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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>Moravia</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/PpDpAeEaNV4?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0" id="undefined"></iframe><p>“We were always very poor, due to political reasons, so basically my grandparents played a big part in my life. They gave us a place to stay; they supported us, giving us… If the pig was slaughtered we got some of that and otherwise we were just supporting ourselves by planting fruits and vegetables and having the animals at home so we can survive.”</p><h4>Brother Leaving</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/D446A1mz_xo?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0"></iframe><p>“My brother is very spontaneous. He decides; he goes. So he very spontaneously on the way to the train, which is a 15 minute walk, he tells me ‘Come with me.’ He’s already packed, he’s going to the train, and he says ‘Come with me.’ I said ‘What do you mean? Like, right now, this minute?’ He says ‘Yeah, why not?’ I said ‘Yeah, but I’m just going to be a burden to you because I don’t know anything. I wouldn’t know how to take care of myself. I’d be just dependent on you; I don’t want to do it. But I am certainly going to try to get out when I become something, when I have a profession to fall back on.’ So he just went. I guess I was quite reasonable then. I’m pretty much down-to-earth, so I was thinking logically that it’s not practical to leave right now, and I should at least finish my studies in the<em>gymnázium</em>.</p><p>“But it certainly planted a bug in my head that I should follow him, and I was certain I could get out. And then I thought ‘Ok, I’ll still try to do the university’ and university didn’t work out; then I really purposefully became a nurse, figuring that I speak German, I’m surrounded by German-speaking countries, Germany and Austria, so I’m going to try to get there and I could work as a nurse. I found out also later on that in Germany there was a shortage of nurses so it would have been great. But there was no way to get out. Absolutely no way for me because we were considered such high-risk that we were not even allowed to go to Yugoslavia, which was the route that many people fled – and I admit, I would be the first one.”</p><p><em>You couldn’t even go on vacation to Yugoslavia?</em></p><p>“No, no.” </p><h4>Voting</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/rNa-7lojaqs?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0"></iframe><p>“The voting I went through in Czechoslovakia was absolutely ridiculous. With the age of 18 you had the ‘right’ to vote, and it consisted of you being forced to go and vote. You were handed a paper filled out with the Communist candidates, which you folded and threw in some container. That was the extent of the voting. Absolutely absurd stuff. I don’t know if they were putting up some image for the Western countries because there was no real free election.”<br /></p><h4>Staying in America</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/21D2DFIwfKQ?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0"></iframe><p>“With my family, with my husband, with the properties, and emotionally, much more invested here. I love this country, very much so, because it gave me freedom. I was so fascinated when I came here in ’76, switched on the TV and people were bad-mouthing the president, for example. They were saying bad things about him or people high in the government. This was absolutely a no-no in Czechoslovakia. The freedom of speech was just, to me, so refreshing and so amazing. After ’89, I went there almost every year; I still do, so I saw the changes and all that. But you grow apart from these people. You become different, and I don’t think I would be accepted 100 percent back because I am different already.”</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 Balev
Description
An account of the resource
<p><img class="alignleft wp-image-2339 size-full" src="http://web.archive.org/web/20170609072058im_/http://ncsml.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/SQ-Anna-Balev.png" alt="" width="235" height="235" /></p><p>Anna Balev was born in Olomouc, in Moravia, in 1950. She grew up outside the city in the small village of Březce with her parents, three siblings and grandparents. Prior to the Communist coup, Anna’s father, Jaroslav, was a language professor at a nearby <em>gymnázium</em>. Anna describes him as an ‘avid Catholic’ who ‘went out of his way to provoke’ the communist authorities. He was arrested and sent to prison for two years. Anna’s mother, Blažena, returned to school to become a nurse in order to support the family once her father ran into trouble. Anna says that she was the only one in her class who was not a Pioneer and was instead sent to religion classes. Each year Anna spent the summer with her maternal uncle and aunt in Krnov, times she fondly recalls. Following the 1968 Warsaw Pact invasion, Anna’s brother left the country and settled in Canada.</p><p> </p><p>Anna attended <em>gymnázium</em> in Šternberk and hoped to study languages at Charles University (she was taught French, German and Latin by her father), but was not accepted. She instead decided to study nursing, recognizing that a practical profession would make it easier to start a life elsewhere if she left the country. Anna studied for two years in Olomouc and moved to Prague where she worked at a psychiatric hospital. She then took a job in Karlovy Vary, where she was hired because of her German language skills. In 1975 Anna reconnected with her future husband, an American who had emigrated from Ukraine. The pair had met while she was living in Prague and he was visiting the capital city. They decided to marry in order for Anna to legally leave the country. After getting married in Karlovy Vary, Anna immediately set about getting permission to immigrate to the United States. She arrived in New York City in May 1976 and was handed her green card at the airport.</p><p> </p><p>Anna says that she ‘fell in love immediately’ with the city and was astonished at the freedom she now enjoyed. While studying for her RN exam, Anna found a job at a women’s clinic. She subsequently worked at Roosevelt Hospital and for a plastic surgeon. Anna stopped practicing nursing when her first daughter was born in 1980. Her second daughter was born two years later. Anna also attended Hunter College part-time from her first year in New York. In 1985 she received degrees in English and theatre arts. Today Anna is the owner of a rental company and owns property in the Czech Republic as well as New York.</p><p> </p><p>Anna has returned to the Czech Republic nearly every year since she left and has recently become a dual citizen of the Czech Republic and the United States. She is active in the Czech community in New York as a member of Sokol and the local chapter of SVU (Czechoslovak Academy of Arts and Sciences). Today, Anna lives in New York City with her husband.</p>
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
Catholicism
Community Life
Education
Family life
gymnazium
Healthcare professionals
Machova
marriage
Religion
Sternberk
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>Beautiful Childhood</h4>
<iframe height="300" title="YouTube video player" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/gBuiv2Qs1Tc?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0" id="undefined"></iframe>
<p>“We were a big family. Both my parents had lots of siblings and we were a very, very close family, so everybody had birthdays and, in Europe you celebrate name days, so we usually got together. And because it was such a large family it was always fun. I remember when my grandmother, my mom’s mom, had a birthday or whatever, all of us kids stood in line and everybody had to say a rhyme and hand her a bouquet of flowers. My other grandma, my dad’s mom, she absolutely insisted that we come to see her once a week, and that was usually Wednesday, so she always had some little pastry or something. I had a beautiful, beautiful childhood. Everybody loved everybody, and we were very, very close with all my cousins and aunts and uncles.”</p>
<h4>Triple Hijack</h4>
<iframe height="300" title="YouTube video player" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/dfRIlv9cMSA?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0"></iframe>
<p>“There were three planes; one from Bratislava, one from Moravská Ostrava and one from Brno. Most of the crew was RAF. I got to the bus which takes you to the airport. When we got there – of course this I found out later on – they were already searching with the radar for the two planes from [Ostrava sic.] and Brno. They were out of radar contact and we were the last ones to take off. On our plane was the wife of the American ambassador to Prague and a few people, some of them who didn’t want to be found. My husband told me ‘We didn’t even warm up the engine. We had to take off right away because we didn’t want to be caught on the ground.’ So, without warming up the engines, they just took off. We had to fly about an hour and a half over the Russian zone which was very dangerous at that time. So then he told me that they asked the Americans to give us an escort. We were very high so that we would be out of the radar, but still they asked for an escort so they wouldn’t shoot us down. So that was cool.</p>
<p>“I was okay. I was a little… when you are 20, you don’t know fear. It was funny; on the plane in front of me, there were a bunch of guys from Bratislava and they liked to eat klobásy (sausages) and have slivovice [brandy]. So they said ‘Oh miss, come join us. Have a drink with us. Have fun!’ I said ‘No, no. Thank you.’ They were having a great time. As we were closing – we ended up in Erding – they said ‘Oh, this doesn’t look like Prague’s airport. Where are we?’ And then they saw ‘Oh look, there are planes all around us with a white star!’ and those were the escort planes. But it was cool with them; they didn’t cause any problems. However, when we landed, there was one guy who pulled out his pistol and he went to the cabin where the crew was. Luckily, they locked themselves in because they anticipated this. So they locked themselves in the cabin because he was going to shoot them because they took us to the wrong place, because there were all these MP and Jeeps and American soldiers. It was the American zone where we ended up.”</p>
<h4>Hard Times</h4>
<iframe height="300" title="YouTube video player" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/9jadX2ziiwE?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0"></iframe>
