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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>Born to Leave</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/WoV6DuhoCGg?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0" id="undefined"></iframe><p>“When I was one year old and Hitler got the Sudetenland, my parents had to move. Today you would say they were refugees, and they were. My mom was 24, 25, and suddenly there she was with my sister who was three years old and I was one year old, and she had to leave that town within 24 hours, with two kids and whatever she could carry, because my father was still in the Army; they didn’t release them yet. So she did. She didn’t have any place to go being from Slovakia and her husband’s parents were relatively – from the Czech point of view – far away. But there were more people who had to leave, so they said ‘There is a parish there the small town of Městečko and we know that that monsignor is ready to accept refugees.’ So this is where she landed with us, and they had to move three or four times within six months. Then finally my dad got another position as a teacher in small town or large village – a rich town, a lot of hops – which was called Kněževes , close to the town of Rakovník, and this is where we spent the War.”</p><h4>WWII Memories</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/iNezdE4Z6YU?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0"></iframe><p>“One of my first remembrances is the middle of the night and we were awake because there was that very deep sound, and there was a pinkish or yellowish shine all over the sky and my father was standing close to the window and said ‘Has to be Leipzig or Dresden. This is where they are bombarding tonight, but it’s terrible; it’s very, very intense.’ So it was the night that Dresden got bombarded.”</p><h4>Joining the Communist Party</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/WGjvsxP_0hc?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0"></iframe><p>“I was joined to the Communist Party when I was two months at the university. No, actually, the first semester. After the first semester, Jiří Dienstbier and myself had the best results, and the professor who was in charge of the department called us both and told us ‘Congratulations, you are good students, you will be good journalists, and let me tell you that I am ready and I am supporting you’ – you had to have a grantor – ‘I am your grantor so you can join the Communist Party.’ And then he left, and we were sitting there in the lobby. Both of us were from sort of old democratic families. His parents were treating poor people during the depression and so on, so they were socially oriented. So we were sitting there because we didn’t expect it, and you could say ‘thank you, no’ and you wouldn’t get a job in a factory, and then Jirka said ‘Maybe it will be good for something. We will at least be part of the people who make decisions.’ So this is what happened, but nobody ever asked us to sign anything, any petition or whatever. We were just… this was it. It might be part of why Jiří was later on sent to that internship to Czech Radio and why I was accepted there. And in the foreign broadcast the Communist Party wasn’t the main point there, and when ’68 came I said ‘I’m so sorry; I cannot take it anymore.’”</p><h4>Happy in U.S.</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/WvCgFOog5Sc?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0"></iframe><p>“We got Americanized quite quickly I have to say. Maybe next generation. But we are very happy to live here. There are plenty of things we like about America. Nobody whines; people understand that they come somewhere and they have to take care of themselves. That’s your business; that’s your problem. Which is not that much… The Communists were telling you ‘The state will do it. The country will do it. You don’t do it.’ People got used to it. We never liked it and we are happy that mood is not in the air. And our children are happy here, so we would never left. Of course, if we never left we would be living in Prague and being happy there, but we prefer to be here. We prefer to be Americans.”</p><h4>Return Home?</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/YBLFPn5_A00?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0"></iframe><p>“Nobody will take Prague out of our hearts and heads. We know it and we’ll always feel it. And it’s nice to see that it’s changing and so on. But also, the country has changed a lot and we would have to start again. For the third time? No. I really like the spirit of America, I have to say.”</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
Zelmira Zivny
Description
An account of the resource
<p>Zelmira Zivny was born in the village of Blšany in 1937. Zelmira’s mother grew up in Komárno on the Slovak-Hungarian border and had met Zelmira’s father while he was stationed here with the Czechoslovak Army. He then took a post teaching at a Czech school in Blšany, which was in the Sudetenland. When this area was annexed by Adolf Hitler as part of the Munich Agreement in September 1938, Zelmira’s family was forced to leave. After moving several times in six months, Zelmira’s father found a teaching job in Kněževes, a town near Rakovník. Following WWII, Zelmira’s family moved to the nearby town of Jesenice where she attended school.</p><p> </p><p>Zelmira went to high school in Rakovník and then studied journalism at Charles University in Prague. Zelmira was an excellent student and, along with Jiří Dientsbier (who became a close friend), was offered membership in the Communist Party after her first semester. Zelmira had several summer jobs, including at a county newspaper in Podbořany, very close to where she had been born. During her last year in university, Zelmira worked at Czech radio (Český rozhlas). She and her husband, Milos Zivny, married during this last year as well and the pair stayed in Prague.</p><p> </p><p><img class="alignright wp-image-2564" src="http://web.archive.org/web/20170609102642im_/http://ncsml.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/e-IMG_3268_WinCE.jpg" alt="e-IMG_3268_(WinCE)" width="400" height="299" /></p><p>Zelmira worked as a journalist for the magazine Svět v obrazech for many years and traveled throughout the Eastern Bloc, including to Uzbekistan. Zelmira says that things began to change after the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968. She gave up her Party membership and helped Jiri Dientsbier publish a book. Coupled with her connections in the West (professional contacts as well as distant family members ), Zelmira began to feel a lot of ‘pressure,’ and she was taken in for questioning several times. When her daughter did not get into the high school she had hoped to attend, Zelmira and Milos began to think seriously about leaving the country. In 1984, they received passports and permission to take a vacation in Yugoslavia. Zelmira, Milos and their two children crossed the border into Austria and spent several months at Bad Kruezen refugee camp. With the help of the American Fund for Czechoslovak Refugees, the Zivnys moved to the United States and settled in Oakland, California, in February 1985.</p><p> </p><p>In September 1985, Zelmira was offered a job with the International Rescue Committee as a refugee resettlement worker. She later joined her husband who had started his own cabinetry business. Zelmira and Milos have been heavily involved in the local Sokol organization since their retirement. Although she says that Prague will always be in her ‘heart and head,’ she is very happy in the United States. Today she continues to live with Milos in the house they bought shortly after arriving in Oakland.</p>
