Ján studied engineering at trade school in Prešov, but after one year returned to Strážske where he attended school to become a mechanic. His uncle Mike Frajkor, who lived in the United States, provided him with goods such as clothing and building materials to sell on the black market. Because of his connections with the West and his outspoken views on communism, Ján says he was seen as ‘disruptive’ to the state. He was arrested on New Year’s Eve, 1967, because of his involvement in a fight, but was later cleared of all charges. Following the Warsaw Pact invasion in August 1968, Ján says he was forced to go into hiding after provoking Soviet soldiers. He made his way to the border where he was caught and sent back home. Upon the insistence of his father, Ján made another attempt to escape in November 1968 and this time was successful. He made his way to Vienna and was then sent to Traiskirchen refugee camp where he stayed for three months. His uncle Mike sponsored him to come to the United States, and he arrived in New York City in August 1969, a few days shy of his 20th birthday. In the United States he was also assisted by his uncle John Frajkor.
After working as a motorcycle mechanic for one year in New York City, Ján joined the U.S. Army and became an American citizen in 1971. By the time he left the army in 1974, he had attained the rank of corporal, an achievement of which he is especially proud. Ján then worked for a heating and ventilation company, a job which allowed him to travel throughout the United States. He met his wife, Jean, in 1976; they married the following year and moved to her native Minnesota in 1979. They have one son, Andrej, who is named after Ján’s father. Ján says he taught Andrej many Slovak traditions. Today, Ján owns Andrej’s European Pastry which makes and sells potica, a traditional Eastern European pastry. He lives with his wife Jean in Chisholm, Minnesota.
]]>Ján Gadzo was born in Strážske, a small town in Eastern Slovakia, in 1949. Ján says that his family owned a successful farm and that they were one of the wealthiest families in town. When the farmland in his area was being collectivized, he remembers daily visits from government officials who tried to persuade his parents, Andrej and Anna, to sign the farm over to the local cooperative. Pressure was put on the family, says Ján, when they were forbidden from hiring any help to harvest their crops and had to hand over a large portion of their grain to the authorities. It was in 1964 that his parents eventually signed the farm over to the co-op. Ján says that thereupon his parents were unable to find desirable jobs and he and his siblings were not allowed to participate in extracurricular activities.
Ján studied engineering at trade school in Prešov, but after one year returned to Strážske where he attended school to become a mechanic. His uncle Mike Frajkor, who lived in the United States, provided him with goods such as clothing and building materials to sell on the black market. Because of his connections with the West and his outspoken views on communism, Ján says he was seen as ‘disruptive’ to the state. He was arrested on New Year’s Eve, 1967, because of his involvement in a fight, but was later cleared of all charges. Following the Warsaw Pact invasion in August 1968, Ján says he was forced to go into hiding after provoking Soviet soldiers. He made his way to the border where he was caught and sent back home. Upon the insistence of his father, Ján made another attempt to escape in November 1968 and this time was successful. He made his way to Vienna and was then sent to Traiskirchen refugee camp where he stayed for three months. His uncle Mike sponsored him to come to the United States, and he arrived in New York City in August 1969, a few days shy of his 20th birthday. In the United States he was also assisted by his uncle John Frajkor.
After working as a motorcycle mechanic for one year in New York City, Ján joined the U.S. Army and became an American citizen in 1971. By the time he left the army in 1974, he had attained the rank of corporal, an achievement of which he is especially proud. Ján then worked for a heating and ventilation company, a job which allowed him to travel throughout the United States. He met his wife, Jean, in 1976; they married the following year and moved to her native Minnesota in 1979. They have one son, Andrej, who is named after Ján’s father. Ján says he taught Andrej many Slovak traditions. Today, Ján owns Andrej’s European Pastry which makes and sells potica, a traditional Eastern European pastry. He lives with his wife Jean in Chisholm, Minnesota.
“And now these, we called them ‘agitators,’ they would come in your house in the morning and they sat in your living all day, and tried to persuade you to how it’s going to be for you to join the co-op. The hell it’s going to be good for me, my neighbors, three guys across the street, stand over there like this and then they send their mother or wife to our house to beg for the food. Don’t tell me, I learned this stuff when I was six years old. My brother and I were hiding under the bed; we were just little kids, and there are the two guys sitting all day, day in and day out, day in and day out. They were not succeeding. My ma knew what she had, and that was my uncle’s hard work, my grandpa’s hard work. But they kept coming, they kept coming.”