<p>“My father was demoted. They shoved him down, and they were interrogated. They took my mom to one room and him to the other room and they were interrogating him [about] what they knew. Luckily they didn’t know anything so it was good, but they still kept bothering them a lot. So they suffered. Not only because of his demotion from the job, but also psychologically because it was hard for them. I was the only child so they didn’t have anybody, even though they had oodles of nephews and nieces, but still… If your child leaves, it’s another story. But I kept corresponding with them.”</p>
<h4>Local Sokol</h4>
<iframe height="300" title="YouTube video player" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/NGKITYYxaHs?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0"></iframe>
<p>“Not only physical. It was cultural. We had a busy, busy life here. We had a beautiful Sokol hall on Page Street in San Francisco. It was a great big hall and we put on shows. There was a guy, he’s long gone now, but he was the orchestrator of all these shows. For instance, on New Year’s Eve, we were dancing can-can one year; the next day we were doing hula. Plays, we put on plays. It was very active. Very active. And we took trips together to lakes north. We always kind of grouped up with the Czechs, so it was good.”</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 Rus
Description
An account of the resource
<p>Dagmar Rus was born in Prague in 1929, an only child to parents Antonín and Emílie. Her father was an assistant director at the Post and Telegraph Ministry, while her mother stayed home to raise Dagmar. Dagmar says that she had a large, close extended family and regularly saw her grandparents and other relatives. She loved going to Sokol and attended a high school for girls called <em>rodinná škola</em> [family school]. After graduating, she found work as a draftswoman for TESLA. Dagmar has particularly strong WWII memories of the Prague Uprising and the liberation of the city by Russian troops.<br /><br />Dagmar’s husband, whom she married in 1949, had flown with the Czechoslovak squadron of the RAF during WWII. In March 1950, he, along with other ex-RAF pilots who now worked for the Czechoslovak State Airlines (ČSA) and were concerned for their future in the communist state, planned an escape which saw three planes take off from Bratislava, Brno and Ostrava and land at the American air base in Erding, Germany. Dagmar, who was with her husband on the plane leaving from Bratislava, says that the journey was well-planned and fairly uneventful.<br /><br />They stayed in Germany for a few weeks and then moved to London where their first son, Tom, was born in September. In November 1951, the family moved to Toronto where Dagmar became active in Sokol. Her younger son, Michael, was born in 1952. After eight years in Canada, Dagmar and her family moved to the San Francisco Bay Area in search of, according to Dagmar, ‘a better life.’ She bought a dress shop in San Francisco and ran it for several years. Dagmar married her second husband, Rudolf Rus (also a Czechoslovak émigré) in 1965. She says that the pair had a ‘busy life’ and ‘grouped up with [other] Czechs.’ Dagmar returned to Czechoslovakia several times after her escape. Today she lives in San Mateo, California.</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
Bicikova
Community Life
CSA
Family life
Women workers
World War II
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1a58131c18075725373ab823a48288e7
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/XBPqr3MXBO4?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0" id="undefined"></iframe><p>“[Forces were] bombing Brno very heavily, so we moved to a little village and it was full of German soldiers. We never had any problems with them, very disciplined. But it was the opposite with the Russians, completely opposite.”</p><h4>Crossing the Border</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/B_GKE5J6b6o?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0"></iframe><p>“So we went to a garden restaurant. They’d been celebrating, dancing, and I sat down and I think he ordered some wine or whatever. And then he said ‘Come and dance,’ and I said ‘What are you, crazy?’ He said ‘Come and dance,’ so we’re dancing, then I looked around and the Russians came there. And they come with their machine guns and they looked at the people. He [my guide] said ‘Now be nice, smile at me.’ I said ok, I don’t know what he’s talking about. He said ‘Don’t be so stiff.’ He said they were checking people that were close to the border, so they kind of knew who doesn’t belong there or whatever. So fortunately they didn’t think, but they picked up a few people, so that’s why he said ‘Let’s dance,’ we had been sitting, and we went with the crowd. But we made it to Vienna.”</p><h4>Learning English</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/apL_QUllQm8?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0"></iframe><p>“Just what I’m listening and learning. I’m getting a little better at spelling now, after so many years. I wanted to learn, and thank god we moved on the north side [of Chicago]; if we had been on the south side – Berwyn, Cicero – maybe I would still not speak English, I don’t know. But we had a few friends and I wanted to learn. And they told me, which was kind of helpful, they told me ‘Doris, don’t worry if you put the horses behind the wagon, just so the people understand you, keep talking.’ So I’m talking.”</p><h4>Impressions of Americans</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/sqig_3gC3zE?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0"></iframe><p>“American people are very giving people. Sometimes I think they are very idyllic people. I think they should be a little more tough and not always helping, helping. Let the people help themselves. But that’s what I mean, they are very idealistic. You don’t see that in so many countries – wherever you go, the people are first thinking about themselves and the Americans, they always want to help somebody. That’s my experience, what I have experienced.”</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
Doris Drost
Description
An account of the resource
<p>Doris Drost was born in Olomouc, central Moravia, in 1920. Her parents had met in Poland during WWI, as her mother Jana was from there, and her father Vojtěch was a Czechoslovak legionnaire stationed in the country. Doris grew up in Rohatec where her father was the vice president of a chocolate factory; she attended elementary school there until fourth grade, and then transferred to a larger school in Hodonín. Doris moved with her family to Brno a few years later when her father found a new job, and so she finished her schooling there. She remembers spending a few summers in Poland with her grandparents and being very active in Sokol.</p><p> </p><p>Doris attended a teacher’s institute and taught kindergarten for one year before marrying John Drost in 1940. Doris and John had two children, Rudy and <a href="/web/20170609111847/http://www.ncsml.org/exhibits/george-drost/">George</a>. After the Communist coup in 1948, John left the country and Doris and Rudy followed a few months later, leaving George with John’s mother. With help from a guide, Doris crossed the border into Austria and then made her way to Vienna where she joined her husband. The family made plans to move to the United States once they were reunited with George. While in Austria, they lived in Kranebitten, a suburb of Innsbruck, where John found a job. With the help of a family friend and John’s sister, George rejoined the family in January 1950. The Drosts arrived in New York City in July of that year and settled in Chicago, where their sponsor, Ravenswood Presbyterian Church, was located.</p><p> </p><p>Doris says they were helped by many people when they first arrived and worked very hard to carve out a life in the United States. Doris cleaned houses and John worked in a factory before becoming a caretaker at a church and attending law school at night. He eventually opened his own law practice, and Doris became the lunch manager at Woolworth’s. The family was active in the Czech community, and both boys learned to speak Czech. Doris visited Czechoslovakia for the first time in 1990, an experience she describes as ‘very disappointing’ because of the condition of Brno. Doris lived in Arlington Heights, Illinois, until her death in August 2016.</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
1948
Community Life
Education
emigrant
English language
Family life
Hodonin
marriage
Matelova
refugee
World War II
-
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ea0a6c7c8ea4f9daf44c03fe58d8c17d
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>Brewery Experience</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/z9oCjIydGnY?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0" id="undefined"></iframe><p>“The brewery was in Nitra and we were just working there as students. So, they let us go near pivo, or beer, but it was either working with bottles or just little things, because we were there for just four hours. It was partially to see what’s going on so it’s not the first time we walk into a factory after we finish school. So they kind of let us observe what was going on in the real world; that was nice. During summers when I was in school, we used to go for letné aktivita – summer activities – and I spent one month of every summer, while I was in school, in Prague in an ice cream factory – I loved that place! – or I worked in Čelnice where they made fruit compote, so that was really nice. I loved those times because we could see and go to Prague. At that time we paid koruna for the metro, and every day we finished work, we showered, changed our clothes and went to Praha.”</p><h4>Family and Summer</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/WTANmoRURJ8?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0"></iframe><p>“Because my uncle emigrated in ’68, we could not get a passport; we could not go anywhere. So we didn’t travel. We just stayed at home, and I think we lived in one of the most beautiful places in the world in Slovakia with the mountains… We also had a little farm. On top of my parents working, we always had a cow, and of course for winter you had to collect the food for the cows, so my father was working the fields and we went and helped. Then we went in the summer to pick blueberries and wild raspberries, but that was in the mountains. So that’s where are summers were. And we had a little lake, but we had to go on bicycles; it was maybe 6-7 kilometers, but we took our bikes, when our parents let us, and a whole group of kids went there for a whole day and we went to the lake.”</p><h4>Pepsi-Cola Factory</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/AOfuCD_NYew?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0"></iframe><p>“To move to Košice I moved to my aunt’s apartment, because they helped me find the job right after school, and I wanted to go to America to see my uncle. Where I lived, in Banská Bystrica [region], they knew my uncle emigrated and it was on file, but in ’85 there were not many computers and my uncle helped me to get permanent residency in Košice. So because I had permanent residency in Košice, I applied for a visa to America from Košice, and that’s how I could go to America to see my uncle.”</p><h4>Learning English</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/TWezrlhFOVI?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0"></iframe><p>“I went to school, the ESOL program, but most of the English I learned with my kids. They started growing up and we read Slovak stories and then English stories. Watching TV, news, and classical stories. But mostly with kids, when they were doing homework, vocabulary…”</p>
