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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>Livestock</h4>
<iframe height="300" title="YouTube video player" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/sGcnAb1jyrY?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0" id="undefined"></iframe>
<p>“My daddy got one horse which was carrying soldiers for years during WWII. And because my village was situated only seven kilometers (that was four and a half or five miles) from an airport, the horse was trained that once there was an airplane in the air, [it] would run into the ditch and lay down, you know, not to get hurt. So my daddy tried to use the horse for agricultural work and I remember that the horse was carrying I think hay or something, and then an airplane came so he just pulled everything into the ditch and we experienced this kind of funny disaster. So the horse was, for agricultural work, absolutely worthless, because every time an airplane was in the air, he was just running away. It was funny.”</p>
<h4>Military Doctor</h4>
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<p>“At the time, the Army was looking for new doctors in the Czech Republic, and the Czechs were a little bit unfamiliar with Slovak conditions so they didn’t care [about Ladislav’s background] – and there was a parity, there was 25 percent Slovaks, 75 percent Czechs who had to get ready to be a military doctor. So I fitted into that 25 percent, and so I moved to the Czech Republic and I studied medical school to be a military doctor until 1968, when we found out that to serve the Communist Army… We became again newly occupied by the Russian forces… So we somehow – many of us – only 12 from the entire group of 120 students, only 12 stayed as military doctors, the rest of us transferred to medical school. I was almost done, I was ready to go into the fifth year of medical school, and so I finished in Charles University in Prague, not far from Hradec Králové, which was a city with a medical school preparing doctors for the military.”</p>
<h4>Diploma</h4>
<iframe height="300" title="YouTube video player" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/U-phNJC_6y0?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0"></iframe>
<p>“I have a diploma in Marxism-Leninism. I was vice-chairman of the head and neck surgery department so, as one of the top positioned physicians, I had to be well educated in politics. So Marxism – the philosophy and economy and whatever else comes… I had to go and take a state exam at the state board, and I have a diploma in political sciences now.”<br /><strong><br /></strong><em>Can you tell me about studying for that? Was that in a night school where you had to go and study Marxism and Leninism?</em></p>
<p>“Yes, it was a night school, it was like continuous education. But the basic stuff, even in medical school, from when I started in 1964 ‘til 1968, we had except from medical classes, we had to take always… first it was history of Marxism and Leninism, so it was first and second year at medical schools. We took classes and then the exam eventually. Then it was political economy – I think that was in the second year. Then it was… I forget, but in 1968, everything ended. Eventually it was implemented again in the ‘70s – during Husák’s era – but I was out of school by that time.”</p>
<h4>Medical Studies</h4>
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<p>“I think that medicine was the only science that was not too influenced or penetrated by those dangerous, stupid ideas because even big communist shots needed occasionally doctors. Teachers, my wife was a teacher, [they had] trouble, because they had to teach and preach different kinds of stupid ideas, but in medicine it was not… If it came to it in medicine – to real pain, to a real appendix – there is not too much politics. So we were a little bit saved from this propaganda. Our field was always a little bit out of this big oppression or pressure.”</p>
<h4>Spy</h4>
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<p>“So, until the last minute I was pretending I was going to work for them; I was going to take this position to be trained in September in Jevany, close to Prague (it was a big training center for espionage.) But it was May and he [the StB agent in contact with Ladislav] said, ‘You know, our general in Prague – he trusts you, but he still has some kind of problems, I don’t know what. You have to show some proof that you are going to work for us, not against us.’ I said ‘Okay, what do you want?’ They said ‘We want you to go to Yugoslavia for vacation and prove that you are coming back. We are going to watch you.’ So I applied for vacation in Yugoslavia, I got dinars, the money (it was not easy to get them.) So I was about to leave for vacation and everything was okay. After my return I was supposed to start my training in espionage and then pretend to emigrate and… like I said…</p>
<p>“I got a visa, my daughter got a visa, and my son. But we didn’t get approval for my wife from the school. I went up there and said ‘Okay, but the papers were here – we have to travel tomorrow and I have no papers for my wife! I remember everything was okay so, she can go, his [her boss’s] approval was done, but the papers are not here!’ The director of the school was already vacationing and the vice-chairman said ‘Okay, I remember it was okay,’ and so he wrote me by hand another permission so that she could travel. It was his big mistake – poor guy – he lost his job after that.”</p>
<h4>Vienna</h4>
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<p>“[Our] experiences in Austria with the American Embassy, how they were handling political refugees, it was another horror; I don’t like to talk about it. This was one very sad part of my story. Those people in the American Embassy in Vienna – that was just a very bad impression. But I had applied for a visa here and I couldn’t do anything. I eventually changed my mind, I said okay – because in the meantime communism crashed down – I said ‘Okay, I’m going to live in Austria,’ because I had enough friends up there or whatever, the local people. But they said ‘Sorry, we cannot do anything, you applied for America.’ And America was behaving… Especially during the time when communism was crashing down, they said ‘Okay, you have no more political reasons to go to America.’ We were waiting 20 months and then communism crashed down. You have no political reasons… but I had no house, I had nothing, they took everything. And not only that, but this kind of so-called democracy, one week old, I’ve experienced in 1968. Democracy lasted six months, they came back, and who were the first in Siberia? Those guys who enjoyed the so-called democracy! So I said ‘No, no. I’m not going to go back.’”</p>
<h4>No Return to Slovakia</h4>
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<p>“Okay, there are several factors, people probably don’t talk about it. There’s the age factor; you don’t want to jump back and forth, back and forth, first. Secondly, coming back up there – it’s a little bit superficial, but the neighbors… ‘Hah! Fedorko is back here! He thought America was going to welcome him!’ So to prove this? No, I would not come back. Many of my neighbors when communism fell and I was fighting for my house, to get it back, everybody was telling me ‘What do you want it for? You’re in America! You don’t need your house back!’ So they were even mad with me that somebody had stolen my house, and I was fighting for it to get it back. So, you don’t want to live amongst those people again. Another factor was that my kids were in the middle of education here. You cannot just go back – they have to finish somewhere. They were in Slovakia in <em>gymnázium</em>, Austria in<em>gymnázium</em>, here… three times in <em>gymnázium</em>! So that’s something unusual. And then the age factor – let’s say it this way: in this area where I am right now, if I get a heart attack or I get a stroke, within a couple of minutes I am in the hospital, my family will bring me, and I know they are going to save me here. We know our potential, there’s no doubt about it: the level of medical services is the highest in the world here, right here in this Cleveland area.”</p>
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Title
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Ladislav Fedorko
Description
An account of the resource
<p>Ladislav Fedorko was born in <span class="aCOpRe"><span>Spišské</span></span> Tomášovce, eastern Slovakia, in 1946. His father, Jozef, worked as an engineer on the railroad passing through the town (which linked Prague to the Soviet Union), while his mother, Žofia, stayed at home raising Ladislav and his brothers. The family kept a number of animals and produced a lot of their own food, says Ladislav. Growing up, Ladislav says he wanted to become a forest engineer, but when his application to university was rejected, he decided to become a military doctor, as he knew such individuals were in demand and this gave him the chance to obtain a degree in science. Ladislav started his medical studies in 1964 in Hradec Králové. He studied there until Czechoslovakia was invaded by Warsaw Pact troops in 1968, after which he quit the Army and transferred to the Prague campus of Charles University to finish his degree as a civilian medic.</p>