“I was going home from school, and we had the speakers throughout the town, and the band started to play. And they said, ‘And now, we are sending this song to Andrej and Anna Gadzo for signing into the co-op.’ And I go, ‘No, no.’
“So, I get home. I’m asking all these questions, but I’m just a kid, ‘Shut up, be quiet.’ Well, as my mother wrote in that letter, they came in, they parked in front with the trucks, with the militia. They brought the papers in the house. ‘Sign the papers, or you’re never going to see this house again.’ And this is how we lost everything.”
“He loved the land. He was good, I mean my dad was a good farmer. So he would plant, because there was a lot of acres. He would plant over there, and he had chicken and goats and he had sheep. He had everything over there. So now all these hierarchs, you know, the top people, they would kind of sneak over; ‘Hey Andy, whatcha got today?’ And my dad, he would butcher the chicken for him, or do the egg. You do what you got to do to survive. But he was good at that. And my dad was an awesome cook, so he would make those stews all the time. Outside, he had the camping [stove], and all the kids grew up with my dad’s cooking. He would just start it in the morning over there, and all the grandchildren grew up. So anyway, so that’s what kind of saved him.”
“So the packages are coming every week. Babushka, is something that old women wear. My uncle Mike would buy them in New York for ten cents, he would send them to us by hundreds. We had the network. Women would come in and take a hundred babushkas. Because everybody needed babushkas for morning, for evening, for church. All the women had five, ten, fifteen babushkas, and we had them. Plastic for the windows. I don’t what those plastics were, or why. My uncle used to go on Orchard Street, and again those packages are coming in, and the people would take the plastic and make curtains out of it. I mean, there was so much money coming in.”
“So I said to him, ‘When you guys get done working, say at 4:00, 5:00, your trucks sit over here, your drivers sit over here. I have work for you. These people are dying.’ There was no pick-up truck to be had in Strážske to haul something, except for the army deuce and a halves, and all these sat. He said, ‘Use it.’ I said, ‘You serious?’ He said, ‘Use it.’ And I was very honest and I said, ‘Well if I can make some money and raise some money, I want to donate some money from this process to that monorail. So that’s when I really went to town, big time. So I would say, ‘How many do you need?’ ‘Well, I need three loads.’ And I would just direct everybody, the drivers, and then collect the money, and of course, gave the drivers so much. This guy [the head engineer] didn’t need any, he had money and everything. So that went, oh man, I was 18 years old. My brother said ‘My brother was the king.’”
“Remember I told you one of these people who were at Stalingrad with him [Ján’s father]? Well, one of the guys made it to the KGB. He was a big shot. So when he’d seen that name, Gadžo, in a report – now I’m a nationalist – so he’d seen that name, Gadžo, and he remembered my dad. So he came over to our house. This is like 25 years after WWII, so this guy’s around 50 years old. In uncertain terms, he said to my father, ‘Tell your son he has to try to escape again or that will be the end of him.’”
Marek Soltis was born in Prešov in eastern Slovakia in 1969. He grew up with his parents, Ondrej and Maria, and his younger brother and sister. Marek and his family lived with his maternal grandparents in Rokycany for several years while his parents were building a house. Marek says that he dreamed of being a musician from an early age, and he learned to play the accordion and the guitar. Beginning in early high school, Marek joined a band which played gigs around the city. He attended a technical high school and then studied physics at Pavol Jozef Šafárik University in Prešov with the intention of becoming a university professor. Marek was a university student when the Velvet Revolution occurred in November 1989. He says that students at his school were particularly active during this time, and he distributed newspapers and traveled to factories. Marek calls this time ‘indescribable.’ After graduating, he began playing music professionally and played in a theatre orchestra.
In 1996, Marek traveled to the United States to visit a friend. He says that corruption in the newly-democratic Slovakia combined with professional opportunities in the United States led to his decision to stay permanently. He settled in the New York City area and, although he says his first months were difficult, he quickly became involved in the music and Slovak communities. Marek took classes at Hunter College and joined a band. Today, Marek owns a music and entertainment company which, among other things, helps to bring Slovak music to the United States. He is also the sound engineer at the Bohemian National Hall in Manhattan. Marek and his wife, also a Slovak émigré, have a young daughter and son to whom they speak Slovak. Today he lives with his family in Greenwich, Connecticut.