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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
Elena Brlit
Description
An account of the resource
<p>Elena Brlit was born in Pohorelská Maša in 1964 and grew up in the small village in central Slovakia with her parents, younger brother and younger sister. Elena’s mother, Anna, stayed home while her children were growing up and later worked in the factory in nearby Pohorela. Her father, Juraj, worked in a different factory – one that made pumps. During elementary school, Elena was involved in several activities including dance lessons and skiing. She recalls summers spent picking berries and cycling to a nearby lake with friends. Elena attended high school in Nitra, where she lived in dormitory and studied food chemistry. As part of her education, she and her classmates spent several hours a week observing and working in different settings, including a brewery and ice cream factory.</p><p> </p><p>Elena graduated high school and moved to Košice, where her aunt and uncle had helped her secure a job at the Frucola (Pepsi-Cola) factory. According to Elena, one reason for her move was to attempt to visit the United States. Another uncle had emigrated in 1968, and Elena was unable to receive a visa in her hometown. After establishing permanent residency in Kosice, she was given permission to travel and flew to Florida in June 1985. Although her visa was for 20 days, Elena realized she wanted to stay permanently. Shortly after arriving, she met her future husband, <a href="/web/20170609051416/http://www.ncsml.org/exhibits/emil-brlit/">Emil Brlit</a>, and the two married.</p><p> </p><p>Elena became an American citizen in 2000. Since arriving in the United States, Elena has worked with her husband’s dental lab. The couple has two children, both of whom speak Slovak. Elena and her family regularly travel to Slovakia, as her parents still live in the village where she grew up. She enjoys keeping Slovak traditions and has a large circle of Czech and Slovak friends. Today, Elena lives in Sarasota, Florida, with her husband, Emil.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </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
Banska
Education
English language
Family life
Haluskova
Kosice
marriage
Pohorelska Masa
Rural life
school
-
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1321c8d3ea2b9111a5d7bd9ec977ddef
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>Saved by Illness</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/KSGrHBNLNSk?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0" id="undefined"></iframe><p>“I remember during the War, and I especially remember when I had diphtheria and I was in the hospital, and every time the bombers came they put us under the beds if they did not have the time to take us down to the cellar. So, we sort of escaped the War in that respect, because we were in nursery school, my brother and I, but because I had diphtheria, he was quarantined, so he could not be in school with the other children, and at that time a bomb hit the school building and all the children there did not make it, you know.”</p><h4>Coming to America</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/YcsRYM2Kzl0?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0"></iframe><p>“It was very lonesome, because I had my brother since our parents died, you know, always we were together and I had my girlfriends in Vienna at that point, and when I came here I had to just put everything behind me and… I learned most of my Czech here, because my aunt and uncle spoke Czech amongst themselves and so I learned Czech by being nosy! I wanted to know what was being said.”</p><h4>NYC</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Es6R7YBWp-4?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0"></iframe><p>“I remember I came at the age of 12 basically by myself; they put me on the ship and, you know, I came on the ship to America. And in New York, a lady was meeting me, and she spoke Czech. But she soon realized that my Czech was not all that good. So then a different lady came to meet up the next day. But you know I thought my aunt and uncle would come to meet me in New York, but I guess financially they could not do it so, I ended up – they sent me to a convent where the sisters were, and you know, all the time I was on the ship coming here I was happy-go-lucky, but when I came to New York, and I expected to be met by my aunt and uncle and they weren’t there, I just – I didn’t let anybody know but – I was so sad, you know? What’s going to happen to me now that I’m here?</p><p>“I felt safe enough, but I was just so… You know, you’re 12 years old and you have a sort of a straight plan that this is how it’s going to be. And then you come to New York and, okay, they picked me up here, and then that other lady explained to me that in two-three days I was going to go to Chicago. They bought me new clothes in New York which was very… I was thrilled, because after the War there wasn’t – we didn’t really have anything. So I got a nice new coat, new shoes and a new dress and new this. So I was thrilled to see that but when they put me on the airplane coming to Chicago, that was really, I mean, wow!</p><p>“And then I came to Chicago in March, March 3 or 4, 1952; my aunt and uncle were meeting me there so, I had met them in Vienna and I had known them since I was little in Brno. So I knew who they were and all that, so I came here and first thing I was very disappointed because there was dirty snow all over, and I didn’t see any tall buildings in Chicago, because Midway Airport…you don’t see any tall buildings there! So it was totally different from what I expected America to look like.”</p><h4>Daily Bombing</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/2Ce7EXOJNzE?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0"></iframe><p>“We came to Vienna and we saw the buildings all bombed out, and there were parts of the concrete all hanging there – not concrete, the plaster on the buildings – and it was totally, you know… And at that point we didn’t even know, because we… I was born in ’39 and you know, all I remembered was bombs hitting and Russian soldiers coming by and then the American soldiers came by and you know I just… We didn’t know what it was because nobody explained things to us. We were just in our own little world as long as somebody took care of us. I was six years old when I came to Vienna and then during the next six years I started school and you know… Until I came here and I think then I sort of started realizing more that, okay, this is not how life goes on, you know? That bombs don’t always fall and, you know, I’ve been very fortunate and happy to be here.”</p><h4>Czech in Chicago</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/KbtVYxcY7q4?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0"></iframe><p>“I think that people are more spread out, because you know before people lived close-by. I belong to the First Czechoslovak Garden Club of America and that was established in 1935, and the last two years I was president of it, but none of those people speak Czech as well as I do. And I’m not the best, but I can communicate in Czech, you know. So, it was really interesting, because whenever there was anybody who needed something translated from English to Czech I could do it.”</p>
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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
Ingrid Chybik
Description
An account of the resource
<p>Ingrid Chybik was born in Brno, Moravia, in 1939. Her mother Hilda stayed at home and raised Ingrid and her younger brother Alfred, while her father (also called Alfred) directed a textile business. During WWII, Ingrid fell ill with diphtheria which, she says, saved both her and her brother, as they were quarantined when the nursery school they normally attended was bombed. Both of Ingrid’s parents were killed during the War and so she and her brother were taken in by relatives living in Novosedlý near Mikulov, southern Moravia. In 1946, Ingrid moved with her brother to Vienna, where the pair stayed with their grandmother. Ingrid spent six years in Vienna until she was sponsored by another aunt and uncle, Bohumil and Erna Hlavac, to come to Chicago. Ingrid says her aunt and uncle had left Czechoslovakia in 1950 when they heard that Bohumil may be arrested on charges of having collaborated with the Nazis during WWII. Such charges, says Ingrid, were ridiculous as her uncle had spent much of the War imprisoned in Mauthausen concentration camp.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Ingrid arrived in Chicago in March 1952. She first attended Epiphany Grade School, where she says the nuns were sympathetic and helped her learn English, and then Lourdes High School, where she did well academically. Upon graduation, she started working at Continental Bank downtown and studied accounting at DePaul University at night. She did not finish her degree, but says the accounting classes she took subsequently helped her with her business career. She continued to live with her aunt and uncle and, after years of speaking German in Vienna, re-learned Czech from them at home. Ingrid says she perfected her Czech by going to the cinema to watch old movies with her aunt. In 1963, she married <a href="/web/20170611035028/http://www.ncsml.org/exhibits/miroslav-chybik/">Miroslav Chybik</a>, whom she had known for five years and whom she had originally met at a series of Czech community dances in Chicago. The couple went on to have three daughters.</p><p> </p><p>Ingrid says she became involved in a number of Czech and Slovak cultural groups in Chicago, and remains active in these societies to this day. She was president of the First Czechoslovak Garden Club of America until the end of 2010 and served as a long-term member of the United Moravian Societies. She has taken her children to Vienna and the Czech Republic to meet her relatives on a number of occasions. Today, she lives in Burr Ridge, Illinois, with her Czech-American husband Miroslav, whom she says she feels lucky to have married as he understands her so well.</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