<p>Upon graduation, Ladislav worked for one year in Karlovy Vary before marrying and accepting a job in Levoča, not far from where he was raised. Ladislav enjoyed a deal of professional success at the hospital, becoming the vice-chairman of the head and neck surgery department. In 1986, he decided to visit the United States as a tourist with his wife. During this visit, he met some of his cousins who lived in Youngstown, Ohio, and Bridgeport, Connecticut, for the first time. When he returned to Czechoslovakia, Ladislav says the secret police took an interest in the fact that one of his relatives was working for GE. In 1988, Ladislav says he was approached by an StB agent who told him that the secret police would fake his escape from Czechoslovakia and that he should move to Connecticut to infiltrate GE. Ladislav and his family fled Czechoslovakia shortly before his faked escape was due to take place in September 1988.</p>
<p>The Fedorko family spent 22 months in Austria, in the course of which communism fell in Czechoslovakia. Ladislav says his family did not want to return as they no longer had a home, and all of their belongings had already been seized and redistributed. He found it difficult to work with the American Embassy in Vienna, which he says insisted there was no longer any political reason for him to seek asylum in the United States. Eventually though, in 1990, the Fedorkos did receive U.S. visas and settled in Youngstown, where they remained for the next seven years. Ladislav says it was a slightly more active Slovak community which attracted his family to Cleveland, among other things. He now works as a family doctor in Middleburg Heights, Ohio, and lives with his wife in nearby Strongsville. The couple have two children.</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
Education
gymnazium
Healthcare professionals
Hradec Kralove
Levoca
Marxism
Military service
Secret police
Spisska Tomasovce
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
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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>Boy Scout</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/hybyyIWuyGY?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0" id="undefined"></iframe><p>“After the War yes, both my brother and I were very avid Boy Scouts, and I would say that the Boy Scout aspect in my growing until 1948, ’50 actually, was perhaps one of the most important influences on my life. Both the ideals and… of course, the Boy Scout movement in the Czech Republic or Czechoslovakia was different than here. It was – in the United States it is a sort of organization of the fathers more than of the boys – in Czechoslovakia, the parents were completely excluded from it. And so the young children would have total autonomy. And I happened to be very fortunate, because my brother was older, I always would have friends that were about four years older or something, and so they were carrying me like a little puppy with them and I benefitted enormously and so I was actually more involved with the older children.</p><p>“In 1948, when the Communists took power, that was one of the first organizations that they were trying to eliminate. They didn’t close it overnight, but they made many limitations and eventually they did close it. And, at that time, my father, who was getting old and had only about four years to retirement, determined very smartly that it was time to move the family away from Liberec.</p><p>“They did make in Liberec a major trial with the Boy Scouts. They were all jailed and the Boy Scout group of ours was disbanded and that was very unfortunate, but I was not part of it, because we were already away from the city.”</p><h4>Tradition</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/YdD7U17mWeY?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0"></iframe><p>“Although people today like to speak about how horrible it was under the communists and how persecuted they were, often they are exaggerating also. And I was… I must say that, religion was not that persecuted. We were, I was, having my first communion when I was 14 years old at the highest communist time in 1951. I should add when I said that though, that after the communion, which was a beautiful May day in Aš, we came out of the church and the – I don’t want to say priest, I’m not sure what word I should use for the evangelic – pastor was jailed, right away. There were police who brought him to the car and took him away and then they said that he did something criminal, which is probably not true but…So, it was bad, but we were able to have our communion fine and we were going to the church and throughout the whole regime – actually when I was at high school later on in Čáslav, that was the most difficult time of communist rule – there people could voluntarily take Catholic religion in high school, so we all turned into Catholics then and did go to the Catholic lessons just to demonstrate that we were not going to be taking everything as was at that time necessary.”</p><h4>Soviet Dogma</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/8CIZub-KvCY?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0"></iframe><p>“There were some – the Russian scientists Michurin or Olga Lepeshinskaya – they were complete crooks, they were claiming they can make life from useless material and all that which was nonsense. But Stalin supported it and it was a dogma that was to be accepted in Czechoslovakia also. So people like this Ferdinand Herčík or Soudek – these people that were teaching me – did have to pay lip-service to it as much as during the War we had to in the schools greet [the teacher] with ‘Heil Hitler!’ But we all somehow, the Czechs learned how to… what is right and what is not, and we were able to read what is correct and what is not.”</p><h4>Blocked Science</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/3UniOtaAfF8?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0"></iframe><p>“The university that I was going to was the place where the first greatest geneticist Gregor Mendel, who today is considered to be the father of genetics, had been. His teaching was completely forbidden, it was considered by the communists… it was called ‘the reactionary Mendel-Morgan theories.’ Because Stalin didn’t want heritage to be important. They wanted that indoctrination was more important than genetics. So Mendel, whom we all know about, was forbidden at that time. But you know everybody was paying a little bit lip-service, and nobody really took it seriously.”</p><h4>America</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/1rjw0FD_bX8?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0"></iframe><p>“I was born and I knew that I was going to the United States, without any communists or anybody else. In fact, my wife’s father was at one point showing movies in this little village that they were living in. And he gave us a private performance of Kazan’s movie <em>America, America</em> – I don’t know if you saw that movie, which is about a little Turkish boy who has it in his fate to go to America and he goes through all sorts of things and he would kill, he would betray his wife to get the money for [his boat] and everything too, and he eventually gets to America and is happy there. And when we went through that movie I told my father-in-law, I said ‘Father you see? The same way I’m going to America with Mila.’ And he was very upset of course, naturally, we already had two little children. But I said that, so I felt.</p><p>“But it was also a very natural thing in my work that, at the time what I was working on, I could not do in the Czech Republic, then I couldn’t even do it in Germany anymore, so I went for this Cleveland Clinic in order to be able to continue with my own work. So in order to continue and keep myself in my profession, it is somewhat like with sportspeople – if you want to be a good tennis player you have to play, and so I had to be in those institutions doing those experiments and this, otherwise I would not have been able to continue.</p><p>“And the other thing was of course the aspect of the Russians, and with the invasion we really expected that the Russians are really going to impose their… Russify Czechoslovakia. And then, of course, we did expect the same thing in Germany.”</p><h4>Family</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/2OZOTGyeFpo?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0"></iframe><p>“I saved enough that we would have a vacation together, bought a Chevy Impala convertible for 500 bucks, went to Earl Scheib where they sprayed any color you want for $27.79 – so I painted it gold, to make an impression on my wife and children, and we made a rendezvous in Denver. My wife was flying from Frankfurt with the kids for eight hours, I think, via New York. And I was driving the Chevy Impala convertible for three days to get to Denver at the same hour, which was quite nice. And then we made six weeks’ vacation, I had four weeks and then I made some lectures in the congresses in Kansas City and in New Hampshire. And so we put it into, we incorporated it into the vacation and we made a figure of eight through the United States – coast to coast – in six weeks. It was many, many thousand miles. And this sealed it, that when we came to Kennedy Airport then, the kids said ‘We are not going to some stupid Germany, we are going to stay here!’”</p><h4>Considered German</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/anxZYqWx5FQ?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0"></iframe><p>“They considered them German, so their American school-mates called them ‘Krauts,’ and they were even fighting them occasionally, so we had to tell them that they are not German. And on the other hand, there were a lot of Germans here in the community who thought that we were genuine German and they came to us and offered us all sorts of help, and they were very nice people and we have a lot of friendships. And after all we were, at that time, more than one hour driving distance from Chicago, so we didn’t have any communication with the Czech community. Only several years later, we started to go to the Czech places like Cicero and Berwyn, we discovered the Czech bakeries, but we really were not searching for 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
