project in August 2013, the NCSML had collected more than 300 oral histories. <br /><br />Both phases of the project were made possible by grants from the Institute of Museum and Library Services. <br /><br />On the project’s website, you can read biographies of Czechs and Slovaks who began a new life in the United States, watch video clips from their interviews, and view photos and other archival materials they shared with us. <br /><br />Full length interviews are available for further research at the National Czech & Slovak Museum & Library. For more information, contact Dave Muhlena, Library Director, at dmuhlena@ncsml.org.
Oral History
A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
Transcription
Any written text transcribed from a sound
<h4>Grandparents</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/YbGVSDkN-1E?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0" id="undefined"></iframe><p>“My grandma was from southern Moravia and she had several sisters, and one of the sisters became a maid for wealthy people who lived in Prague. There were usually women who came to the villages to recruit young, unmarried women to come to Prague to work for the wealthy people, and typically the young women would work for them for a few years and then they would get married and then they would find another woman to work for them. And so one of Grandma’s sisters got a job like that and then she brought several sisters to Prague and my grandma was one of the sisters. Typically the girls would be taking care of the children or they would work in the kitchen or they would clean the house. My grandma became involved in cooking, and she was a very good cook and she knew how to prepare all these fancy meals because in the old days people would organize large parties in their homes and everything was made in that home by the servants and so my grandma was one of those servants. My grandfather came from a farming family; he was the musician and he did amateur music, but he actually worked for the post office in the old days, so he had a full-time job. The way I understand it is that my grandma and my grandfather had been introduced to each other by someone, so it was like a blind date, and so this is how they got together in Prague, because they both worked there.”</p><h4>Summers in Moravia</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/UwPLNd8CGOo?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0"></iframe><p>“Grandma always would take me to Moravia for vacations because her sisters lived there, and we would spend the whole summer in the countryside and I have really fond memories from those times that I shared also with my daughter and my son, always referring to Moravia. I had really interesting memories because my grandma’s sisters were living in the farming communities and, certainly, the lifestyle there was very different than in Prague, and they always thought I was very skinny and they had to feed me because I am too skinny. So I recall that we would get up as children and my grandma’s sister would ask ‘What do you want for lunch? Do you want chicken or a rabbit?’ and she would just go and she would catch the chicken and actually prepare it for lunch, and so lunch preparation took like four hours and, of course, we would never do anything like that in Prague, so it was quite a cultural shock for me.”</p><h4>Languages</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/W3O0_npPRHg?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0"></iframe><p>“Ever since I was school age, my grandma encouraged me to communicate with my father in Karlovy Vary, so I found out that he spoke fluent French and he spent the time during the War in, actually, in France, and so I felt inspired to study French. It was not available in our school that I went to – I was already 11 or 12 when I decided to study French – and so I remember that Grandma would take me to a special cultural center where they would teach the French language, and we had to walk through a dark street and there was a cemetery on the side, and so I remember that Grandma would take me every Wednesday night. She would walk with me around the cemetery and she would take me to the cultural center and sit there and wait so that I could finish studying and take these classes. So as a child, I guess I was a small linguist and so I was very proficient by the time I was a teenager. I was very proficient in German and French and Russian languages.”</p><h4>Creativity</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/uYSq0sPIFWs?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0"></iframe><p>“We were a crafty family so I knew how to crochet and knit, and I remember that we had shortages of certain materials so when we wanted to buy clothes there was not really a big choice, so people would sew their own clothes; they would knit and crochet. I remember this unique experience that people would actually go to the stores and buy socks. They were woolen socks and you would actually take the socks apart and you would recycle the yarn, and so they would knit or crochet a sweater, and then, when I would grow, they would take the sweater apart and add more yarn, but they were still using these socks. I cannot actually explain it to anyone, but people who were born in the Czech Republic or grew up there would probably remember those times. I remember also that we would use old clothing that we would get from relatives from the United States. They would send us these packages, because my grandfather’s brothers and sisters all lived in the United States. So they would send this large clothing to us and we would actually take the clothing and put patterns over it, and I remember having clothing from those garments. Because of all these experiences, I actually became very resourceful and creative.”</p><h4>Plans to Escape</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/UvakNXXdRrg?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0"></iframe><p>“I had some contacts in Germany so we decided to sign up for a tour and, my mother and I, we would go on a tour and then we would essentially leave the tour, and so we went on a tour to Munich. It was a tour that went to Germany, Italy and Austria. It began in Germany and ended in Austria, and we actually chose to separate ourselves from the group already in Germany, on the first night of the journey. So we prepared for this escape for one year for sure – it was slightly more than that – so we sold most of our possessions and converted the money into Western currency and left. We left, literally, with a suitcase full of old clothes that we had to leave behind [with the tour] and my mother had a plastic bag and I had another plastic bag and that’s what we left with. But we had some friends who were able to travel across the border from the Czech Republic to Germany, and they were able to bring our documents and some valuables, but very little. So we had left not only our belongings, but all the memorabilia that had sentimental value – we had to leave all of it there.”