]]>
Marek Soltis was born in Prešov in eastern Slovakia in 1969. He grew up with his parents, Ondrej and Maria, and his younger brother and sister. Marek and his family lived with his maternal grandparents in Rokycany for several years while his parents were building a house. Marek says that he dreamed of being a musician from an early age, and he learned to play the accordion and the guitar. Beginning in early high school, Marek joined a band which played gigs around the city. He attended a technical high school and then studied physics at Pavol Jozef Šafárik University in Prešov with the intention of becoming a university professor. Marek was a university student when the Velvet Revolution occurred in November 1989. He says that students at his school were particularly active during this time, and he distributed newspapers and traveled to factories. Marek calls this time ‘indescribable.’ After graduating, he began playing music professionally and played in a theatre orchestra.
In 1996, Marek traveled to the United States to visit a friend. He says that corruption in the newly-democratic Slovakia combined with professional opportunities in the United States led to his decision to stay permanently. He settled in the New York City area and, although he says his first months were difficult, he quickly became involved in the music and Slovak communities. Marek took classes at Hunter College and joined a band. Today, Marek owns a music and entertainment company which, among other things, helps to bring Slovak music to the United States. He is also the sound engineer at the Bohemian National Hall in Manhattan. Marek and his wife, also a Slovak émigré, have a young daughter and son to whom they speak Slovak. Today he lives with his family in Greenwich, Connecticut.
“I know that our school, in the eastern part of Slovakia, took a leading role, and so did I. I was just so involved in the revolution, and I didn’t see my parents back then for almost two months. I didn’t go those 11 kilometers because we were so busy. We started releasing our newspaper – it was probably the only one. Later on in Kosice there was one called Premeny. So our first job was to go in the streets, and I was actually writing some articles, and then we were giving these newspapers to people. That time is just indescribable. The joy of the people; we were being given free food. I’m almost having tears in my eyes because that time is indescribable. It’s still the communist era and you go to a store and you ask for some soup or something and [they’d say] ‘Just don’t pay, guys.’ We had tricolors on and we were kind of known from the college. We got like ‘Strike Committee’ [patches] and all that. So they knew us. Taxi drivers gave us rides, even to Svidník. It was just ‘Guys, don’t even think about it.’ So we had taxi drivers waiting for us and we were going from factory to factory. Our role was, those first days we knew one thing – the economy cannot collapse. And what happened, in those factories, on every level people started to fight. Personal crap on the leaders, on the Communist Party, and our role was to keep the economy and factories going, because they were like ‘Oh, we’re not working!’ and we had to go there and were telling them and – this is great – they respected us. I don’t know why. We were not the police; we were not authority, but we came and we actually had the director of the factory and ordinary workers sitting and we had them communicate. So that was my role.”
“I want them to speak Slovak. Children pick up English in schools like that, and the only time – I knew one thing – the only time I can give them the language is from the time they were born until they go to school. So even if he talks to me in English, I answer him in Slovak, and I know it’s the only time. I still wish we could have some different programs, some schools where they can use it. I’m so thankful for the school in Bohemian Hall in Queens, Astoria. We used to have better support [from Slovakia]. I’m not the guy who cries out, ‘Oh, the government has to take care of it in Slovakia,’ but it’s a fact that we are Slovakians and we have our children and we want to give them that education. The level of grammar is not just something you can give to them like that or once a week. So I wish we can do something about that. And there are a lot of children right now.”
“I was always kind of growing or living with the music community, and it was not just the band. It was folk music, folk ensembles, dancers, theatre. So I got to know a lot of people, and also that community was what I always loved. The musical or artistic group of people, we always said that we are different. We have a big love for it. It helped me in my business, too. I forget many times about money; my thing is to satisfy people. In the end, they have to be happy. If they’re happy then I’m happy. And if you have money at the end of it, that’s the greatest thing in the world. But I’m helping a lot of musicians, a lot of bands, have a chance to come here and actually play a little bit on American soil. Many of them present it as ‘Oh, we are playing to American audiences,’ but of course they are not playing for the American public; they are playing for Slovakian immigrants, which, in many cases, these people cannot have another chance to see groups or artists because they cannot leave this country because they are illegal. But we have to consider as a fact that they are Slovaks and they are existing, they’re living, they’re humans. To see the joy of those groups of people if you bring something to them, it’s priceless.”