John Jaroslav Kyncl
Description
An account of the resource
<p>Jaroslav Kyncl was born in Prague on August 16, 1936. He spent his early childhood in the northern Bohemian town of Liberec, where his father, Jan Kynčl, was the president of the local branch of Živnostenská banka. In 1939, following the Nazi annexation of the Sudetenland, the family was thrown out of Liberec and moved to Německý Brod (nowadays Havlíčkův Brod), where the Kynčls spent the duration of the War. They returned to Liberec in 1945, but moved away again three years later following the Communist coup, when Jaroslav’s father ‘bartered’ his post at the bank in Liberec for a more modest position out of the spotlight in Aš. Jaroslav attended secondary school in Aš, Cheb and then Čáslav before beginning his studies at Masaryk University in Brno in 1954. In 1961, Jaroslav moved to Prague, where he started his pharmacological research, developing new drugs in collaboration with the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences and the company SPOFA. In this same year he married his wife, <a href="/web/20170609132740/http://www.ncsml.org/exhibits/mila-kyncl/">Mila Kyncl</a>.</p><p> </p><p>In May 1968, Jaroslav was allowed to travel to the United Kingdom to deliver some lectures on the work that he was doing. He was urged by one of his hosts, Dr. Hans Heller – himself a Czech émigré – to ‘put his papers in order’ in the event that Soviet troops were to invade Czechoslovakia and put a halt to the Prague Spring. Dr. Kyncl, his wife and two children duly left Czechoslovakia for Austria a week after the Soviet-led invasion of the country in August 1968. The family spent a brief period as refugees in Vienna before Jaroslav was offered an Alexander von Humboldt scholarship at the University of Heidelberg, Germany.</p><p> </p><p>In 1971, Jaroslav came to America alone, to accept a research position at the Cleveland Clinic. Upon securing a job one year later at Abbott Laboratories in Lake Bluff, Illinois, Jaroslav moved to the Chicago area with his family, where he has lived ever since. Among other professional accomplishments, he is credited with inventing the drug Hytrin, the first medicine to treat BPH (a frequent and serious prostate condition). An art enthusiast, Jaroslav focuses on archiving and promoting the work of Czech exile artists in particular. To this end, he has made a documentary about the late poet and artist Jiří Kolář and operates a small non-commercial exhibition space, called Gallery 500ft².</p>
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
National Czech & Slovak Museum & Library
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
NCSML Archive
1968
1968 emigrant/refugee
Arts
Caslav
Education
Healthcare professionals
Jiri Kolar
Teachers
Warsaw Pact invasion
Zivnostenka banka
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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's Arrest</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/-Xz-NvXxwgA?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0" id="undefined"></iframe><p>“Many people who fought with the Allies then became the enemies of the state. So my father was arrested three days after Christmas, on December 28, 1949. And I remember that they were turning the apartment upside down and looking for stuff, knowing that they wouldn’t find anything. I know that they confiscated his Air Force uniform and the flight jacket – that was the first thing they took – but they also took all our photographs. I do remember my father standing there and his face was white, like this wall… This wall is not as white as my father’s face was. That’s all I remember of that day and I remember asking one of the secret police agents ‘Where are you taking my daddy?’ And he said ‘Oh, we just need to ask him a few questions.’ And I can still remember my mother standing by the window waiting for my father to come back and of course we didn’t know… I learned later it took six months before they let us know where he was. And I just kept asking, I kept asking my mother later ‘How did I react?’ Because I adored my father. My mother was the disciplinarian, because I would kick my father and he would say ‘Isn’t she sweet?’ But she told me that I just kept asking ‘Where is daddy? Where is daddy?’ and she told me ‘Well, when he comes back he’ll be back.’ And I remember her crying a lot, but that’s about all I can remember.”</p><h4>Stalin</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/t-etYIjWJ5U?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0"></iframe><p>“My mother was working and I was home with tonsillitis listening to my beloved radio – we had two stations. And suddenly they announced that they would be singing Stalin’s favorite song, ‘Sulika,’ and we all knew from school that this was Stalin’s favorite song. I was in bed with scarves and everything around my neck to keep warm. I pulled them all off. I was maybe 10 years old, 11 years old. I stood to attention, nobody told us ever we needed to stand to attention when they sing ‘Sulika’ [but] I stood to attention and I was listening to ‘Sulika’ from the radio… Because Stalin in a way was my temporary father and I just never know how to explain it to people. I had no other input. That’s what I believe, that that guy, who sent my dad to prison, became my temporary father.”</p><h4>Prison Visits</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/kFBz5ZsE4R8?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0"></iframe><p>“For me, it was like going on a school trip. Those hardboiled eggs never tasted so good like on the train to the prison camp! Of course, it took all night because they had special trains from Prague. We were lucky, we were from Prague – imagine the people coming from other parts of the country. It was an overnight train with all the people going to the same place. We would go to Jáchymov, Příbram, and I remember the train would arrive, let’s say, at 4:00 in the morning and then they would let us wait in that cold train station for the local little train to take us to the labor camps. And of course I have plenty of stories about that. But for me it was kind of an adventure. And I was very proud because when we visited the prisoners, every prisoner had a guard standing right next to him following our every word. The visits were about every half a year for about 15 minutes. And I was told by my mother to be sure to shove some food into my father’s pocket. So, I always had to watch for the guard not looking for a second and I was always very proud of myself when I managed to get something in.</p><p>“My father was taken away when I was six and he came back when I was 16. When I was 14, my mother had one of her migraine headaches and that was the only time that she could not go to visit him. She sent me alone, and it was Příbram. And today it may take an hour by train but I remember then it took forever. I arrived at the town square, got off the train and there were buses that would go to the labor camps, [but] I didn’t see anybody, except there was a bus with the driver kind of sleeping there and I said to him ‘Oh, I don’t know what to do! Where are all the buses? I must have missed them!’ And he said ‘Where are you going?’ I said ‘To see my dad; he’s in the labor camp, and my mother will kill me if I don’t get there!’ He said ‘Well, get on’ and he took me to the labor camp. I see that they were already closing all the gates because this was a place which was just for the visits, it wasn’t the real place. It looked kind of like when you see some of the wooden barracks in concentration camps. They were just for visits.</p><p>“So I come to the gate and the soldier is closing the gate and I start crying – I’m 14, I look like I’m 11, and I said ‘My mother will kill me if I don’t see my father!’ He says ‘Well stay right here.’ Actually, it was the commandant of the labor camp that came out and he said ‘Okay, here is a piece of paper, and you will go to the place where your father is and show them this paper.’ So, you need to imagine that this was in the middle of a field where there was nothing except, on the little hill, those watchtowers with, you could see, those soldiers with guns. But mainly you saw all those signs everywhere. In Czech it would be Nevstupovat! Střílení bez výstrahy! (Do not enter! Shooting without warning! Or something like that.) And it was everywhere. And I still remember running, with this piece of paper – holding it in front of me and thinking ‘Well, how do those soldiers there know that this paper says that I can be here?’”</p><h4>Hospital Job</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/5biwutYnHmI?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0"></iframe><p>“Maybe it’s my personality; I kind of always enjoy what I am doing so, you know I enjoyed when I learned the craft. I enjoyed it. And then when I worked at that hospital I left the operating room and they allowed me to work on the floor. It was the urology floor. And the nurses, I will always be grateful to them because some of them preferred to sit at the nurses’ station and talk and laugh and do nothing if possible. And of course I was all eager. So they taught me how to give injections and how to change dressings and of course, we didn’t have to worry that anybody would be sued! So I loved it, I enjoyed it and I had the best time. I loved my job and, I mean, I didn’t have a good title.</p><p>“I was also humiliated, interestingly, that also stayed with me, because there were now girls, women, 18 year olds, who had just finished, who’d become registered nurses at the age of 18, because it is a different system. So of course, they were basically my superiors, because they had the diploma and I didn’t. And I still remember one of the girls, and I was told that she hardly managed to get through nursing school, she wasn’t very bright, but she had the power, she had the diploma and I still remember how she told me ‘Go to the blood bank and bring the blood transfusion for the patient.’ And I still remember the tone of her voice – no please, no thank you – it stayed with me.”</p><h4>Parents Leave</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/jKhbkohpK_A?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0"></iframe><p>“We arranged for him to come over and then when he arrived at Heathrow, the passport control officer said ‘Do you have a visa?’ And my father said ‘Well, when I came here to fight for you in 1939 you didn’t ask me “Do you have a visa?”’ And the official said ‘Welcome back, sir.’ It always kind of gets to me because my father was not happy in England. He was a Czech. He loved Prague. He was not happy in England; he used to tell me ‘holčičko’ (my little girl) ‘I would walk back if I could.’ The only reason he left was because there was a rumor in Prague that they will arrest the former political prisoners. And he was by then 54, because he was born in 1914, and he did not want to go through that again. And that’s the only reason he left, and he wasn’t happy.”</p><h4>Cosmetics</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Mq3_-ZCLwlY?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0"></iframe><p>“Avon didn’t care whether you had a work visa or not so I became an Avon lady. And I didn’t know how to drive, so in the heat of the South; in Hampton, Virginia, I schlepped about in that little neighborhood with my Avon case. I didn’t make any money, because when I would walk in – and this was kind of a lower middle-class section – I mean, the women, all they wanted to know was about my background. So I didn’t make any money, and Jan would say ‘Well, you didn’t make any money,’ because at the end of the visit they would buy a lipstick just to kind of justify the visit. I’ve never drunk so much coffee and tea in my life!</p><p>“But anyways, then they opened a shopping mall in Hampton, and the most prestigious store at that Hampton mall was JCPenney. And I went to the manager of the cosmetic department and asked him if he would hire me. And he said ‘Well, you don’t have any experience’ and I said ‘Oh yes I do! I know how to deal with people because I was a nurse in England’ – I didn’t tell him those were sick people – ‘and I sold Avon’ – and I didn’t tell him I didn’t make any money! So he said ‘Okay, I’ll take you for three months.’ Well, he made me sell Zsa Zsa cosmetics. Now, young people don’t know probably who Zsa Zsa was – Zsa Zsa Gabor. But, I had an accent, and who would have known in Hampton, Virginia, that it wasn’t a Hungarian accent. Zsa Zsa didn’t advertise, and the only time that people knew who Zsa Zsa was was when she was on the Merv Griffin Show. That shows you how old I am! So, the next day people would come and buy her cream, and at that time, one ounce of her cream was $32.”</p><h4>PhD</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/PpBOVkyJPso?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0"></iframe><p>“I think the main impact that it had was that feeling of injustice, [about] what happened to the families, and the lack of recognition after the fall of communism. That’s what bothered them so much. They basically had this ‘Why doesn’t somebody come and say “You went through some awful stuff?”’ And nobody did. And suddenly everybody was a victim, and there was a lot of whitewashing. But it’s changing now because… You asked me if I wrote: I’m not much of a writer, I haven’t written too many articles, here is one in Slovo. But when I asked those 12 women [whom she interviewed for her thesis] whether they would like to meet the others, they said yes. So, from these 12 women is now an NGO, a non-governmental organization. There are over 100 of them. They meet once or twice a year in different places and mainly what they are doing now is they are going to schools and they are talking to schoolchildren about what they have been through. So not only that it is therapy for them, but also they are getting some recognition, and that’s what I am the happiest about.”</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 Svehlova
Description
An account of the resource
<p>Jana Svehlova was born in Cardiff, Wales, in December 1943. Her father, Jan, was a Czech who had moved to England at the start of WWII to fight with the Royal Air Force (RAF). He met Jana’s mother, Eleonora (a German speaker originally from the Sudeten region of Czechoslovakia), at the Air Force Club in Cardiff. The pair were married in May 1943. Jana lived in Wales until the end of WWII, when her father decided the family should return to Czechoslovakia and settle in Prague. One year after the Communist takeover, in 1949, Jana’s father was arrested because, she says, the new regime viewed those who had fought for the Allies with hostility. Jan was sentenced to ten years hard labor. He worked in the uranium mines of Jáchymov and Příbram, and spent time in prison in Bory and Ilava. Jana says that she and her mother were able to visit him about twice a year.</p><p> </p><p>When she was 14 years old, Jana was told that she would no longer be able to attend school and was sent to work for TESLA making televisions. Growing up, Jana says, her goal was to become a pediatrician, and so when the opportunity presented itself for her to work at Prague’s Bulovka hospital the following year she seized it. Jana’s first job was in the operating room, cleaning blood from the floor after surgery. She applied for nursing school on a number of occasions, but was refused each time on grounds of her family background. Following her father’s release in 1959 Jana says she was able to attend night school to gain a qualification in nursing. In 1966 she applied for a visa ostensibly to go and visit her birthplace in Wales, but she did not return home from that trip and settled instead in Vienna, where she became a nurse. At a preordained time and place in Vienna, she met her fiancée, Jan, who had escaped from Czechoslovakia separately. The couple were married in Austria and then moved to England, where Jan studied for his doctorate and Jana became a ward sister in a Brighton hospital.</p><p> </p><p>The couple moved to Hampton, Virginia, in 1974 when Jan was offered a job at NASA. Jana says her first job in America was selling cosmetics for Avon. She subsequently became a clinician at NASA. When the pair divorced Jana moved to Washington, D.C. She worked at the Bethesda Naval Hospital for more than 20 years and studied for a master’s and doctoral degree at the same time. Her postgraduate work (in political psychology) focused on daughters of political prisoners in 1950s Czechoslovakia. With some of the women she interviewed for her doctorate, she founded an NGO called Dcery 50. let (known in English as Enemy’s Daughters). Members of the group regularly visit Czech classrooms to talk about their experiences. Today, Jana lives in McLean, Virginia, and works as a tour guide of Washington, D.C, and as an usher at the Kennedy Center.</p><p><a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20170609100320/http://www.enemysdaughters.com/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Website of Enemy’s Daughters – the NGO that came about as a result of Jana’s postgraduate work</a></p><p><a href="/web/20170609100320/http://www.ncsml.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/e-Jana_Svehlova_transcript.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Full transcript of Jana Svehlova’s interview (contains some graphic medical descriptions):</a></p>