</p><h4>America</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/_zmlkQ65R3k?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0"></iframe><p>“For the first time in my life I was very relaxed. I didn’t have to be stressed out about what am I going to do, where am I going to work, how I am going to pay my rent. In the Czech Republic, as well as in Germany, there was always a fear. We always lived in fear of somebody or something. It is very difficult to disassociate yourself from the fear. There are certain fears that you have learned to somehow keep in your mind at all times – the alertness. So I think it’s some kind of a trauma actually, but that’s one issue that will never go away. So I’m always fearful of something, and I have learned to manage those fears but, still, there are times when I am afraid.”</p><h4>Identity</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/WcVR2V_dmD8?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0"></iframe><p>“I love the Czech Republic. I absolutely loved visiting the Czech Republic; I felt like Alice in Wonderland. It was a beautiful, wonderful experience and I love the country and I love the people. I cannot see myself there anymore as a permanent resident. I remember coming back to Portland, and I was holding my passport in my hand, and all of the sudden this weird feeling came over me: ‘I am home.’ That still is sad; this is a very sad realization, where you basically have an identity problem, like ‘Who am I?’ and I think that is a problem that will never be resolved. But, I just am who I am. I’m a U.S. citizen; I work in the United States; I went to school here; I have a job here; my entire life is here. Of course, I could retire and then live with my retirement in the Czech Republic, but I have so many friends here and so many people I know and so many things I want to do here. So I think I can just go back as a visitor and I can embrace those opportunities but, sadly to say, this is my home, the United States.”</p>
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Daniela Mahoney
Description
An account of the resource
<p>Daniela Mahoney was born in Prague in 1956. Her parents lived in Karlovy Vary at the time and Daniela spent much of her time with her grandparents in Prague. When her parents divorced, Daniela’s mother moved back to Prague where she worked as a nurse. Daniela says that she became interested in languages at a young age and enjoyed learning Russian and German in school. After finding out from her father that he spoke French, she began taking French lessons at a cultural center. Daniela studied international affairs and business; however, her plans to build a career in governmental foreign services were derailed as several of her aunts and uncles left Czechoslovakia for Switzerland. She found a job as a receptionist at a hotel in Prague.</p><p> </p><p>After her stepfather’s death in 1979, Daniela and her mother made plans to leave the country. In July 1980, they joined a tour traveling to Germany, Italy and Austria, and left the group on the first night of the tour. Claiming asylum, Daniela and her mother had to wait to receive work permits before they could build their new life. Daniela’s mother eventually received her credentials and worked as a nurse for 15 years (today she continues to live in Germany). Because of her language skills, Daniela worked as an interpreter. At a trade show in Frankfurt, she met her future husband, Patrick Mahoney, who lived in Portland, Oregon. He invited Daniela to the United States and, in 1982, she traveled to Portland. The couple married the following year.</p><p> </p><p>Since moving to the United States, Daniela has received a bachelor’s degree in marketing and a master’s degree in social work from Portland State University. Today she works as a case manager for the state of Oregon. Daniela has also had a successful career as a folk artist. She learned traditional egg decorating from her grandmother and, since arriving in the United States, has turned her hobby into a business, selling decorated eggs, giving lectures, creating children’s coloring and activity books, and promoting traditional folk crafts and culture. Daniela’s two children are also skilled egg decorators. Daniela has returned to the Czech Republic three times, most recently to research her family history and genealogy. She lives in Portland, Oregon, with her husband Patrick.</p>
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
National Czech & Slovak Museum & Library
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
NCSML Archive
Cultural Traditions
Education
Fashion
marriage
Rural life
Sense of identity
Sipkova
Tours
Translator/Interpretor
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217334de0721a12858d2b148e62f7de5
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Recording Voices & Documenting Memories of Czech & Slovak Americans
Subject
The topic of the resource
Recording Voices & Documenting Memories of Czech & Slovak Americans was an oral history project launched by the National Czech & Slovak Museum & Library in 2009. The project captured and preserved the stories of Czechs and Slovaks who left their homeland during the Cold War and settled in New York City, Washington, D.C., Cleveland, Chicago and the San Francisco Bay Area. During the second phase of the project, the NCSML recorded the stories of immigrants who came to the United States after the fall of communism in 1989 as well. By the conclusion of the project in August 2013, the NCSML had collected more than 300 oral histories. <br /><br />Both phases of the project were made possible by grants from the Institute of Museum and Library Services. <br /><br />On the project’s website, you can read biographies of Czechs and Slovaks who began a new life in the United States, watch video clips from their interviews, and view photos and other archival materials they shared with us. <br /><br />Full length interviews are available for further research at the National Czech & Slovak Museum & Library. For more information, contact Dave Muhlena, Library Director, at dmuhlena@ncsml.org.