Czech language
Education
Family life
German language
marriage
Novosedly
Pistauerova
school
World War II
-
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13df47834c4710edc91dfcf0e3e1cdd2
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>Nymburk</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/hDGf_da80Fw?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0" id="undefined"></iframe><p>“My parents, my brother, and my sister, we all shared a three plus one apartment. Three plus one meant a kitchen, a living room, and two bedrooms. So, one bedroom for my parents, one bedroom for my sister, my brother, and myself, and I think that is sort of the cause of my enjoying my space and not really being good about sharing my space, because I always had to share it. I actually remember that as a child – this is going to sound ridiculous – but as a child, I actually often played at the toilet, because it was a small room, about one by one square meter, and I would just close the toilet and that was my little desk, and I would draw and do whatever projects there because I think I always felt the need for my own space. So yes, it was a little bit crowded in the apartment, I would say.”</p><h4>Political Awareness</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/7OlWwlyNiwc?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0"></iframe><p>“My father was always very much anti-the regime. He was not in any kind of resistance group; I think it had to do partially because we did live in an insignificant place. But he would always, every evening at 9:00, I remember him tuning to the Voice of America – I think a lot of parents did it, but they wouldn’t tell their kids. I remember since I was very little, and it’s something that I do now value a lot, is that whenever he was listening to Voice of America, he never sent me away from the room. I remember from six or seven years old being told that what they do is not allowed; if I say that my dad listens to this radio station or that he reads the newspapers he reads, that they will get in trouble and I don’t want my parents to get in trouble because I might end up in an orphanage if they would go to jail or something like that. They trained me in what was the official version and then what was the truth. So I think that from very early on, I did learn to read between lines, and I learned not to trust any kind of government, not to trust any kind of institution, always question.”</p><h4>University</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/HfppIhQa2wY?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0"></iframe><p>“Shortly after starting school – maybe a month of classes, a month and a half of classes – I was approached by one of my classmates who sort of knew about or sensed my political views. He said ‘Hey listen, on Friday afternoon, there is going to be this little gathering’ – it was November 17 – ‘there is going to be a gathering of college students on Albertov in Prague and you should come.’ And I came, and I had absolutely no idea that that would be the beginning of the Velvet Revolution. So I was fortunate enough to be there, to gather with everybody, with all the students in Albertov and then just walk down to the National Boulevard [Národni třída] where we were stopped by the police. It was fascinating. Looking back now it was fascinating; I mean, it was kind of freaky being there, but I think even then it was more fascinating than freaky. You just kind of didn’t know what was going on. I went with a friend and then I remember we just separated. Everybody kind of ran for their own life. So I went home that night to Nymburk. I took the train home for the weekend, and when I returned to school on Monday, the student organizers already started the student strike and that’s basically what led to the change of the system. It was nice to be a part of a revolution.”</p><h4>Czech vs U.S. Education</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/ewOYElgJjx0?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0"></iframe><p>“I wasn’t really into reading a book, memorizing the information, going to meet with the teacher and being questioned on the information that I read and asked, basically, to repeat that information without being asked about my opinion. We were not trained to have an opinion and that was actually something that was the most difficult aspect when I started studying in the U.S., that all of the sudden they wanted to know what I think, and I struggled with that a little bit. Not because I wouldn’t think, but just because before that nobody wanted to know what I think. Who am I to think something about something? You repeat what the authority says and your opinion in insignificant until, or unless, you become an authority. So that was a big shock and surprise when I started going to school here, but of course, it was also the reason why I enjoyed my studies in this country so much, and why I went on with my associates degree and then bachelors degree and then masters degree and ended up teaching college myself.”</p><h4>Back to School</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/FLfZJlleZjM?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0"></iframe><p>“It was when I decided that I would stay here. Not that I didn’t like working in a restaurant, but I think I was always looking at it as something temporary. I knew that I didn’t want to be a waitress for the rest of my life, so I knew that going to school was the only other way to do something different. Also, to maybe become more American. To fit better in society. To not just be the Czech in America doing Czech things within the Czech community. I guess I wanted to participate more in American society more than the Czech community in America.</p><p>“After I married my husband Kevin, he very much encouraged me. He was the one who sent me to school. I didn’t feel ready. I thought my English still wasn’t good enough to go to college and he basically said ‘No, you have to go to college,’ and so I started at the College of DuPage. So after I got an associate degree, I went on to DePaul University to get my B.A. and I thought that’s where I’m ending, but it was the professors that I had at DePaul – with whom I’m actually good friends – my Spanish and German professors, because I did continue with languages, the kind of comments they would write on my papers when they returned the paper graded, they wouldn’t really write comments about the paper, as much as I remember my German teacher, the only comment one time she put on my paper was ‘You have to do a PhD in literature.’ So that was when I started thinking ‘Oh maybe I am actually smart enough to do this.’ I was very insecure. Like I said, college was never a topic of conversation at home. It wasn’t there for me, it was not in the cards. At least that’s how I felt. And it was these professors who made it clear that I do have the intellectual capacity to do this, but who sort of also didn’t really suggest. It wasn’t like ‘Oh, would you like to go to college?’ No, the approach was ‘This is what you are doing. This is what you have to do.’ So, that’s what I did.”</p><h4>Teaching Czech</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/WdIXjLMV6I4?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0"></iframe><p>“I enjoy being with the kids. It allows me, in a way, to be a kid myself. Also, the beauty of teaching the Czech language to children who are partially Czech, but they are Americans already. English is their first language; English is the language they think in. Whenever we have a break, they switch to English immediately. That is their natural way of communication. Teaching them the language, not only do I find it extremely important just for the future of these kids, whether they get credit for it when they are in college or just the fact that they can go to the Czech Republic – maybe they can go to college there and they won’t be limited by not knowing the language. Also, just the fact that they can communicate with their grandparents. So I find that very important.</p><p>“But also, I think it’s not just that I would be giving something to them, I’m getting a lot back in return. In a way, it makes me appreciate more my culture – the Czech culture. It makes me also perceive the Czech language differently. Sometimes through the errors the children make, you become aware of some subtleties in the language that otherwise you wouldn’t have thought of. So I’m getting a lot back from it, too.”</p>
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Title
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Irena Cajkova
Description
An account of the resource
<p>Irena Cajkova was born in Městec Králové and grew up with her parents and older brother and sister in the town of Nymburk located about 30 miles east of Prague. Irena’s parents both worked for the railroad industry (her father was a railroad engineer and her mother worked in a factory) and, as a result, the family traveled for free and took frequent trips to Bulgaria and other Eastern Bloc countries. Irena recalls listening to Voice of America with her father nightly and being told to keep their activities a secret. She attended a brand-new elementary school in Nymburk and, although she wanted to be a seamstress and attend trade school, her parents sent her to a business high school in nearby Poděbrady where she enjoyed grammar and language classes. After graduating, Irena taught elementary school for one year and then began studying elementary education at Charles University in Prague. Shortly after the start of classes, Irena participated in the student protest on November 17, 1989 that marked the beginning of the Velvet Revolution.</p><p> </p><p>In 1991, Irena traveled to Austria as an interpreter for friends who were looking for work and was offered a job herself as an au pair. Upon arriving home, she decided not to continue her studies and returned to teaching. Shortly thereafter, Irena moved to Chicago with plans to learn English and see the country. Instead of staying one year as originally planned, Irena found a job in a restaurant and stayed for two years. She returned to the Czech Republic, where she was joined by her American fiancé Kevin. The couple lived in Prague for almost one year, were married in Nymburk, and then moved back to Chicago where Irena decided to return to school. She received an associate’s degree from the College of DuPage, a B.A. in German and Spanish from DePaul University, and an M.A. in Spanish literature from the University of Chicago. Irena credits her husband and her professors for encouraging her in her studies. Irena has been teaching Spanish at the University of Chicago for ten years. She also teaches Czech language classes at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and the T.G. Masaryk Czech School in Cicero, Illinois. She currently lives in Chicago.</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
