Kveta Gregor-Schlosberg
<p>Kveta Gregor-Schlosberg was born in Jičín, northeastern Bohemia, in 1925. Her mother’s family owned the chateau, Čeřov Jicin, in which she was born, and Kveta describes her childhood there as a ‘fairy tale.’ Kveta began ballet lessons in Jičín when she was six years old, and says she made her debut at the National Theatre in Prague at the age of seven. When Kveta was ten, she moved to Prague with her family, as her father Josef, a military officer, was transferred from his regiment to the Ministry of Defense. In Prague, Kveta attended a language school where she studied English, French, and German, and continued dancing.</p><p> </p><p>When Nazi forces occupied Prague, Kveta and her family were separated. Her father lost his job in the Ministry of Defense and moved to Plzeň for work. Kveta’s mother returned to Jičín, and Kveta remained in Prague. She says that she only saw her father a few times during WWII; later, she was told that her father had been active in underground resistance and did not want to jeopardize his family. Kveta recalls other changes the Nazi occupation brought to her life. Hitler mandated that all people born in 1925 would be sent to Germany to work unless they could prove they had employment. Kveta says that she immediately found an appointment as a dancer for a theatre company housed in the basement of her apartment. She says she was able to continue studying, but only German, as her other studies were banned.</p><p> </p><p>Immediately following liberation, Kveta and her mother traveled to Plzeň to find her father; however, he was traveling to Prague to meet up with them. Kveta says that the few days she and her mother spent in Plzeň while waiting for things to get straightened out were fun, as they were able to celebrate liberation with the American soldiers. Once back in Prague, Kveta began working at another theatre and dating an American soldier her father knew. They married in September 1945 and for one year traveled around Germany to various military stations; Kveta says they spent time in Nuremberg during the war criminal trials. Kveta and her husband then moved to San Antonio, Texas, but in December 1947, she returned to Czechoslovakia to visit her parents. The Communist coup occurred while she was visiting in February 1948, and Kveta found herself unable to return to the United States, as her father was arrested and made to stand trial. She was offered a job processing visas at the American Embassy. In 1949, her father’s trial ended and Kveta’s boss arranged for her to receive a visa back to the United States. Divorced from her husband, Kveta settled in Washington, D.C. where she found employment as a receptionist in an apartment building. She later married her second husband, Bruce Schlosberg and had three children. Today, Kveta lives in Washington, D.C. with her former classmate from Jičín, <a href="/web/20170609054922/http://www.ncsml.org/exhibits/lubomir-hromadka/">Lubomir Hromadka</a>.</p>
National Czech & Slovak Museum & Library
NCSML Archive
Lubomir Hromadka
<p>Lubomir Hromadka was born in Folvark in 1926, and grew up in Jičín in northeastern Bohemia. His parents František and Julie owned a pub near Jičín, in the area known as Český raj [Bohemian Paradise]. Lubomir’s father had been in the Czechoslovak Legion during WWI, and Lubomir remembers him participating in annual parades that celebrated the founding of the First Czechoslovak Republic. Music was an important part of Lubomir’s life, and at the age of six he began playing the violin. He learned how to play other instruments, including the trumpet, and played in and led several bands throughout his lifetime. Lubomir attended technical school and says that his studies were occasionally interrupted during WWII if students were needed to work for the German war effort. After the War, Lubomir finished high school and studied chemical engineering at ČVUT (Czech Technical University in Prague).</p><p> </p><p>In February 1948, just days after the Communist coup, Lubomir participated in a student march supporting former president Edvard Beneš which was stopped by police and militia. Lubomir says that because of his participation in the march he knew he would come under the scrutiny of the authorities and decided to leave the country. He obtained false papers and, with a friend, was escorted to the border near Cheb. After being lost in the forest for several days, Lubomir crossed the border. Upon arriving in Bavaria, he says a German soldier attempted to send him back to Czechoslovakia. According to Lubomir, an American soldier intervened and sent him instead to Ludwigsburg refugee camp where he stayed for one year. After being told it would take years to receive a visa to the United States, Lubomir decided to immigrate to Brazil where he found employment as a chemist at Pirelli Tyre Company in São Paolo. Lubomir says he was ‘very happy’ in Brazil, as he formed a small brass band and also wrote articles for a sports newspaper.</p><p> </p><p>In 1957 Lubomir received a visa to the United States and moved to Cleveland. He found employment as a research chemist at Gibson-Homans Company where he worked for over 30 years, becoming a chief chemist, manager, and eventually vice-president. Lubomir is especially proud of discovering a method to eliminate the asbestos fiber in industrial products. In 1959, Lubomir married Jarmila Humpal, an American of Czech descent. He became involved in Czech theatre — writing, updating, and directing plays. In 1994, Lubomir’s Old Style Bohemian Brass Band toured the Czech Republic and he was invited to conduct at the Kmoch Festival in Kolín. Now a widower, Lubomir lives in Washington, D.C. with his former classmate from Jičín, <a href="/web/20170609084322/http://www.ncsml.org/exhibits/kveta-gregor-schlosberg/">Kveta Gregor-Schlosberg</a>.</p><p> </p>
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Roman Scholtz
<p><img class="alignright wp-image-4055" src="http://web.archive.org/web/20170808051245im_/http://ncsml.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/Handler-180.jpg" alt="Handler-1" width="300" height="418" />Roman Scholtz was born in Kežmarok in northern Slovakia in 1934. His father, Ludwig, studied the craft of cabinet-making and was a manager of a cabinet shop. His mother, Adele, worked as a weaver in a factory, and the family lived in factory housing. Roman had one older brother, Ewald. When Roman was eight years old, his family moved to Poprad where Roman’s father opened an auto repair shop with relatives. Roman says that the first years of WWII passed fairly peacefully for his family, until the Slovak Uprising began in August 1944. The partisans quietly took over Poprad and were fought back in Kežmarok, and Roman has memories of seeing the effects of the fighting. His brother, a member of the Slovak Army, was conscripted into the German Army, and it would be several years before Roman saw his brother again. Roman himself spent a few months with relatives near the Moravian border. In January 1945, his family’s equipment and machinery was appropriated for the German war effort. Told they could stay with their possessions, Roman and his family traveled to Jablonec nad Nisou and Jičín in Bohemia before returning home to Poprad at the end of the War. Immediately after returning, Roman’s father was sent to a detention camp for ethnic Germans while Roman and his mother secretly traveled to Kežmarok and stayed with his grandparents. Roman returned to school for one year and then, in July 1946, he and his mother were arrested and sent to a detention center. They reunited with his father and were deported to Germany in September 1946.</p><p> </p><p>For a short time, Roman and his family lived in a refugee camp. They were then sent to live with a German family. Roman attended school and worked at a golf course where he caddied for American soldiers. His father worked in construction. In 1950, they sailed to New York and took a train to Cleveland where several of Roman’s family members had settled decades earlier. Roman’s father worked as a carpenter and his mother found a job as a cleaning lady. They bought a house in Cleveland six months after arriving. Roman graduated from high school in 1952 and attended Ohio University where he studied engineering. He also received a degree in architecture from Case Western Reserve University. In 1971, Roman opened his own architecture firm. Although he visits Slovakia often and raised his children to be aware of their heritage, he says that he and his family ‘took roots’ in the United States and were very proud to become American citizens. Today he lives in Davenport, Iowa, with his wife Mary.</p>
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