Oral History
A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
Transcription
Any written text transcribed from a sound
<h4>Officers Stay</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/lD0vSjMT5Vg?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0" id="undefined"></iframe><p>“When the Germans came looking for my dad, mother told them that he was on a business trip to Prague and that he was going to return shortly. So for about a week, we had two Gestapo men staying in our apartment 24 hours a day, waiting for my father’s return. We had a large apartment but we had no heat except in the kitchen there was a large belly stove, so we all basically stayed in the kitchen – the Gestapo men, my mom and I, except when we went to bed. Now they really didn’t bother me except one who I think enjoyed seeing me cry, and when I cried, he’d get angry and he threatened to make me kneel on thumb tacks. Now, it wasn’t until my mom died in ’78 that I found through my wife that one of the Gestapo men raped my mother.</p><p>“Mother actually pressed charges, and the trail went all the way to court, to the High Court in Vienna, and the man was found guilty. And I believe he was sent to the eastern front. I think it was a very brave thing of mom to do and I was very proud of her because, had she lost, the consequences would have been very dire.”</p><h4>Fond Memories</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/jwEd6gIcxS8?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0"></iframe><p>“I had a lot of bad memories during the War, but I also had some good memories. And my favorite memories were Christmas time in Brno. Before Christmas, there’s a tradition – we call it Mikuláš, anděl a čert, it’s Saint Nick, an angel and a devil [that] come calling on the children. And of course, Saint Nick would be dressed in a priestly robe with a high hat and a staff. The angel would be dressed in white, and the devil was all in black; his face was black and he carried a potato sack or something, and chains. And you could hear him coming because he rattled his chains and made a lot of noise and, of course, that would petrify me! And when they came in the apartment the devil would say ‘Well, I understand you were bad and you’ve got to be punished,’ and sometimes he would pull out a lump of coal or a carrot. And the angel always played interference and said ‘No, no, no, no!’ And Saint Nick would pull out some sweets, bonbons, and all was forgiven and it was good for another year.</p><p>“And then the Czechs, the Czechoslovaks – the Christmas Eve meals always consist of, usually consist of fish and potato salad. That was a favorite food on Christmas Eve. And my mother would, a few days before Christmas Eve, she would go and get a, buy a fish, which was a carp. And she had to go early because if you wait too late then there would be nothing left. And she would bring it alive, wrapped in a wet newspaper. Then she would place it in a tub full of water, because there was no refrigeration or anything, and there the fish would stay for several days until Christmas Eve. And that was, I think, my favorite. I watched that fish for I think hours and hours – because it was a big fish, you know, imagine it floating in the tub and I was right next to it. I just loved it!”</p><h4>U.S. in 1948</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/PQj-aSg18A8?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0"></iframe><p>“When we arrived in Washington, I remember, I think it was the very first day in Washington, D.C. My father went to work and then it was just my mother, the domestic lady and I in the house and then, all of a sudden, we heard sirens. So we all went down to the basement waiting for the all clear. We were puzzled that Americans still had air raids when the War is long over. Well, after a while, we crept up, because we didn’t get the all clear, but we went up and later we found out that they were the fire engines. I never… in Europe they don’t use [such] sirens.”</p><h4>U.S. Army</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/VDmJBqGeYPA?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0"></iframe><p>“When I arrived, the town was still split in half; there was the Saarland which was controlled by the French and then of course the other side which was controlled by the Americans. The town was like in a little valley and one side there was the Americans and the other side were the Germans, the third side there were the French and the fourth side were the Canadians. And I remember the Canadians… there was an Air Force base. And the Canadians of course had an ice rink there and played hockey, and we would go and watch the hockey games. And the Canadians tend to be quite rough and they would play mostly German teams and the Germans didn’t like that very well! They always would cry ‘Fuj! Fuj!’ when the Canadians played rough.</p><p>“When I arrived, my sergeant said ‘Well, you’re the teletype operator’ and I had never seen a teletype in my life. I was taught by I think the WAGs, the women [who] were about in another town called Pirmasens. The other teletypists taught me how to work the teletype. I became quite good at it and I became the operator for the base. That was fun duty, I must say. It was some of the best times of my life. We had quite a lot of money in those days, and after hours we didn’t have that much responsibility once we were on our own and I did a lot of traveling. I made sure… We had a, a friend of mine and I, we owned a ’49 Volkswagen, and we traveled whenever we got a chance. We went through the Alps, we… all the way to Denmark, we had to two big jerry cans in the back full of gasoline (which now that I think about it was rather stupid!) We made it all the way to Denmark never buying gas.”