Czech language
Education
Family life
Mestec Kralove
Post-1989 emigrant
Teachers
Velvet Revolution
-
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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>Father</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/NTBX3rt2qaI?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0" id="undefined"></iframe><p>“He had the very first photography store in Plzeň that had been shut down and confiscated by the Communist Party after the War when the Communists took over Czechoslovakia. Then they confiscated his store in a very nasty way; they sent a woman into his store when he was not there, and she would leave some kind of fake propaganda against the new regime. So then, the secret police came in and they said ‘What is this, Mr. Křen?’ and he wasn’t even there when it happened. So that’s how it happened. They set him up. They found some kind of anti-communist propaganda and they put him in prison. That’s how they did that. They had a reason to confiscate the store – the Communists would not allow any private enterprise anyway, but this was the way they did it. They actually locked up my father; he was in prison because he was a store owner. This was like the biggest crime, but they had to explain it differently, so that’s why they plotted this scene where this woman left some kind of propaganda in his store.”</p><h4>WWII</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/BvUUeIdi24U?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0"></iframe><p>“He was 25 years old when the Americans liberated Plzeň and he was taking pictures of the American Army liberating Plzeň, which was not convenient for the Russians who later on claimed that they liberated the whole country. And it was not allowed to even say that the Americans liberated part of it, so the fact that my father had proof that the Americans were in Plzeň and freed Plzeň was against the interest of the Russians and the Communists. That actually is one of the reasons why my father was arrested, because they came into his store and wanted to get all these negatives that were proving this fact. They were actually quite well-hidden because my aunt (the sister of my father) hid those negatives in the basement of her house.</p><p>“Finally, there was a book published about 15 years by Zdeněk Roučka, and he was collecting all the pictures that existed from that time – which most of them my father shot; that’s why he’s listed as number one. My father was risking his life. There were bullets flying around his head and, later on, he was in prison just because of that. Because he had to prove that it was not just the Russians who freed Czechoslovakia.”</p><h4>Mother</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/JmOdFyW2c04?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0"></iframe><p>“We moved from Vinohrady to Zvihov, and our life all of the sudden became this bourgeois lifestyle. We had two BMWs – don’t forget, this was the heart of communism, so two BMWs – a villa, and we even had a woman who would clean up, like a cleaning lady. That was really unheard of for that time in Czechoslovakia. I would even drive this BMW to high school. I went to Střední průmyslová škola grafická [School of Graphic Arts], so a couple times I was driving in the BMW and I felt like a Hollywood star. I actually did earn some kind of… people looked at me a little bit differently. Also, what separated me a lot from my peers was the fact that I was able to travel more than other kids, because my stepfather was an Argentinean citizen and my mother also had some connections, so were kind of fortunate that we could travel. In wintertime, I went to skiing in Switzerland; in summertime, I always went someplace. That’s why kids in my school, in my class, looked at me a little bit differently.”</p><h4>New York</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/UBQ26A4XkYc?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0"></iframe><p>“When I was dreaming about coming to the United States, in my mind, I had seen those movies, and most of them were shot in California. So I saw the palm trees and the blue sky, the ocean and those tan and fit people. I thought ‘Wow, that’s where I want to go;’ however, when I landed in New York with $150 in my pocket, that was just about it. I could not really go any further with that. So I got stuck in New York and I had to make a living here, and that was another lesson in my life; it was really hard to do that. By the time I was able to make enough money to even buy the ticket to California, I was kind of used to New York and liked New York, so I was no longer tempted by California. And I did go, but I somehow liked New York from the moment I started working here.”</p><h4>Czech Food</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/L4oAktVU_fU?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0"></iframe><p>“There is only one time a year where I make Czech food, and it’s a fusion between Czech and American customs. On Thanksgiving, I don’t make turkey because I am not crazy about turkey – it’s dry. I do duck, and I bake the duck the Czech way because it’s one of the best dishes the Czechs are making. So I bake duck and I make the red cabbage and I also do the potato dumplings. So that’s the once a year that I cook Czech food [and it’s] on an American holiday. So now I combined it. Duck is a bird as much as the turkey, and it tastes better.”</p><h4>No Czech Groups</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/RSA8nSPXkUo?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0"></iframe><p>“I did not come to New York to be with the Czechs; I really did not. Being also raised under communism, you have a little bit of a distrust of being part of any kind of belief system or any organization. You wouldn’t even be able to get me on a cruise; even Club Med scares me, because it’s part of any organized, fun group. Even if it’s fun group, not just a religious group, it’s still organized, and I have a certain aversion. I have too much of a free spirit to have organization that I should be part of and follow. That’s completely out of it for me.”</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
Jana Krenova
Description
An account of the resource
<p> </p><p>Jana Krenova was born in Prague in 1959. Her father, Mirko Křen, originally from Plzeň, was a photographer and her mother, Vlasta, often assisted her father with his projects. At the end of WWII, Mirko was on hand to shoot the liberation of Plzeň by American troops; his photographs, as well as the fact that he was a small-business owner, led to his arrest and six-month imprisonment by communist authorities in 1948. Jana spent her early years in the neighborhoods of Žižkov and Vinohrady, where she started school. During the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia in August 1968, Jana’s family was on vacation in Italy. Although her father hoped to stay abroad, his failing health led them to return, and he died at the end of the year.</p><p> </p><p>Jana’s mother continued her photography business and, several years later, she remarried a Czech-born Argentinean citizen. Jana says that her life became quite ‘bourgeois,’ as they moved to a villa with two BMWs and were able to travel extensively (Jana regularly spent her winter vacations skiing in Switzerland). For high school, Jana attended Střední průmyslová škola grafická [School of Graphic Arts] where she focused on photography. Upon graduating, she worked for one year as a staff photographer for ČTK news agency. Jana says that the combination of family pressure and the oppressive Communist government led her to leave the country permanently. In July 1979, she flew to London and then on to New York.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>During Jana’s first days in New York, she was helped by <a href="/web/20170609122043/http://www.ncsml.org/exhibits/viera-noy/">Viera Noy</a> whom she had met on a ski trip in Slovakia and for years worked several jobs to support herself. She received a green card and, in 1984, moved to Switzerland. Jana had a daughter and found a job as the art director and photographer for a magazine in Zurich. She returned to New York in the summer of 1989, shortly before the fall of communism in Czechoslovakia, and worked a series of jobs as a magazine art director. In 1997, Jana began freelancing and frequently traveling to Prague for photo shoots. Today, she splits her time between New York City, Prague and Barbados.</p><p> </p><p> </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
Anti-communist
Arrest
Arts
Cultural Traditions
Family life
Sense of identity
WWII
-
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9602af14c77be2f341d3fbaab8b1b343
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>Growing Up</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/C5-Kc6lC1V4?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0" id="undefined"></iframe><p>“We grew up on a very traditional farm, in a very traditional way. Most of the villagers were farmers; however, the village was self-sustained because there was a cluster of villages and every village had someone who did something. There was a dressmaker and a shoemaker and a cabinet maker and a baker, and there was a little church nearby and there was a priest and there was a school in the village, which was the grammar school, [grades] one to five. For middle school, [grades] six to nine, we had to go to the little town where the church was and the castle and the school. The only things we were buying were sugar, salt, yeast, and that’s about it. When the supply of meat ran out, then we sometimes went to the butcher in town and bought the meat for Sundays. Matter of fact, we were eating meat basically only on Sundays.”<br /></p><h4>Collectiveness and Religion</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/ankZIbWsLL0?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0"></iframe><p>“Until then, it was very traditional that people from the village were going to church, but when the so-called JZD [Jednotné zemědělské družstvo], collectivism, took place, the officials started to put pressure on people not to go to church, and if you went to church on Sundays they were threatening you that you won’t be allowed to study. So the people got threatened and so maybe the children stayed at home and the parents went only, or the children only who were planning to stay on the farm or go to vocational school, they were allowed to go. I was going until the eighth grade and then the communists came with a different idea of how to ruin the church and they relocated the local priests. They sent them to the communities where they were not known and new priests came, and it had a horrible impact on the whole church going and the church community, because people didn’t warm up to him. He was a stranger, he was different, he had different ideas of how to do things; he was a little prudish. He started to say what people should do; the other one was nicer. And at that time, I stopped going every Sunday. I was going on Easter and Christmas, but not often.”