Creator
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National Czech & Slovak Museum & Library
Source
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NCSML Archive
Education
Forced labor
Healthcare professionals
Jachymov
Military service
Political prisoner
Roubikova
Secret police
World War II
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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>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
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 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
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
Education
English language
Family life
Healthcare professionals
Horic v Podkrkonosi
Hradec Kralove
Religion
Rural life
Triebenekrova
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810cb034feba3f738780307e6c6a56d7
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>Jewish Hiding</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/HpdqrFda7XM?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0" id="undefined"></iframe><p>“When the deportation of the Jewish population started in 1942, my parents, to protect me, put me in an orphanage that was run by Catholic nuns in Bratislava. So I was there for two years. Fortunately, my parents were not put into a concentration camp, mainly because my mother was a physician and they needed physicians even during the War. So she was allowed to practice ophthalmology, not in Bratislava, but in Prievidza in central Slovakia. And then in 1943, things were not good, but my mother felt secure enough, so she took me out of the orphanage and I joined her in Prievidza. My father actually had a job. I think he was demoted in his position, but was still allowed to work for the same business that he worked for before. And then in 1944, when the [Slovak] Uprising started against Germany and the Nazi government, my father was able to join us and get out of Bratislava, and then when the uprising was suppressed, my mother and I went into hiding in a small village near Prievidza. My father joined the uprising and was able to get through the front line to the Soviet Army by December of [1944 sic.]. And we didn’t know about him and he didn’t know about us, but then we were reunited after the Russian Army came.”</p><h4>Fluent</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/b0DSKEtNMvE?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0"></iframe><p>“Being born in Bratislava, I grew up with three languages, partly because my mother was born in Budapest. She not only spoke Hungarian, but her family came from Austria so they continued to speak German at home. So I grew up with three languages which was helpful. In addition, even though at school I studied French, my parents pushed me to study English privately, and I took private lessons in English, attended an intense course in English, and even passed the state examination in English.”</p><h4>Opportunity</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/zIjJrk4NUts?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0"></iframe><p>“We did not think that we would be given permission – my wife and I together – to leave, because that was very difficult. Usually they kept one person behind as [security]. Then, to our surprise, we got an invitation from a colleague in Vienna who I knew professionally, and he said ‘Why don’t you come and stay with us for a weekend?’ So we said ‘Fine’ and we applied for permission, but we didn’t really expect that we would be allowed to go, but to our surprise we were allowed to go for a weekend. Our host in Vienna didn’t know that once we got out we would not be coming back so it was a surprise to him.</p><p>“There was actually one event that’s worth mentioning. About three days before this fateful trip to Vienna, I am at work in the Institute of Virology and somebody comes in and they said ‘You have a telephone call from Vienna.’ So I started shivering because I thought maybe this friend is cancelling the invitation, and it was pretty unusual in those days that you would get a telephone call – especially at work – from a Western country. So I went to the phone with trepidation, and there was Dr. Moritsch, our host, and he said ‘I wanted to let you know that I have tickets for the opera, and could you bring your tuxedo?’ Well, a tuxedo was the last thing I wanted to carry with me, but I said ‘Sure.’ Needless to say, I didn’t bring a tuxedo, but we went to the opera nevertheless.”</p><h4>Plan</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/j5L_9sr_siE?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0"></iframe><p>“We decided to tell my parents, and my wife’s mother was not alive anymore, but we lived with her father in our house and we knew that the first thing that will happen is that that the secret police will come and speak to him. So, in order to protect him, we thought it would be best if we did not tell him. I think he may have sensed it anyway, but we didn’t tell him. We did tell my parents and they were very supportive. They felt that we would have better chances for a decent life in the West, even though it was a risk and we didn’t know how things would work out.”</p><h4>NY Impressions</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Nf4YzSUN4JI?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0"></iframe><p>“We remember that day very well. It was the fourth of February, 1965. It was a beautiful sunny winter day, and we were driving with my wife’s brother through the Triborough Bridge and saw the skyline that was lit up with the setting sun behind the skyscrapers. It was really an unforgettable experience and the first impressions were wonderful. And then there were surprises, like you always see the skyscrapers of Manhattan, but you don’t realize that there are side streets. Especially 47 years ago, there were many more low buildings and brownstones and townhouses, so those were a little bit of a surprise to me because you always only see the tall buildings in photographs.”</p><h4>Dreams</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/utUoKp-1Nuo?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0"></iframe><p>“The dreams usually would be that we suddenly find ourselves back in Czechoslovakia and we are very upset. I don’t think the dream would go as far as that we would actually be put in jail but I would just, in that dream, tell myself ‘How could I be so stupid to come back here?’ And I think maybe there were some parts of it that had to do with the secret police (StB) and jail and experiences of that kind. Usually we would have the dreams when we were getting ready for a trip to Europe, because I remember a few times when we flew to Vienna, we were told that sometimes when an airplane has an emergency they would land in Bratislava. I don’t know if that ever happened in real life, but in the dream, we imagined that we would actually land in Bratislava and they would drag us off the plane and put us in the proper institution – proper for them.”</p><h4>Vilcek Foundation</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/ni44_CJRLbo?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0"></iframe><p>“Gradually we came up with the idea to combine our backgrounds – our professional backgrounds as well as our personal backgrounds – and develop a program that has something to do with the arts, which is my wife’s background, something to do with biomedical science, and also with immigration, because both of us are immigrants. The current mission of our foundation is to raise public awareness about the contribution of immigrants to society in the United States, especially in the sciences and the arts. We started a program of prizes that we give to very prominent immigrants in the arts and in the sciences; for example, we, just a few weeks ago, gave prizes. The arts field this year is dance, so Mikhail Baryshnikov was one of our winners and the science prize was given to a very prominent professor at the University of California, Berkeley who was born in Peru. His name is Carlos Bustamante. And then we give several more prizes to younger people who are not yet so well-known but have already accomplished something unusual at a young age. In addition, the foundation supports some cultural programs oriented toward immigration.”</p>
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Jan Vilcek
Description
An account of the resource