</p><h4>Learning About the Past</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/rxYHgYHUOXM?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0"></iframe><p>“I remember dad was telling me one time that he was in the Olympics. I think it was in Amsterdam, before the War, I’m not sure when exactly. I remember he was in five events. I think it was like a military thing, it was horseback riding, pistol shooting, swimming, I imagine running and something else, I don’t know what the events were. But I never sort of paid much attention to it – so I mentioned it to my son-in-law one day and sure enough, he looked it up and gave me the website. I sent… I’m not sure where the headquarters is, but they sent me a lot of information about my dad! Where he placed, how many points he got, they even said that he fell off his horse! So it was just wonderful! I still have it, it was great!”</p>
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Dusan Schejbal
Description
An account of the resource
<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>
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
National Czech & Slovak Museum & Library
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
NCSML Archive
1948 emigrant/refugee
Ceske Budejovice
Child emigre
Cultural Traditions
Diplomatic service
Juraj Slavik
Mikulas
Military service
Nazis
Sports
Svatoborice
World War II
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40855b71542208743c938a2df3ce64ac
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Recording Voices & Documenting Memories of Czech & Slovak Americans
Subject
The topic of the resource
Recording Voices & Documenting Memories of Czech & Slovak Americans was an oral history project launched by the National Czech & Slovak Museum & Library in 2009. The project captured and preserved the stories of Czechs and Slovaks who left their homeland during the Cold War and settled in New York City, Washington, D.C., Cleveland, Chicago and the San Francisco Bay Area. During the second phase of the project, the NCSML recorded the stories of immigrants who came to the United States after the fall of communism in 1989 as well. By the conclusion of the project in August 2013, the NCSML had collected more than 300 oral histories. <br /><br />Both phases of the project were made possible by grants from the Institute of Museum and Library Services. <br /><br />On the project’s website, you can read biographies of Czechs and Slovaks who began a new life in the United States, watch video clips from their interviews, and view photos and other archival materials they shared with us. <br /><br />Full length interviews are available for further research at the National Czech & Slovak Museum & Library. For more information, contact Dave Muhlena, Library Director, at dmuhlena@ncsml.org.
Oral History
A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
Transcription
Any written text transcribed from a sound
<h4>Childhood</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/cXqTUP7BIiU?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0" id="undefined"></iframe><p>“My grandparents lived in Kysuce and Orava, these two beautiful mountainous regions, so I spent most of my childhood there and the memories are just beautiful because it was the nature, the animals, the kindness and love of my grandparents. And of course my parents, but they were studying and getting their doctorates, so I was spending a lot of time with my grandparents and cousins. Both sets of grandparents had huge yards, animals – chickens, cows, geese, and ducks – so it was very farm-like and I loved it. I learned a lot about plants and animals and people and love.”</p><p><em>Were you allowed to run wild there?</em></p><p>“Oh yeah, of course! And we would go to the forest, mushroom picking, blackberry, blueberry picking. It was wonderful, really.</p><p>“Childhood in former Czechoslovakia was so pure. I was not touched by anything I learned later or read in newspapers about oppression during communism. I definitely felt very secure and safe and all those clichés about communism, that everybody is equal and there is no crime. I really felt that. It was a great level of security, and I really enjoyed that and I don’t see that anymore nowadays, I’m sorry to say.”</p><h4>Parents</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/zmd_pxBZTes?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0"></iframe><p>“Since my parents were scientists, they tried to be neutral. They were raised Catholic and both of my grandparents were active participants in the church, but since they were living in remote parts of Slovakia, it never really had an effect on my parents’ careers, and my parents were always going to church when we went to visit my grandparents; they went to mass and, yet, they had good positions. It never really impacted them. My dad had a leading position at the Ministry of Health; my mom was a very accomplished doctor. Back then, scientists didn’t really make much money and didn’t have recognition in our society, and I remember my parents complaining about that and my mom sometimes feeling like she was a rag that everybody was wiping their feet on. She would make more comments like that, especially dealing with patients who were workers, plumbers, and who were treating her not very nicely. I recall some memories like that.”</p><p><em>So did life for your family change for better after the Revolution?