<br /></p><h4>Moving to Munich</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/RTHMNn-_2aA?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0"></iframe><p>“It was the best year of our lives. It was like a honeymoon, because we didn’t have any responsibility towards the family. We thought we had money. We lived as we lived very modestly, in a very tiny apartment. I mean, very tiny. It was a studio. But we were young, we made friends. I knew German, so I quickly made connections. I’m good at that. There were people there for 20 years and they said ‘We don’t have any German friends. We socialize with only Czech immigrants.’ I couldn’t believe it because the Germans were so friendly; so nice and polite and interesting. I loved Munich.</p><p>“Our son Jan was born there, and we were very happy because he was a healthy child, and I wanted to stay there. I nested. It was close to home. All of the sudden you see how close Munich is to Prague. From Prague under communism, Munich seems like thousands of miles away. When you are in Munich, you look at the map and you finally realize ‘Oh my goodness!’ From Bratislava to Prague, it’s closer to Munich. I just loved it there, because I felt comfortable. Probably, I have some German genes. You know, being orderly and being organized, I felt like at home. It didn’t bother me. Some Czech people were saying ‘Oh, the Germans are so picky and you have to do everything in order and you have to comply with the order.’ I don’t have any problems with that. I loved that. And the city was clean and full of nice things. I couldn’t buy anything, but it didn’t matter. I was window shopping every Sunday. We lived in the center of Munich and there was a farmer’s market there. I loved their folk costumes and I thought ‘When I save the money, I will buy one and I will be dressing like them.’”<br /></p><h4>California</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Mu7bqamYeyk?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0"></iframe><p></p><h4>Czech Connection</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/n7wj_Dk7LjI?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0"></iframe><p>“I didn’t want to push on them the Czech culture, because I’ve seen in other Czech families with older children that they hated it. There was a group of Czech friends down on the peninsula and they were actually trying to do dancing lessons for their teenagers and they of course hated the idea that they will be forced to dance. So I thought I’m not going to do it. They will figure out where they are from. Which they did actually pretty soon, because in 1990 we started to return to Czech Republic every summer, and they absolutely adore my old farm. They thought that grandpa, whom they met when they were six and eight for about two years before he died, they thought he was the coolest guy ever, because he did things like he mowed the grass with a scythe, and he was doing all kinds of stuff, like mechanically and technically, repairing stuff. Metal, wood, whatever it was. They thought that he was a god because he knew how to make everything and repair everything.”</p>
Dublin Core
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Title
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Jana Pochop
Description
An account of the resource
<p>Jana Pochop was born in Hořic v Podkrkonoší in northeastern Bohemia in 1947. She grew up on a farm in the village of Bukinova u Pecky with her parents, Jaroslava and Josef, and her two brothers and one sister. Jana says that her village was self-sustaining, but that after the farms were collectivized she remembers shortages of food and other goods. Because her father was in the hospital for several weeks, her farm was one of the last in the area to be collectivized. Jana attended elementary school in her village, but after fifth grade she had to travel to nearby towns. She says that high school was an especially difficult time as she struggled to balance travel, homework, and housework, and her mother was in the hospital. Her mother died when Jana was 16. After graduating high school, Jana attended the Institute of Chemical Technology in Prague for one year. She returned home to help take care of the farm for one year and then moved to Hradec Králové where she worked in the accounting office of a company that brought entertainment from Prague to the city. In 1970, Jana married Vladimir Pochop, whom she had known since she was 16, and moved to Prague.</p><p> </p><p>Jana received a degree in physical therapy from a vocational school and, in 1975, began studying psychology at Charles University. Jana says that in order to be accepted, she applied for membership in the Communist Party; however, her application was not processed. She received her degree in 1979 and, in January 1980, she and Vladimir traveled to London for two weeks. When they were not granted asylum there, on the way home, the pair got off the train in Munich and went to the American Embassy. Jana and Vladimir were granted asylum and found an apartment; Jana says that she loved their time in Munich. When they received permission to immigrate to the United States, Jana was eight months pregnant. Their son Jan was born in September 1981. Eight months later in April 1982, the Pochops flew to Atlanta, Georgia. Jana stayed with Jan in Atlanta for six weeks while Vladimir found a job and a place to live in California. Once settled in Mountain View, California, Jana says that the language barrier was very difficult for her. She took many ESL classes and raised her sons (Martin was born in 1984) speaking English in order to improve her own language skills. In 1990, the Pochops returned to Czechoslovakia for the first time and Jana was able to retrieve her transcript from the vocational school she had attended for physical therapy. A few years later, she began working as a physical therapist at a hospital. In 2011, Jana completed a program in psychology at St. Mary’s College. As both of their sons now live in Prague, Jana and Vladimir have considered returning to the Czech Republic. Today, they live in Concord, California.</p>
Creator
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National Czech & Slovak Museum & Library
Source
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NCSML Archive
Education
English language
Family life
Healthcare professionals
Horic v Podkrkonosi
Hradec Kralove
Religion
Rural life
Triebenekrova
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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>Growing Up</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/SgjWql945wk?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0" id="undefined"></iframe><p>“I have very fresh memories of walking by a grocery store or pharmacy and seeing empty shelves, or seeing a line of people waiting outside. The practice was that, if you saw a line in front of a pharmacy, you immediately went and stood in the line because something arrived that was never available, and it was the bizarre stuff you’d expect. Sometimes you would get to the end of the line and they had toilet paper. Sometimes you would get to the end of the line and there was butter and you could buy one stick of butter. But having that experience helped you appreciate the small things in life because all of the sudden you realize that they are not automatically available, which is kind of the difference between living here and growing up in communism. Because, when I go to the store here, I see the overwhelming amount of color and everything. I still remember there was a time when I would go to the store and it was empty, gray; I’m sure you’ve heard of the expression ‘Russian Safeway,’ which we have some of in Washington which are Safeway stores that are basically always empty because they cannot keep up with stocking the shelves. So that’s sort of my memory of Czech grocery stores, and seeing the difference.”</p><h4>School Days</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/qUkfFpd1NT0?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0"></iframe><p>“During my years in school, we had to participate in defensive exercises because we were preparing for the West attacking us. The duck-and-cover exercise was basically the same thing, somebody running into the classroom saying ‘It’s happening,’ meaning ‘We’re being attacked! Duck and cover!’ as if that really helps. And we also did a chemical attack exercise when we got plastic raincoats and plastic bags and a gas mask – everybody had a gas mask according to the size of their mouth – and we would put the mask on, plastic bags on our hands, the raincoats, plastic bags on our legs and somebody running in saying ‘We’re being attacked,’ and then the whole classroom of kids would have to go for a walk, a two- or three-mile walk, around town in this plastic cover to prepare us for when the attack happens. I’m not sure, thinking about it in retrospect, how helpful the plastic bags would be, and how far could we really get in this plastic dress-up?”</p><h4>Elementary School</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/qUujijMyZC4?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0"></iframe><p>“I was standing at the bus stop one day and I remember seeing a lot of people smoking and throwing cigarette butts on the floor, and I thought it was not very good, so I went and took a plastic bag, picked up all those cigarette butts, came to school, and made a school [bulletin] board that said ‘Smoking is Not Healthy’ with a hundred of these cigarette butts on the board. It was very artistic; it was very creative for the time and for my age, but the teachers did not appreciate it. They were communist teachers and there was no room for creativity. There was no room for deviation. Everyone was growing up to be a little communist, thinking of Russia as our savior, and I did this unpredictable act of saying that smoking is bad when, during communism, smoking was encouraged as a way of relieving stress. There were actually magazines printing guides for pregnant women [saying] that if they smoke a little bit it can help with stress. It was a different time; it was normal. Nevertheless, the school took the board down and told me that that’s not acceptable, called my parents in, and my mom, who was not a communist – she was actually anti-communist – did not like that at all and got into a conflict with the school.