<p>Jan Vilcek was born in Bratislava in 1933. His father, Julius, was a business executive and his mother, Bedriška, was an ophthalmologist. Prior to WWII, Jan recalls often traveling to Hungary, where his mother was raised, to visit family. In 1942, when deportations of Jews began in the Slovak Republic, Jan’s parents sent him to a Catholic boarding school and orphanage. Despite the family’s Jewish heritage, for a while Jan’s father was permitted to continue to work in Bratislava, although in a lower position, and his mother was sent to work in Prievidza in central Slovakia. Jan joined his mother in Prievidza and, in 1944, his father left Bratislava and came to Prievidza as well; however, when the Slovak Uprising of that year was crushed, Jan’s father joined the partisans while Jan and his mother went into hiding. As the Soviet Army advanced into central Slovakia, the family was reunited and lived in Košice for a few months before returning to Bratislava.</p><p> </p><p>Jan attended <em>gymnázium</em> in Bratislava and was accepted to medical school at Comenius University. He became interested in microbiology and immunology research and, after graduating, started working at the Institute of Virology (part of the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences) where he earned his doctorate. Jan married his wife, Marica, in 1962. In October 1964, the pair was invited by a colleague of Jan’s to spend a weekend in Vienna. At the American Embassy in Vienna, they were given permits to travel to Germany where they claimed asylum. A little more than two months later, Jan and Marica received visas, and they flew to New York City in February 1965. After a short stay with Marica’s brother, the couple moved into an apartment in Manhattan and Jan started his job (which he had arranged overseas) at the NYU School of Medicine. Jan has spent his entire professional career in research and has done important work with the proteins interferon and tumor necrosis factor (TNF). Together with his colleagues, he created an antibody to block TNF and helped develop the drug known as infliximab or Remicade, used for the treatment of Crohn’s disease, rheumatoid arthritis and several other inflammatory disorders.</p><p> </p><p>In 2000, Jan and Marica started the Vilcek Foundation, an organization that recognizes the contributions of immigrants to the United States in art and science. Jan has received several awards and recognitions for his professional and philanthropic achievements including the Gallatin Medal from NYU. In 2013, he was presented with a National Medal of Technology and Innovation by President Barack Obama. Today, Jan is a professor of microbiology at the NYU School of Medicine. Although he visits Slovakia often, he considers himself a ‘true New Yorker.’ He lives in the city with Marica.</p>
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
National Czech & Slovak Museum & Library
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
NCSML Archive
Community Life
Czechoslovak resistance during WWII
English language
gymnazium
Healthcare professionals
Jews
Partisan
World War II
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58561b0d1b5560fb6d4c3d7ab5b31967
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>Early Schooling</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/z1tMB0d0RLM?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0" id="undefined"></iframe><p>“I have to say one thing for the school system, since the third grade we were exposed to the classic music and arts, and that was incorporated into the education. Every month we had to go to the concert hall and see the opera, and so that’s what I think, for the education, that was pretty good.”</p><h4>Warsaw Pact Invasion</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/YUELHTEzxV8?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0"></iframe><p>“We lived on a corner; one side was a park and the other was a main street where the trolley was going, so the Russian tanks were lined up and pointing the tanks right to your windows. It was shocking. And the Prague radio was still working and they were saying ‘Don’t go to the window. They’re shooting the windows, people are getting hurt, people got killed. Don’t open the window,’ So we were listening to the radio and all of the sudden you heard shots and silence, and I’ll never ever in my life forget that silence. It was dreadful.”</p><p><em>Did you go down to Wenceslas Square?</em></p><p>“Yes, we went down. My mother said ‘Don’t go anywhere’ – my brother was still in the army – ‘Don’t go anywhere; they’re going to kill your brother. Don’t get involved.’ But my ex-husband, with his friends, they were already down there and by the time I went down there Prague radio was done. It was damaged. It was in smoke. We went to Wenceslas Square and it was pretty…First of all, you could feel how much power a crowd has. You get sucked in it and I thought that we were indestructible. We can turn those things and everything. It’s funny what it does to you in that crowd or in that situation. But we went there, it was sad, and people started to talk to the soldiers. Thinking back now, so many years back when everything settles inside me, the first troop of the soldiers they sent, they were probably hard-trained soldiers. They shot everything that moved. Second [wave] that came were like kids. They were probably 17, 18 year old Russians, scared the hell of everything that was moving. I didn’t see it then, because then I was full of hate, like ‘How dare you? What do you want?’ But thinking back, they were probably so scared too.”</p><h4>Leaving</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/tnC4CqqMMM8?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0"></iframe><p>“I said ‘I’m not going to leave. I’m going to fight for the freedom and I’m staying here.’ I did not want to leave. When we got occupied by the Russians, I was involved in it and [when] I went back, second day, to the hospital, we put posters there and we all wore black because we did that at midnight when the Russian tanks were all around the streets. So I was involved in it and I was hoping that the Prague Spring, nobody is going to kill it because we were going to win.”</p><h4>Arrival in U.S.</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/-jLAkcPZGP0?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0"></iframe><p>“I didn’t work because I didn’t speak English. It was funny back then – from New York we came to Boston and we were looking for an apartment, so what we just went door to door and we asked ‘Do you have an apartment for rent?’ and somebody did. There was no checking or anything [so] we got an apartment. Lev was working to work, washing dishes [at] Cottage Crest restaurant in Belmont, and I was home. And for the first money we could have, we bought a television, so I would watch television and learn English because my friends sent me a tape of English but it was [British] English so it had nothing to do with American English, so when I went out I couldn’t understand because I had this Oxford English in my ear and it was like ‘What? What language is this?’ So we got a television and I remember watching I Love Lucy and I remember the first time I got some joke, I laughed and I thought ‘Boy!’ I finally understood. So it took me a few months learning and then I thought I had to go to work, so I went to the hospital and I started to work in the kitchen.</p><p>“In the meantime, I tried to learn English; I went to take some lessons, so little by little I started to understand, and I got work at Glover Memorial Hospital in the lab, drawing blood and doing chemistry tests. There was a pathologist who was going to open the lab in what’s now Brigham and Women’s Hospital – it was part of the old women’s hospital in Boston – there was another location and he said ‘Helena, I want you to go and open the lab with me.’ And that’s how I started at Brigham and Women’s. And I worked there for 40 years.”</p><h4>Traditions</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/W1UvCNw_Pw8?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0"></iframe><p>“For Christmas or any holidays we would get together with my ma and father, my brother, his wife and his son and celebrated every holiday together, Czech way. My ma was a very good cook so she made those elaborate cakes and anything. The food, like knoedl [dumplings] and sausage, was just…[so good]. I kept the Czech tradition for Christmas and for Thanksgiving we went to Frank’s parents because we never had Thanksgiving in Czech, so we celebrated American Thanksgiving. So it was always in Frank’s parents’ house and Christmas was in our house.”</p><h4>Tough Decision</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/RW5HFe9hffs?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0"></iframe><p>“I got over my homesickness and being here, and I am very thankful that I was here because I learned a lot which I would never learn if I never emigrated. My view of the world is much wider and I am very thankful for that because in the beginning it was a very narrow view, [I was] very homesick and I didn’t want to see anything, but little by little you learn and, all of the sudden, now when I go there – I don’t mean it in a bad way – you can see they’re looking at the world through a very narrow view. And me being here and meeting so many different people, being exposed to so many different cultures, so many different things, all of the sudden I feel very rich that I learned so much and that my view is so much bigger. So I am very thankful for that. And I am happy. For the first time, and it took me a long time, I realized that I am very happy that I am here.</p><p>“That was a big, big thing for me to come to this conclusion. Prague is always my city and always will be my home, but, all of the sudden, I don’t think I could live there. I would love to live there two months of the year now that I’m retired to get everything that I like, but I could never live there. My home is here now and that’s a huge step for me. To come to that conclusion was a big thing for me. A big relief. Because up till then, I felt, I cannot say guilty, but I felt like I missed something. I wish I was there for all that upbringing and all that feeling of freedom; that I would really appreciate it. So all my life, I felt like I deserted whatever I believed in. But it’s not there anymore. I reached my peace. I reached my point and I am happy I’m here and I learned a lot.”</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