</em></p><p>“Yes, absolutely. My mom opened a private practice and my dad became a board member of all the multinational organizations, from the UN to the World Health Organization. They’d been traveling always because my dad had to travel for work, even before [the Revolution]. The government would send him on certain missions, and my mom would go along with him sometimes; she would get her visa permit. But, of course, after communism collapsed, my parents were taking full advantage of exploring the world and aligning it with their careers.”</p><p><em>Were your parents in the Communist Party?</em></p><p>“Yes they were. Not active participants, but they understood that if they wanted to advance, or even be functional somehow, they had to do that. It somehow worked out. We would still go to church when we went to visit my grandparents, and then they would be part of the Communist Party and somehow they didn’t think much about it. They just did what they had to do to survive and provide a healthy and happy environment for us.”</p><h4>Return to America</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/JNRkz5X9pbI?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0"></iframe><p>“It’s all about the people you meet and the activities you put yourself in, and I felt like that was my new home. Yes, I was very lucky. I met some people who are stimulating and a job that was very inspirational. So it was a flow. I didn’t make the cognitive decision ‘I am going to stay here.’ I just stayed because it was a no-brainer. Everything just fell into place, and with Grimoldi, it was a career that just…It was an international firm, so everything happened so fast. We were working with celebrities of the top format so it was just so exciting that one day you wake up and ‘Oh! It’s five years later.’ So it just felt very organic and natural to stay and be here.”</p><h4>Non-Profit</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/lr2aU0JiaZk?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0"></iframe><p>“I had some celebrity friends from Slovakia, so they would come and visit and they were always asking about possibilities of making it here or presenting their works here. So I had a lot of contacts in the music and entertainment industry, so I would try to help them and then through friends – I became friends with a lot of Slovak-Americans and Slovaks living or working in New York, especially – we started organizing little events for my friends coming from Slovakia. And it was very unofficial; it was always just a gathering for the community – the New York friends and the European friends. But then, I think the epiphany came when the first Consul General came to New York – Ivan Surkoš of Slovakia – and the Consulate General was opened, and the Consul General and his wife came to one of these concerts I organized. It was actually for my friend Misha who was a famous singer in Slovakia. And they were like ‘Wow, look at this. It’s so many people and an international crowd. How did you pull this together?’ And that was actually in cooperation with Slovak Info and a friend of mine, Otto Raček, who is also a very active Slovak-American. And the question was how can we institutionalize and enhance these activities? So the question was answered with two possibilities: one is to establish a non-profit organization that would help us obtain funding and would help to really attain volunteers and the whole community of artists and performers and other diplomats who are wanting to be active. And the second was for my ability to become part of a consulate team. So I’ve established, together with the Consul General’s wife, L’ubica, this non-profit organization called the +421 Foundation.”</p><h4>+421 Foundation</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/rmlzVNdWzP4?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0"></iframe><p>“We organized many small exhibitions, concerts, book presentations, film festivals that the following year started to grow and they were not so small anymore. So one hundred people that were attending the first year became three to five hundred to fifteen hundred this year. And I do have to depict the biggest – and my favorite program – which is called Slovak Fashion Night.”</p><p><em>That’s the signature event, correct?<strong><br /></strong></em><br />
“That is. Not only because I used to be in fashion, but because it’s New York. Fashion is the breathing organism of the city, or one of the major industries in the city; and of course it’s very glamorous, models are always very attractive, and we have a very wide scope of guests, so we decided to organize a fashion show. I had to convince the Consul General and the whole team who, at the beginning, was very hesitant to do that, but eventually gave in, and the next thing you know, Slovak Fashion Night becomes a huge event where we get approached by our Austrian colleagues or other European consulates or non-European consulates or other colleagues in the cultural field to co-produce events with them, and it’s very pleasing. Also, since it’s such a popular program, it provides a platform where we can really introduce not just our upcoming and talented fashion designers from Slovakia, but also other performing artists like dancers, singers, photographers, visual artists, moderators. We’ve been able to compile a whole program of different art sections and put it all together and create one huge show that’s definitely, very surprisingly, great.</p><p>“It attracts Slovaks living here or other emigrants who have forgotten how Slovakia is and how it’s been growing and evolving, and this is an opportunity for them to come and see, and they’re like ‘Wow, we have all this? This is amazing!’ And I’m very happy to be able to provide this reality check, or this educational aspect in raising awareness about what’s going on in Slovakia and how Slovakia is growing. Also, culture, in my opinion – and this is my little phrase I use every time I promote Slovakia or what we do – culture is the best marketing tool to promote Slovakia as an economic or investment destination, and to help us form mutually beneficial relations, not only in the cultural sphere, but in the economic and beyond as well. So yes, we do invite all of the investors or potential business partners for Slovakia to these beautiful events, and strengthen their relationships. Show them how wonderful we are and what we can do.”</p><h4>Culture</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/lxPYnVCOMyY?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0"></iframe><p>“It’s a constant aspiration of ours, and we do bring in the traditional aspect of Slovakia and all those features that you mentioned – the folklore, the beautiful traditional embroidery, the beautiful music and dances and traditional attires of Slovakia – but that’s not what we want to showcase only because that’s something that’s always been there and we’ve always been showing it in the past. But we bring the old and the new and bridge the modern, evolving, ascending culture and the arts that Slovakia is, as a modern, world-leading country. That we definitely are not stuck in the past or all we have are the wooden dolls and corn dolls and those beautiful, but yet older, traditions. So we bring the old and the new, and our fashion shows have folklore dances or the demonstration and presentation of the embroidery or the traditional costume, and I think it’s just a fun and very innovative way to connect both worlds. I think our guests can relate to that and have been relating to that very well. It’s refreshing, in my opinion.”</p><h4>Slovakia</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/nMx0vsTQ43A?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0"></iframe><p>“It’s very simple and pure in a sense, because, when I come home to Slovakia, I just feel a sense of belonging. This really deep, gut feeling that that’s my home and that’s where I’m from, and the nature, the feel, the essence, the flair – that’s something that will always be me, my true essence. And when I am in the U.S., especially New York or Los Angeles – I’ve been spending a lot of time in Los Angeles because of my company that’s based there – I feel like this is great, this is where I have my house and my friends, but it’s sort of like a pied-a-terre. It’s not the true house, the true home. So, Slovakia will always be my home, and I hope I will be able to marry someone or find someone who will be either European or Slovakian or somehow will always be able to have that home with me there, too. I don’t have a vision how yet, but I know it’s possible to maybe have an international home, but always be able to spend a certain amount of time there.”</p><h4>U.S.</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/7pcPVHIGrMY?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0"></iframe><p>“I think it doesn’t matter whether it’s communism or it’s now or democracy or this era or the other era. It’s about individuality and who we resonate with or what we resonate with, and I as an individual definitely resonated with and found my perfect match in the USA and found my way to create another realization and self-actualization, and that’s what I think is wonderful about the world being open and the world being your oyster. But, my roots will always be in Slovakia and I will always come there and it’s always my home. But America really allowed to become who I am becoming. Who I feel that I can identify with. Who I can understand. And I’m very grateful for that.”</p>
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Eva Jurinova
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<p>Eva Jurinova was born in Žilina in northwestern Slovakia in 1979. Her mother L’udmila is a pediatric neurologist and her father Vladimír is a nuclear physicist who, prior to the Velvet Revolution, worked in the Ministry of Health. He now heads the radiation protection section of the public health authority of Slovakia. Eva started school in Trnava and later moved with her family to Bratislava. She says that her childhood was ‘beautiful’ and ‘pure’ and that she spent a lot of time visiting her grandparents, who lived in more rural parts of the country. She was an active child and participated in sports, dance, and theatre. Eva was ten at the time of Velvet Revolution in November 1989 and says that although her parents’ careers improved, she did not notice any immediate changes. In 1997, Eva spent one year of high school studying abroad in Richmond, Virginia. Upon her return to Slovakia, she made plans to move back to the United States.</p><p> </p><p>Eva graduated high school and enrolled in an international program through Comenius University which allowed her to study at affiliate colleges in the United States while traveling back to Slovakia to take exams. While in Richmond, Eva had been given a modeling contract and when she returned to the U.S. she settled in New York to pursue modeling. She also became a project manager and marketing director for a brand of luxury watches. Eva received an MBA from Columbia University. She now owns a branding and licensing firm and does PR consulting for luxury watches and jewelry.</p><p> </p><p>Upon her return to the United States, Eva made friends with a number of fellow Slovak-Americans and émigrés and began organizing small cultural events and get-togethers. One of these events was attended by the newly-appointed Slovak consul general who expressed an interest in collaborating with Eva to formalize these events. She helped to form the non-profit +421 Foundation and is co-president of the organization, whose biggest event is Slovak Fashion Night. Eva says that while Slovakia will always be her home, she is glad to have had opportunities in the United States that have helped shaped who she is. Today, she lives in Los Angeles, California.</p>