</p><p>“They did give me another chance and said ‘Well, we took this down. Do another board for next week. Do something about an influential person,’ and I think the hint was ‘Do something about our president.’ I came home, and my mom had been participating in some anti-communist activities, which I didn’t know back then, so she was doing a lot of typing at night. Later on in my life I learned that she was re-typing a newsletter called samizdat or different reports that my aunt would bring from a little magazine, three pages, and my mom would re-type it ten times, then she would leave and distribute it, and I was thinking ‘What a strange activity.’ Anyway she had a magazine there from Germany with a picture of a president on a horse, and I thought the pictures were so beautiful and I looked through it and it said ‘Reagan, American president.’ So I took the magazine and I cut out all the pictures from the magazine and brought it to school and did a board about President Reagan. Of course, at the time, I didn’t know exactly what it meant, but it was not a good thing. Reagan was not to be celebrated in a communist school in the Czech Republic in Ostrava, and this was my second board that did not go very well. So after my Reagan board was posted, I was expelled from Pioneers.”</p><h4>Languages</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/aT6AgAzO29A?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0"></iframe><p>“I went to study at the first private high school in the Czech Republic, which was a school of business and management, in Jihlava where it was a totally different curriculum. The communist guidelines were thrown out; it was basically people that wanted to teach a Western way of studying, and I was the second year of school. When I started, I was fluent in German and, during that time, people were obviously looking for managers, foreign companies were coming to do business, but also people had to learn foreign languages. Nobody spoke anything but Czech. There were a few people moving back from overseas that spoke English, French, and German, but a lot of companies started to get foreign investors, and lot of them came from Germany. So as it turns out, during my second year in high school, I was offered a job at a language school teaching executives from Czech-, now German-, owned companies German so that they could communicate with their staff. So I was teaching Bosch in Jihlava; I was teaching at Tchibo, really interesting environments, but mainly I was introduced to high-level executives at a very young age and I had to work basically full days. I would study during the day and I would work late at night because, first of all, I was able to make money and support my school and, second, there was a high demand.</p><p>“I think it helped me to grow up really fast because being 15 or 16, and teaching 45 to 60 year olds how to speak a foreign language sort of makes you a little more mature. There’s a certain level of authority and self-confidence that you have to present which normal 15 and 16 year olds don’t have, so you go through the struggles of building it up really quickly so that you can make it through the teaching process, and I think it happened. So when I finished my high school in the Czech Republic, I had a really interesting view on life because it very much resonated with my idea of freedom, travel, doing different things from what everybody else does.”</p><h4>American Citizenship</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/ch7IfnEu1FA?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0"></iframe><p>“I spent a long time living in the country and getting to know the country and learning all about the history, and actually I learned to understand how diverse it is and how there really is no description for what it is and how very well I fit in – because everybody does. So it just felt as if that’s home. I feel very much welcome and very much a part. I feel very much different when I travel. When you travel around the world and you talk to people and you have the American experience, you understand what diversity is and you understand what we do, a lot of people don’t understand. A lot of people don’t understand why you have due process in cases that are easy and clearly decided. There’s this sensitivity that comes with being part of evolved society, which a lot of people don’t understand, that you develop. Once you do, you realize how valuable it is and how priceless it is.</p><p>“And traveling, going back to where I come from – I love where I come from and I love the culture, but I come from a communist country and I come from a country that’s filled with people that lived during communism, half of which wanted communism, and I have to say I have a lot less in common with people that are left there and are living there than with people that live here. So I think being American also means that one can evolve and decide that, even though they come from place A, that might not have been where they should be, and having my experience of fighting the system in fifth grade when I couldn’t finish my board and having all these things happen, I think it was clear all along; I just didn’t understand it up until I was given another opportunity.”</p><h4>Bistro Bohem</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/d7oHV43W5to?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0"></iframe><p>“She was super smart and sophisticated because of her life experiences. She had ten kids, lived in the village, and had to work in her little fields to produce her own potatoes, cabbage, anything there is to eat – you didn’t buy anything back then. She had a few pigs, a few chickens, so there was always food and there was always something being cooked in the kitchen. I remember every morning, getting up, there was always a pot of boiling something on the stove. Now I understand she was making stock from bones and carrots and she was simmering it for hours, and I remember coming into the kitchen in the morning and it smelled amazing. I remember, it was usually around 10:00, there was a little bit of bones with meat on it provided to everybody in the kitchen. All the kids would hang out and then start picking chicken meat off of chicken bones, and at noon there was usually a big soup lunch. She was also a big baker and, because she had ten kids that all had grandkids and there were sometimes 20-25 of us in the house, she learned how to bake very quickly, how to make a lot of good breads and a lot of good cakes. I remember her sitting by the stove with a bag of flour and the flour floating everywhere and her getting <em>kolaches</em> out and pastries and little dinner rolls and making sheet pans and sheet pans of dinner rolls, and we were all sitting there waiting for them to come out of the oven so we could take them, and she was making them almost on demand. So that was my first experience of cooking and I liked it a lot. I was really intrigued.”</p><h4>History</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/RKZnHBnh9rA?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0"></iframe><p>“Getting familiar with history, I learned a few things about Czech cuisine that I didn’t know until I got into the culinary world. I didn’t know that back in the day, during the art nouveau era, Czech cuisine was maybe even more interesting and pristine than French cuisine. I didn’t know that Czech pastries and Czech bakers were way farther advanced than French ones, and maybe the French kind of took a little credit for Czech history. But knowing that and realizing how much there is that we used to do before communism and how good things were, thinking of Prague in 1910, 1905, 1920 during the First Republic, I thought that it would be a good opportunity to take some of that history, some of that knowledge, and showcase a Czech cuisine here to people that have never heard of it, most people don’t think it’s any good because the Czech Republic is known for its beer, not its cuisine and sort of take a different spin on Czech cuisine and see if people will react.</p><p>“I didn’t want to limit myself to Czech only because I am Czech; I wanted to cover a bigger a region, but it turned out that a lot of our focus is on Czech cuisine and it turns out that its way more popular than I expected and it very much resonates with people. I think it did what it was supposed to do, which is attract people that have the heritage and have the history and want to experience the flavors that they have known from their grandparents, which happens a lot. We have a lot of people that come in, have an amazing experience and have an amazing meal, and say ‘My grandmother used to make this and this is just as good as hers,’ or even better. And it also exposes the food and the culture to people that might not have ever thought that there is food in Czech Republic worth eating, so it raises a little bit of awareness to the culture and the food.”</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
Jarek Mika
Description
An account of the resource
<p> </p><p>Jarek Mika was born in Ostrava in eastern Moravia in 1978. His father, Josef, was from a small village nearby, and Jarek has fond memories of visiting the farmhouse with his many relatives and experiencing his grandmother’s cooking. Jarek grew up with his mother, Radana, and his older sister. In fifth grade, he was expelled from the Pioneer organization after decorating a bulletin board with pictures of President Reagan. Jarek recalls the Velvet Revolution in November 1989 and says that the ‘mentality of people changed’ after the fall of communism; he also noticed a marked difference in his teachers. Jarek attended a private high school in Jihlava which focused on business and management. He says that his expulsion from Pioneers had prevented him from taking Russian language classes and, instead, he studied German with a private tutor. As a result, Jarek spoke fluent German upon beginning high school and found a job at a language school teaching German to business executives. According to Jarek, this experience widened his horizons and he decided to move to the United States to learn English and study.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>In 1996, Jarek began studying English at a community college in North Carolina and transferred to the University of North Carolina, Charlotte. He graduated with a degree in international business. While in school, Jarek worked for a bank and, by the time he graduated, was working as a loan processor team leader. He then moved to Washington, D.C. to continue his banking career where he worked for an international banking group for two years. After several years in mortgage banking, Jarek left the profession and decided to open a restaurant. Drawing on his love of cooking – Jarek says that he often cooked to unwind from his stressful career as a banker – he took culinary courses at the Art Institute of Washington and opened Bistro Bohem, which features Czech cuisine, in March 2012.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Jarek received his American citizenship in 2011, a step he took because he ‘feels American.’ His mother moved to the United States to be closer to Jarek, and he visits the Czech Republic often to visit his sister and her family. Jarek also has several real estate properties in the Czech Republic. Today he lives in Washington, D.C.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p><a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20170808005933/http://www.bistrobohem.com/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Bistro Bohem’s website</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