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
National Czech & Slovak Museum & Library
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
NCSML Archive
Americanization
Blsany
Communist Party members
Education
Jiri Dienstbier
Journalism
Knezeves
Komarno
Munich Crisis
Prchalova
Rakovnik
Sense of identity
Svet v obrazech
WWII
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d88bed6cb0b8ab7bbdcb1eb87294475f
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>Military Training</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/G_QhL7oV-Yw?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0" id="undefined"></iframe><p>“Once I was assigned to the kitchen to wash dishes. I washed them very quickly – they were surprised how quickly – but every one was dirty. They had to delay military lunch for the generals for one hour until somebody else washed the dishes. So they were, I guess, inclined to kick me out, but they didn’t send me home. And once they woke up the whole barracks for military exercises at 12 midnight. So of course, everybody jumps into uniform and was running to the cars and running somewhere. I was running to the cars, made a turn to the garage, sat down, and slept for two hours. When they came back, I joined them and together we went back to the barracks. Nobody noticed me, I was not so important at all.”</p><h4>Summer of '69</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/VUT5ZtXr-08?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0"></iframe><p>“I had a car, and every year we used to go to Bulgaria or Yugoslavia for vacation, maybe a week or two weeks at the most. So then we spread the news that we are going for vacation in Yugoslavia. We went simply to the southern border at Komárno and down to Yugoslavia, but we did not go to the Mediterranean Sea, but we turned north to Austria.”</p><h4>Help in the U.S.</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/yTyvA5qzUps?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0"></iframe><p>“[We] landed here in Washington, National Airport, and Albrecht’s family were expecting us, and since then they took care of us because we had to get used to this type of life. Without a car you cannot exist here. You cannot go shopping a mile and carrying back a load. So they were really very substantial friends to us, and I helped them if they needed some repair or advice – technical advice – cars or TVs or radios, everything around the house, like I am doing now.”</p><h4>1st American Job</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/pQV5ntVJlGA?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0"></iframe><p>“So the first job I got was in a radio shop for repairing auto radios, installation and repair. The old one we have to take out and put a new one in. So I worked from January to May – I don’t remember, four or five months – and then I made ten repairs while the other technicians made one or two daily. The owner was quite impressed and told me ‘Hey Ambroz, would you like to become my partner?’ And I told him, ‘Well, I am appreciating your confidence and offer, but I want to go a little bit in a different world, I cannot stay.’”</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
Ambroz Skrovanek
Description
An account of the resource
<p>Ambroz Skrovanek was born in 1928 in Senné, a small village in south central Slovakia. His father, Karol, was a state notary while his mother, Margita, stayed home and raised Ambroz and his two younger brothers, Tomáš and Pavol. When Ambroz was nine, the Škrováneks moved to Modrý Kameň for a short time, then to Devín, in order for Ambroz to attend <em>gymnázium</em> in nearby Bratislava. Shortly thereafter, Devín was occupied by German soldiers, and Ambroz says his family was encouraged to leave the area. They moved to Komárno, a town on the border of Hungary. Ambroz, however, stayed behind and lived in a dormitory while finishing school. From a young age, Ambroz was fascinated with radios and electronics. He attended Slovak Technical University (STU) in Bratislava where he studied mechanical engineering for his first two years, as his chosen field of study, electronic engineering, was not yet available. During his summer holidays, Ambroz worked at TESLA, which led to his being offered a job there following graduation; he subsequently worked as an audio electronic engineer at TESLA for over 20 years. Ambroz married Kamila, the daughter of a family friend, and they had two children together, Thomas and Eva.</p><p> </p><p>Following the Warsaw Pact invasion in August 1968, Ambroz began to consider leaving Czechoslovakia. Through letters exchanged with his brother-in-law who had already emigrated to the United States, Ambroz made plans for his family to leave. In July 1969, the Skrovaneks went to Yugoslavia for a vacation, but instead of returning to Czechoslovakia, crossed the border into Austria. Ambroz says that while waiting for permission to immigrate to the United States, a family friend arranged for them to stay in a private apartment in Vienna. In November 1969, Ambroz and his family flew to Washington, D.C. They lived with his wife’s sister’s family for nine months before renting a home. In 1972, Ambroz bought a house in Bethesda, Maryland. Ambroz’s first job was installing and repairing car radios. He soon found employment as an electronic engineer, and through his career earned several patents. In recent years, Ambroz has become involved in the Slovak American Society of Washington, D.C. Now widowed, he continues to live in Bethesda, Maryland.</p>
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
National Czech & Slovak Museum & Library
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
NCSML Archive
1968 emigrant/refugee
Devin
Education
Engineers
Komarno
Modry Kamen
Senne