Creator
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National Czech & Slovak Museum & Library
Source
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NCSML Archive
Arts
Catholics
Communist Party members
Community leadership
Cultural Traditions
Fashion
Healthcare professionals
Ivan
Post-1989 emigrant
Rural life
Sense of identity
Slovak citizenship
Surkos
Velvet Revolution
Women workers
Zilina
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4fafc3aba0db90bcb43b77ec4bcd3eea
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Recording Voices & Documenting Memories of Czech & Slovak Americans
Subject
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Recording Voices & Documenting Memories of Czech & Slovak Americans was an oral history project launched by the National Czech & Slovak Museum & Library in 2009. The project captured and preserved the stories of Czechs and Slovaks who left their homeland during the Cold War and settled in New York City, Washington, D.C., Cleveland, Chicago and the San Francisco Bay Area. During the second phase of the project, the NCSML recorded the stories of immigrants who came to the United States after the fall of communism in 1989 as well. By the conclusion of the project in August 2013, the NCSML had collected more than 300 oral histories. <br /><br />Both phases of the project were made possible by grants from the Institute of Museum and Library Services. <br /><br />On the project’s website, you can read biographies of Czechs and Slovaks who began a new life in the United States, watch video clips from their interviews, and view photos and other archival materials they shared with us. <br /><br />Full length interviews are available for further research at the National Czech & Slovak Museum & Library. For more information, contact Dave Muhlena, Library Director, at dmuhlena@ncsml.org.
Oral History
A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
Transcription
Any written text transcribed from a sound
<h4>Hungary</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/eaVlC8jn7Hg?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0" id="undefined"></iframe><p>“Then came the Viennese Arbitrage, you know, and then Košice on November 11, I think, fell to Hungary – and we were packing to go to Slovakia, you know, as [we were] of Slovakian origin. But my father had a stroke, you know. And he was paralyzed for one and a half years. So we went nowhere. We had to switch allegiance or whatever, and we stayed in Hungary until 1945 – that means in Košice, you know. Because this is not the only… many towns changed state; it was Austro-Hungary before, then it was Czechoslovakia, then it was Hungary and then again back Czechoslovakia. And the citizens stayed there, because that was there home.”</p><h4>WWII</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/UfVZDEz0mcc?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0"></iframe><p>“I don’t know, you know we were, at that time when the screws were kind of tightened up with food… and like many of my professors at school were taken to the army. Then the two high schools were connected because there were not enough professors, you know. So the fourth year and the fifth year of the high school – especially the fifth year – was kind of shaky. And then 1944 – then it was tough, you know. Then it was tough.”</p><h4>Yugoslavia</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/GaBFZHDtNvQ?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0"></iframe><p>“I had a very good position at the children’s hospital in Bratislava and so… but then we went for vacation, to Yugoslavia, you know. And after we finished vacation we came to Belgrade on August 19, 1968 with two small children – daughter two, son five. And the 20th or 21st, we were ready to go home. And we were living with a friend and he went to the market to buy some fruit for the kids, and suddenly all the microphones in the city of Belgrade were sounding ‘Invasion, invasion, invasion, blah, blah, blah’ and we did not know what is going on! Well, my friend told me ‘Well, you go nowhere – the Soviet Army, the Warsaw-Pact armies invaded Czechoslovakia. My God! We didn’t have any money! Just for gasoline! But, when I was in Bratislava, I was teaching cardiology to Yugoslav doctors from Belgrade… <em>Náhoda</em> [coincidence]… And so I went after them and they told me, you know, ‘Listen, we need you.’ The Party and the union had a meeting. ‘We’ll give you a monthly payment ahead and you will start to work with machines.’ And I really did. I did diagnostics and whatever.</p><p>“But, you know, there were tremendous demonstrations in Belgrade. The Yugoslavs were fantastic. There were a couple of thousand, I don’t know, 50,000 Slovaks and Czechs in that area because people were coming up from the sea, you know, going home. This was the end of August, the end of vacation. They gave gasoline to people, food, lodging, you know, everything – hat down! They were extremely helpful. And, the funny thing is, I went to a demonstration with my wife and there was half of the Czechoslovak government! Šik was there, Hájek was there – I don’t know who else, you know, all on a balcony all, and we were all chanting, you know!”