Cultural Traditions
Education
Family life
German language
Post-1989 emigrant
Restaurant/hotel industry
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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
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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>Father</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/5c1diszRosA?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0" id="undefined"></iframe><p>“They actually called my father ‘man with the golden hands,’ which was very funny because he had like nine professions. My father didn’t have a college education but he had nine professions. He was very good with his hands so, no matter what he touched, blossomed. At home, nothing was a problem; when my mother wanted something he made it for. So everything was on a daily basis: ‘Oh, you need this? Oh, I’ll do it.’</p><p>“I remember my mother saw somewhere in Prague this copper art, and she was amazed how beautiful it was and I volunteered. I said ‘Maybe I can do that for you,’ because I was ambitious to do stuff with my hands as a kid; maybe I was nine at that time, and I had no clue how you work with metal, but I kind of thought by seeing in a gallery – I went to a gallery to see similar kind of art. And then I told my dad what kind of tools I needed and he made them for me. He made the tools and then I did this big piece of art and my parents put it over the fireplace.”</p><h4>Art</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/I5xfHa8tMN8?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0"></iframe><p>“Her mom painted and her grandma painted. And because we were best friends at that age, I was going to her house and I admired all those beautiful, beautiful pictures. They were large pictures of nature, but very abstract. She painted big flowers, or a wildflower. She loved wildflowers; nothing too perfect, always a little bit messy. When we were going to school, to first grade, her mom wanted to enroll her in <em>lidová škola umění</em> for the art classes, so I wanted to do that too, and my parents had no clue about any art classes, so I followed Hanka and I enrolled myself for drama classes and for art classes, which was ceramics and all the hands-on kind of art. And it was every Wednesday for two hours the drama class and for two hours was the art class, but then it came to the point that drama and art were at the same time, and I had to choose which one I will go to. I had to choose, and because I was a little bit shy to exposure, speaking and singing and all of that, I have chosen to hide behind art.”</p><h4>Leaving the Country</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/BzBeMcwIizk?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0"></iframe><p>“I got another contact for somebody in the bank because that’s where you were getting the <em>doložka</em>, the special permit. So I called the person and I was instructed ‘Talk to this person and you will tell him where you work, because he likes art. So you tell him you work in the studio at Barrandov and that you have pictures for him.’ I’m like ‘What kind of pictures? What am I supposed to do?’ So I called him and he goes ‘Oh, that sounds interesting that you’re working over there.’ I go ‘Yeah, I have pictures for you.’ He goes ‘Okay. Why don’t you stop by and we’ll see.’ So I called him again, I gave him all the information and everything, I went there to give him those papers, and I was working on the pictures. And what my friend told me to do was the classic cartoon from Czechoslovakia we were working on. So I took the cells which were already not in use and I made a background for it and I put it in a frame. And I had a folder of maybe 15 of those.</p><p>“So when he told me that the paperwork was ready, I took my folder with all these pictures. I was scared. Oh my God, I was so scared. And he goes ‘Give me the pictures.’ And I’m holding the folder and I go ‘Well, can I have the permit first?’ He calls his secretary, his secretary brought an envelope, and we literally exchanged these two things like this. And I ran from that place, and we left that night. We left that night.”</p><h4>Finding a Job</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/cBClXZArqks?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0"></iframe><p>“I was here for one week. I didn’t speak a word of English. They asked me [and I said] ‘German , Russian. No English.’ I was going to the fashion district to interview for this job. Basically Leo encouraged me because the woman at the Charita asked ‘What else can you do besides what you were doing before in Czechoslovakia? Can you sew?’ Leo kicked me under the table like, ‘Yes, you can sew.’ I’m like, ‘Okay, I can sew.’ So I went to this fashion studio, and Petr Kratochvil told me ‘Don’t worry that you don’t speak any English. Whatever they ask, you say yes.’ Very positive. I was 22 years old. There was a Russian manager, and this woman was originally from Germany but she spoke English. She showed me a lot of beautiful clothes and she was asking me if I can make it, and I thought she’s asking me if I like it. So I nod yes. Then she gave me one original and then she gave me one cut-out and she goes ‘Go and do it.’ Again, this came in very handy. Once I can examine how it’s done, then I’m fine. And then she hired me.”</p><h4>New York</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/joCL3nTGwKI?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0"></iframe><p>“I was part of Muppet University where, after reviewing portfolios, they invited people. So before [I went] I had to submit my portfolio which I did quickly. I got a few pictures, a few photographs from the black light theatre, and they invited me for this. They were teaching us how to make a puppet; we had to design a puppet and make it. And everyone was oohing and aahing how similar style I had, that it was almost Jim Henson-like. All that I needed was to look at that Muppet inside out and I could figure out how to do it. That’s all I needed.</p><p>“I remember I drew a character with a zigzag mouth and the guy who was in charge of the Muppet University came to me and said ‘No, no. You can’t do that. Muppets have straight mouths.’ And I was like ‘Uh oh,’ and my English wasn’t good enough to explain ‘Please let me do it.’ I kept saying ‘Please let me do it. I know how to do it.’ He goes ‘No. No. No.’ And then we went to the art director, who was Caroly Wilcox working for Sesame Street and she looked at it, she looked at me, and she goes ‘Where are you from?’ I said ‘Czechoslovakia,’ and she started to laugh. She said ‘You know what? I was in 1968 in Prague in Jiří Trnka’s studio. Let her do it. And that was it. I was happy. I did 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
A name given to the resource
Jitka Exler
Description
An account of the resource
<p>Jitka Exler was born in Karlovy Vary, in western Bohemia, in 1959. She grew up with her parents, Václav and Věra, and her older sister, Blanka, in the nearby town of Ostrov nad Ohří, which Jitka describes as a ‘showcase communist town.’ Although Jitka’s father was a foreman at the Skoda factory in Ostrov, Jitka says that he was called ‘the man with the golden hands’ because he could make or fix anything, and he was often busy working on cars. Jitka’s mother was an expert knitter who sold her work to a shop in Karlovy Vary. Jitka herself grew up playing sports and also made her own equipment. She was very interested in art, and even enrolled herself in art and drama classes at the age of six.</p><p> </p><p>After high school, Jitka moved to Prague and studied at Vyšší odborná škola grafická [School of Graphic Arts]. After completing her arts program, Jitka found a job at an animation studio. She was then encouraged to apply for a job at the Bratři v triku animation studio at the Barrandov complex. During her time in Prague and through her husband, Leoš Exler, Jitka came to know many dissidents and people in the underground scene, and the pair signed Charter 77. Jitka says that the two were followed by secret police for a while, and they eventually decided to leave Czechoslovakia. Although they had trouble getting visas and exit permits, Jitka and Leoš left the country in 1980. They escaped through Hungary, Yugoslavia, and Italy, and crossed the border into Austria. Because of their background as Charter 77 signatories, they were able to live in an apartment instead of a refugee camp while waiting for their paperwork to clear. In January 1981, Jitka arrived in New York City.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Jitka’s sponsoring organization helped her find a job as a seamstress. She also got involved making puppets for a black light theatre company started by a fellow Czechoslovak émigré. In the early-1980s, Jitka called Jim Henson’s company and asked for an interview. She was accepted to Muppet University where she was tasked with designing and making a Muppet. After working as a freelance puppet maker, Jitka joined the staff at Sesame Street. Of her time with Jim Henson and his company, Jitka says that she felt like she was contributing to something bigger. After eight years with Sesame Street, Jitka began working for a toy company, designing toys and overseeing production. When her younger son was born (with her second husband), Jitka became a freelance toy designer, a job she continues to this day.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Jitka first returned to the Czech Republic only a few months after the Velvet Revolution, and she attempts to visit her home country every year. Her sons speak Czech and enjoy her Czech cooking. In addition to designing toys, Jitka is an avid painted. Today, she lives in Larchmont, New York.</p><p> </p><p> </p>
Creator
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National Czech & Slovak Museum & Library
Source
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NCSML Archive
Arts
Charter 77
Education
Family life
Kudrlickova
marriage
Ohri
Women workers