Helena Stossel
Description
An account of the resource
<p>Helena Stossel was born in Prague in 1946. Helena’s parents both worked at a small silk-screening operation – her father as the manager and her mother as a silk-screener. Helena and her younger brother, Tomas, were watched by her grandmother and spent a lot of time at the <em>chata</em> her grandfather built outside the city. Helena says that she learned to ‘appreciate nature’ from camping, canoeing, and white-water kayaking. She also enjoyed reading and poetry. Helena went to <em>gymnázium</em> where she focused on the sciences and then studied chemistry at the Institute of Chemical Technology in Prague. She married her first husband, Lev, in 1967. The Warsaw Pact invasion in August 1968 left an impression on Helena, as she congregated on Wenceslas Square with other young people and talked with the Warsaw Pact troops. Her parents and brother immigrated to the United States in July 1969 and, although Helena was reluctant to leave as she wanted to ‘fight for freedom,’ she joined her husband when he decided to leave in the autumn of 1969. The pair lived in Vienna for one month and then flew to New York City in December 1969.</p><p> </p><p>After spending two weeks with family friends in Ossining, New York, Helena moved to the Boston area where her parents had settled and opened a Czech restaurant. Helena spent a few months becoming comfortable with the English language and then began working in a hospital kitchen. Her next job was in the lab of Glover Memorial Hospital and, at the request of a pathologist, she transferred to what is now Brigham and Women’s Hospital, where she worked for 40 years, retiring only a short time ago. Helena gave birth to her daughter Johana in 1974 and bought a house in Holliston (a suburb of Boston) in 1976. She married her second husband, Frank Stossel, in 1981 and first returned to Czechoslovakia in 1987. She has visited her home country many times since. Helena says that it is only recently that she became ‘at peace’ with her emigration, citing her reluctance to leave Czechoslovakia in the first place as preventing her from feeling at home in the United States. In her retirement, she hopes to travel more and go on a canoe trip in the Czech Republic. Today, Helena lives in Holliston with her husband Frank.</p>
Creator
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National Czech & Slovak Museum & Library
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
NCSML Archive
1968
1968 emigrant/refugee
Arts
Cultural Traditions
English language
gymnazium
Healthcare professionals
school
Sense of identity
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>Childhood</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/cXqTUP7BIiU?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0" id="undefined"></iframe><p>“My grandparents lived in Kysuce and Orava, these two beautiful mountainous regions, so I spent most of my childhood there and the memories are just beautiful because it was the nature, the animals, the kindness and love of my grandparents. And of course my parents, but they were studying and getting their doctorates, so I was spending a lot of time with my grandparents and cousins. Both sets of grandparents had huge yards, animals – chickens, cows, geese, and ducks – so it was very farm-like and I loved it. I learned a lot about plants and animals and people and love.”</p><p><em>Were you allowed to run wild there?</em></p><p>“Oh yeah, of course! And we would go to the forest, mushroom picking, blackberry, blueberry picking. It was wonderful, really.</p><p>“Childhood in former Czechoslovakia was so pure. I was not touched by anything I learned later or read in newspapers about oppression during communism. I definitely felt very secure and safe and all those clichés about communism, that everybody is equal and there is no crime. I really felt that. It was a great level of security, and I really enjoyed that and I don’t see that anymore nowadays, I’m sorry to say.”</p><h4>Parents</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/zmd_pxBZTes?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0"></iframe><p>“Since my parents were scientists, they tried to be neutral. They were raised Catholic and both of my grandparents were active participants in the church, but since they were living in remote parts of Slovakia, it never really had an effect on my parents’ careers, and my parents were always going to church when we went to visit my grandparents; they went to mass and, yet, they had good positions. It never really impacted them. My dad had a leading position at the Ministry of Health; my mom was a very accomplished doctor. Back then, scientists didn’t really make much money and didn’t have recognition in our society, and I remember my parents complaining about that and my mom sometimes feeling like she was a rag that everybody was wiping their feet on. She would make more comments like that, especially dealing with patients who were workers, plumbers, and who were treating her not very nicely. I recall some memories like that.”</p><p><em>So did life for your family change for better after the Revolution?</em></p><p>“Yes, absolutely. My mom opened a private practice and my dad became a board member of all the multinational organizations, from the UN to the World Health Organization. They’d been traveling always because my dad had to travel for work, even before [the Revolution]. The government would send him on certain missions, and my mom would go along with him sometimes; she would get her visa permit. But, of course, after communism collapsed, my parents were taking full advantage of exploring the world and aligning it with their careers.”</p><p><em>Were your parents in the Communist Party?</em></p><p>“Yes they were. Not active participants, but they understood that if they wanted to advance, or even be functional somehow, they had to do that. It somehow worked out. We would still go to church when we went to visit my grandparents, and then they would be part of the Communist Party and somehow they didn’t think much about it. They just did what they had to do to survive and provide a healthy and happy environment for us.”</p><h4>Return to America</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/JNRkz5X9pbI?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0"></iframe><p>“It’s all about the people you meet and the activities you put yourself in, and I felt like that was my new home. Yes, I was very lucky. I met some people who are stimulating and a job that was very inspirational. So it was a flow. I didn’t make the cognitive decision ‘I am going to stay here.’ I just stayed because it was a no-brainer. Everything just fell into place, and with Grimoldi, it was a career that just…It was an international firm, so everything happened so fast. We were working with celebrities of the top format so it was just so exciting that one day you wake up and ‘Oh! It’s five years later.’ So it just felt very organic and natural to stay and be here.”</p><h4>Non-Profit</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/lr2aU0JiaZk?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0"></iframe><p>“I had some celebrity friends from Slovakia, so they would come and visit and they were always asking about possibilities of making it here or presenting their works here. So I had a lot of contacts in the music and entertainment industry, so I would try to help them and then through friends – I became friends with a lot of Slovak-Americans and Slovaks living or working in New York, especially – we started organizing little events for my friends coming from Slovakia. And it was very unofficial; it was always just a gathering for the community – the New York friends and the European friends. But then, I think the epiphany came when the first Consul General came to New York – Ivan Surkoš of Slovakia – and the Consulate General was opened, and the Consul General and his wife came to one of these concerts I organized. It was actually for my friend Misha who was a famous singer in Slovakia. And they were like ‘Wow, look at this. It’s so many people and an international crowd. How did you pull this together?’ And that was actually in cooperation with Slovak Info and a friend of mine, Otto Raček, who is also a very active Slovak-American. And the question was how can we institutionalize and enhance these activities? So the question was answered with two possibilities: one is to establish a non-profit organization that would help us obtain funding and would help to really attain volunteers and the whole community of artists and performers and other diplomats who are wanting to be active. And the second was for my ability to become part of a consulate team. So I’ve established, together with the Consul General’s wife, L’ubica, this non-profit organization called the +421 Foundation.”</p><h4>+421 Foundation</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/rmlzVNdWzP4?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0"></iframe><p>“We organized many small exhibitions, concerts, book presentations, film festivals that the following year started to grow and they were not so small anymore. So one hundred people that were attending the first year became three to five hundred to fifteen hundred this year. And I do have to depict the biggest – and my favorite program – which is called Slovak Fashion Night.”</p><p><em>That’s the signature event, correct?<strong><br /></strong></em><br />