</p><h4>Medical School</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/mkWDEK71f6I?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0"></iframe><p>“That was the so-called <em>kádrovanie</em>, you know the sort of political… x-ray, you know, who you really are. But the funny thing is, they didn’t find out who you really are. I was lucky that my father was dead. If my father was not dead, I am out of medical school. You know, that’s what your origins are – you know, your belief, your religion – this is what counts. If you were not on their side, on the left side then, that’s it.”</p><h4>Secret Wedding</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/xJcq4Y7aWws?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0"></iframe><p>“Well I was married… we just celebrated, with my wife, our 50th anniversary. I was married in Banská Bystrica and they knew in Sliač that I was a Catholic, so they were snooping [to find out] when I am going to go to church. And so in November we went, with my wife, to a congress in Budapest, you know, and I had there an aunt of second, third degree, and she arranged that we were married in church, in secret, in Budapest, where the altar boys were our witnesses. And our son was baptized in secret in Banská Štiavnica, you know, in a small town in Southern Slovakia – a beautiful little town – and our daughter was baptized in Modrý kostolík in Bratislava, it was kind of not a big deal. But they were all baptized.</p><p>“You just go to some kind of remote town where nobody knows. And we went to the church, we knocked on the priest’s door, and I told him that we have a two month-old son and that we would like to baptize him. And the priest had his sister there as a housekeeper, and so she was the godmother, and he baptized him, so that’s how. And I think he wrote a certificate or something like that, you know.”</p><h4>Gifts</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/sAEeo8k-E3Q?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0"></iframe><p>“It started with a bouquet of flowers. You know, I go here to my cardiologist. He is paid, but on Christmas, he got a bottle of Bordeaux. But I am not corrupting him, I just express my gratitude. But this kind of gratitude which was in<br />
Košice a bouquet of flowers or a bottle of wine… when a <em>babka</em> [old woman] came from, I don’t know, Palárikovo or whatever, so she gave you a chicken. But this was not there to corrupt you, but to be thankful to the doc. But it degenerated. That’s where the problem is, you know? And when in Bratislava somebody needs a bypass, before the euro, I have a Canadian friend and he paid 30,000 <em>koruny</em>, you know, extra. But this started under Communists – you know – I should correct [that]… it degenerated under the Communists. That’s how I would look at it.”</p>
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Title
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George Mesko
Description
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<p>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 1938, the Mesko family found itself living in Hungary as Košice was handed over to Regent Miklós Horthy. The family made plans to move to Vrútky, Slovakia, where they had relatives, but George’s father had a stroke and so the family remained in Košice for the duration of the War. In 1944, George and the other 16-year-old males in Košice were summoned to Germany to man the country’s understaffed factories. George did not end up going as he suffered a serious allergic reaction shortly before being dispatched, which his mother then used as a reason to send him to Slovakia to convalesce with relatives (and therefore avoid enlistment).</p><p> </p><p>Upon graduation shortly after the War, George began his studies in Bratislava at the Medical Faculty of Comenius University, where he remained for six years. He has written a book about the atmosphere he remembers at the medical school in the early 1950s, entitled <em>The Silent Conspiracy</em> (published in both Slovak and English). Following university, George returned to Košice to work at the city’s children’s hospital. This job was followed by stints at the children’s hospital in Sliač and then back in Bratislava. In 1960, George married his wife, Judith; the couple had both a civil ceremony and a church wedding in secret in Budapest, he says. At the time of the Soviet-led invasion in August 1968, George was on holiday in Yugoslavia with his wife and two children. In light of the invasion, the family decided not to go home.</p><p> </p><p>A leading cardiologist, George accepted an Alexander von Humboldt scholarship in Tübingen, where he and his family subsequently stayed for ten months. In 1969, the Meskos came to Boston, when George was offered a position at Harvard Medical School. Twenty years later, George set up the Heart to Heart Foundation with other members of the Slovak-American Cultural Center – an institution based in New York City. The fund sponsored, among other things, study visits for Slovak healthcare professionals abroad. George retired in 1996. He now lives in McLean, Virginia, and devotes much of his time to writing, primarily about 20th-century Slovak history.</p>
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
National Czech & Slovak Museum & Library
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
NCSML Archive
1968
1968 emigrant/refugee
Banska Stiavnica
Catholicism
Cultural Traditions
Education
Healthcare professional
Kosice
Kosice-Bohumin Railway
marriage
Modry kostolik
Sliac
Slovak citizenship
Teacher
Vrutky
Warsaw Pact invasion
World War II