The pair left Czechoslovakia on August 23, 1968 and spent almost three months in Vienna, Austria, where Paul attended English classes at the Berlitz language school. They lived in an apartment belonging to an Austrian physician who wanted to help Czech and Slovak doctors displaced by the invasion. Paul arrived in Cleveland on November 8, 1968 and says he was shocked at the size of the city, worrying in particular that it would prove ‘impossible to find his school’ in a town so large. He and his father spent their first couple of months living with Paul’s uncle Alex in Lakewood, Ohio, where Paul attended Harding Middle School. When Paul’s father secured a medical internship, the pair moved into an apartment provided by the hospital, where Paul says he spent a couple of ‘good, but challenging years’ as his father was so busy retraining as a doctor.
In 1972, Paul enrolled at Kent State University where he studied architecture. He spent a term in Florence, Italy, and graduated in 1977. His first job was at Robert P. Madison International, an architecture firm in Cleveland. In 1985, he became an architect for the City of Cleveland. He retired in 2010. Paul says he is particularly proud to have worked on Cleveland’s Westside Market and Hopkins Airport, as well as City Hall and the municipality’s numerous recreation centers. Paul says that when he moved to Cleveland, his uncle Alex introduced him to local Rusyn and Ukrainian groups. Over time, however, he says he has become more involved in the local Czech community, joining the Czech American Committee of Greater Cleveland (Krajanský výbor) and the local chapter of the Czechoslovak Society of Arts and Sciences (SVU). He is currently president of Cleveland’s Czech Cultural Garden. Today, Paul lives in Avon, Ohio, with his wife Fran.
]]>Paul Burik was born in the southern Bohemian town of České Budějovice in 1954. His father, Nicholas, was a doctor, while his mother, Vlasta, worked as a pharmacist. When Paul was still a toddler, the family moved to Prešov, in eastern Slovakia, which was where Paul’s father (who was ethnically Carpatho-Rusyn) had grown up. After nearly six years, however, the family moved back to Bohemia, first to Prčice and then Sedlčany, where Paul’s father worked as the chief surgeon in the local hospital. When Paul was still a teenager, his mother died of a terminal disease. His father worked long hours so Paul says he grew up fairly independently. In 1967 his father traveled to the United States to visit his brother (Paul’s uncle Alex) who had immigrated to Cleveland shortly after the Communist coup in Czechoslovakia. Paul says his father spoke with a number of American doctors during his visit to the States, but decided to return to Czechoslovakia because, at the time, ‘things were good there.’ Following the Soviet-led invasion in 1968, however, Paul’s father suggested to him that the pair resettle in America. Paul says he looked forward to the ‘adventure’ of emigrating and agreed with his father’s suggestion.
The pair left Czechoslovakia on August 23, 1968 and spent almost three months in Vienna, Austria, where Paul attended English classes at the Berlitz language school. They lived in an apartment belonging to an Austrian physician who wanted to help Czech and Slovak doctors displaced by the invasion. Paul arrived in Cleveland on November 8, 1968 and says he was shocked at the size of the city, worrying in particular that it would prove ‘impossible to find his school’ in a town so large. He and his father spent their first couple of months living with Paul’s uncle Alex in Lakewood, Ohio, where Paul attended Harding Middle School. When Paul’s father secured a medical internship, the pair moved into an apartment provided by the hospital, where Paul says he spent a couple of ‘good, but challenging years’ as his father was so busy retraining as a doctor.
In 1972, Paul enrolled at Kent State University where he studied architecture. He spent a term in Florence, Italy, and graduated in 1977. His first job was at Robert P. Madison International, an architecture firm in Cleveland. In 1985, he became an architect for the City of Cleveland. He retired in 2010. Paul says he is particularly proud to have worked on Cleveland’s Westside Market and Hopkins Airport, as well as City Hall and the municipality’s numerous recreation centers. Paul says that when he moved to Cleveland, his uncle Alex introduced him to local Rusyn and Ukrainian groups. Over time, however, he says he has become more involved in the local Czech community, joining the Czech American Committee of Greater Cleveland (Krajanský výbor) and the local chapter of the Czechoslovak Society of Arts and Sciences (SVU). He is currently president of Cleveland’s Czech Cultural Garden. Today, Paul lives in Avon, Ohio, with his wife Fran.