“That is. Not only because I used to be in fashion, but because it’s New York. Fashion is the breathing organism of the city, or one of the major industries in the city; and of course it’s very glamorous, models are always very attractive, and we have a very wide scope of guests, so we decided to organize a fashion show. I had to convince the Consul General and the whole team who, at the beginning, was very hesitant to do that, but eventually gave in, and the next thing you know, Slovak Fashion Night becomes a huge event where we get approached by our Austrian colleagues or other European consulates or non-European consulates or other colleagues in the cultural field to co-produce events with them, and it’s very pleasing. Also, since it’s such a popular program, it provides a platform where we can really introduce not just our upcoming and talented fashion designers from Slovakia, but also other performing artists like dancers, singers, photographers, visual artists, moderators. We’ve been able to compile a whole program of different art sections and put it all together and create one huge show that’s definitely, very surprisingly, great.</p><p>“It attracts Slovaks living here or other emigrants who have forgotten how Slovakia is and how it’s been growing and evolving, and this is an opportunity for them to come and see, and they’re like ‘Wow, we have all this? This is amazing!’ And I’m very happy to be able to provide this reality check, or this educational aspect in raising awareness about what’s going on in Slovakia and how Slovakia is growing. Also, culture, in my opinion – and this is my little phrase I use every time I promote Slovakia or what we do – culture is the best marketing tool to promote Slovakia as an economic or investment destination, and to help us form mutually beneficial relations, not only in the cultural sphere, but in the economic and beyond as well. So yes, we do invite all of the investors or potential business partners for Slovakia to these beautiful events, and strengthen their relationships. Show them how wonderful we are and what we can do.”</p><h4>Culture</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/lxPYnVCOMyY?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0"></iframe><p>“It’s a constant aspiration of ours, and we do bring in the traditional aspect of Slovakia and all those features that you mentioned – the folklore, the beautiful traditional embroidery, the beautiful music and dances and traditional attires of Slovakia – but that’s not what we want to showcase only because that’s something that’s always been there and we’ve always been showing it in the past. But we bring the old and the new and bridge the modern, evolving, ascending culture and the arts that Slovakia is, as a modern, world-leading country. That we definitely are not stuck in the past or all we have are the wooden dolls and corn dolls and those beautiful, but yet older, traditions. So we bring the old and the new, and our fashion shows have folklore dances or the demonstration and presentation of the embroidery or the traditional costume, and I think it’s just a fun and very innovative way to connect both worlds. I think our guests can relate to that and have been relating to that very well. It’s refreshing, in my opinion.”</p><h4>Slovakia</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/nMx0vsTQ43A?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0"></iframe><p>“It’s very simple and pure in a sense, because, when I come home to Slovakia, I just feel a sense of belonging. This really deep, gut feeling that that’s my home and that’s where I’m from, and the nature, the feel, the essence, the flair – that’s something that will always be me, my true essence. And when I am in the U.S., especially New York or Los Angeles – I’ve been spending a lot of time in Los Angeles because of my company that’s based there – I feel like this is great, this is where I have my house and my friends, but it’s sort of like a pied-a-terre. It’s not the true house, the true home. So, Slovakia will always be my home, and I hope I will be able to marry someone or find someone who will be either European or Slovakian or somehow will always be able to have that home with me there, too. I don’t have a vision how yet, but I know it’s possible to maybe have an international home, but always be able to spend a certain amount of time there.”</p><h4>U.S.</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/7pcPVHIGrMY?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0"></iframe><p>“I think it doesn’t matter whether it’s communism or it’s now or democracy or this era or the other era. It’s about individuality and who we resonate with or what we resonate with, and I as an individual definitely resonated with and found my perfect match in the USA and found my way to create another realization and self-actualization, and that’s what I think is wonderful about the world being open and the world being your oyster. But, my roots will always be in Slovakia and I will always come there and it’s always my home. But America really allowed to become who I am becoming. Who I feel that I can identify with. Who I can understand. And I’m very grateful for that.”</p>
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
Eva Jurinova
Description
An account of the resource
<p>Eva Jurinova was born in Žilina in northwestern Slovakia in 1979. Her mother L’udmila is a pediatric neurologist and her father Vladimír is a nuclear physicist who, prior to the Velvet Revolution, worked in the Ministry of Health. He now heads the radiation protection section of the public health authority of Slovakia. Eva started school in Trnava and later moved with her family to Bratislava. She says that her childhood was ‘beautiful’ and ‘pure’ and that she spent a lot of time visiting her grandparents, who lived in more rural parts of the country. She was an active child and participated in sports, dance, and theatre. Eva was ten at the time of Velvet Revolution in November 1989 and says that although her parents’ careers improved, she did not notice any immediate changes. In 1997, Eva spent one year of high school studying abroad in Richmond, Virginia. Upon her return to Slovakia, she made plans to move back to the United States.</p><p> </p><p>Eva graduated high school and enrolled in an international program through Comenius University which allowed her to study at affiliate colleges in the United States while traveling back to Slovakia to take exams. While in Richmond, Eva had been given a modeling contract and when she returned to the U.S. she settled in New York to pursue modeling. She also became a project manager and marketing director for a brand of luxury watches. Eva received an MBA from Columbia University. She now owns a branding and licensing firm and does PR consulting for luxury watches and jewelry.</p><p> </p><p>Upon her return to the United States, Eva made friends with a number of fellow Slovak-Americans and émigrés and began organizing small cultural events and get-togethers. One of these events was attended by the newly-appointed Slovak consul general who expressed an interest in collaborating with Eva to formalize these events. She helped to form the non-profit +421 Foundation and is co-president of the organization, whose biggest event is Slovak Fashion Night. Eva says that while Slovakia will always be her home, she is glad to have had opportunities in the United States that have helped shaped who she is. Today, she lives in Los Angeles, California.</p>
Creator
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
Arts
Catholics
Communist Party members
Community leadership
Cultural Traditions
Fashion
Healthcare professionals
Ivan
Post-1989 emigrant
Rural life
Sense of identity
Slovak citizenship
Surkos
Velvet Revolution
Women workers
Zilina
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61dd56fefe574aa5e9d30e6982fdd4a9
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
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Title
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Anna Balev
Description
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<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
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National Czech & Slovak Museum & Library
Source
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NCSML Archive
1968
Catholicism
Community Life
Education
Family life
gymnazium
Healthcare professionals
Machova
marriage
Religion
Sternberk
Warsaw Pact invasion