“I had to take piano lessons, you know, the parents insisted. And the teacher, the piano teacher, was an old boy scout. That was, of course, that was outlawed. But he had these models of cabins and the little scout things, and so we would spend half the time playing piano, and half the time playing with the scout things. So, my piano is not that good.”
“We had a sort of… Sokol was outlawed, but he [my father] was teaching a little gymnastics class that I and about a dozen boys, we would go into the old Sokol Hall and he made arrangements, he would teach us the stuff, you know, gymnastics: parallel bars, high bar, rings, floor exercises, the sort of typical stuff that the Sokols do – for several years. And I think he always believed in exercise and the whole notion of ‘in a healthy body is a healthy spirit.’ So he was doing it a little bit for himself, because he always liked to exercise and stuff, but at the same time, he put up with a dozen other kids too.”
“We had this meeting on the steps of our house, I was coming down in the morning and he was coming up, he proposed that we go and try to go to the United States, and it’s going to be challenging, but we should go. And of course, I was a 13 year old, for me it was just a big adventure. So I said yes, let’s go. And so that day he went to the hospital to do his rounds and work, and I packed whatever I deemed important, some clothing and a sleeping bag. It was kind of interesting because I still have the sleeping bag; I still have it in the car in case we get stranded in the snow. But it is amazing how that one item was sort of like the security blanket, like a little boy’s nene blanket, because we didn’t know where we were going to be. We could be sleeping on the floor of a gym some place or some kind of a camp. So we were dragging this sleeping blanket all around across the continent.”
“You need to understand that especially as a young boy like that, anything Western, anything forbidden, was idolized. Anything Western was idolized. If somebody gave us chewing gum, because it was from America it was like the hottest thing. So, when we said ‘let’s go to America,’ it was like this great adventure. To me as a young teenager, it was like, why not? Let’s do it – I didn’t have to worry about all those legalities and technicalities and potential… I knew there was danger, I knew that there was danger, that if things don’t work out it could be sort of nasty at least for him [my dad.] I was a child but… So it was sort of a quick decision, sometimes you just have to make those snap decisions.”
“Ironically, travel was complicated because the locals changed the signs. And so if you followed the road signs, you would end up in the wrong place. You really had to go by knowledge of the local area or by map. But if you came to an intersection and it said ‘Prague, this way,’ it would probably point you to the wrong place.”
“Well actually, he [Alex] was more active in the Ukrainian or the Rusyn community, so my first years until college, I was really not involved with the Czech community at all or very little. If anything, there was a Carpatho-Rusyn ski club and he was an officer and we did a lot of traveling, a lot of skiing in the wintertime. And so I was more involved in that culture. It was not until I already was married and had children, and I was taking my daughter to a gymnastics class, and there was a fellow reading a paper, a Czech paper, Nový svět. And so I said, ‘Well, he’s got to be Czech or Slovak or something,’ and he was my age, and so when the opportunity came I said hello to him, ‘Dobrý večer’ [Good evening] or something like that. And he turned out to be a local dentist, Stan Pechan, who is Slovak, Czech – he covers both areas, much like me, and we started talking and he introduced me to, he took me to a meeting of what was then the Krajanský výbor, which now is really defunct, but at the time it was the Czech and Slovak committee for the liberation of Czechoslovakia.”
“One of my colleagues at work, at Cleveland City Hall, approached me one time and said ‘Hey, you are Czech, you know there’s a Czech Cultural Garden and it’s orphaned and you know, somebody should take care of it.’ And I said. ‘What garden?’ I had no clue about the gardens. And he said ‘Come on, I’ll take you there at lunch time.’ So, we did, we took a ride to East Boulevard and MLK and drove through the gardens and saw the Czech garden and I was impressed and said ‘Yeah, well somebody kind of needs to attend to that.’ And before I knew, it kind of became my commitment to the Czech community, taking care of that. And I think we’ve been pretty successful. We’ve got some grants from the Czech Republic, we’ve got some donations from specifically the Ptak family, got some grants from the Holden Parks Trust, which is a trust which takes care of some of the parks, or specifically that park. So, we did a lot of things, restored the statues, planted new shrubs, tuck-pointed the masonry and over the years I think it’s one of the better… [We have] had virtually all of the ambassadors that were stationed in the United States come and visit and walk through the gardens.”