Zdenka Necasek
<p>Zdenka Necasek was born in February 1948 in Košt’álov, a village in the Semily region of northeastern Bohemia. Her parents ran a restaurant and butcher’s shop which the family lived above. The restaurant was called U Matoušů (meaning At the Matoušes) and had been owned by Zdenka’s parents until it was nationalized under communism, following which Zdenka’s family stayed on as restaurant employees. Zdenka says her father in particular was very bitter about the seizure of his business. An excellent discus and shot-put thrower, Zdenka considered studying at the sports faculty in Prague upon graduation, but was dissuaded from doing so by a friend and so went to work at a textile factory in Semily called Kolora instead. Zdenka worked in the computer center at the factory – a job she says she greatly enjoyed.</p><p> </p><p>It was one of her colleagues from Kolora who introduced her to her future husband, <a href="/web/20170808010859/http://www.ncsml.org/exhibits/bruno-necasek/">Bretislav (Bruno) Necasek</a>, in 1972. Bretislav was born in Semily but had emigrated to Cleveland in 1951. It was on a visit back to his hometown that he and Zdenka first met. The pair spent a couple of weeks together and decided to get married. Complications arose, however, when Zdenka was repeatedly refused a visa out of the country and Bretislav was no longer granted visas to visit Czechoslovakia. After three years of legal wrangling and red tape, Zdenka and Bretislav were married by proxy – Zdenka’s lawyer was present at her wedding ceremony in lieu of her husband. Following the wedding in 1975, it took Zdenka one more year to complete the paperwork allowing her to travel to America to live with her husband. She arrived in Cleveland on May 21, 1976.</p><p> </p><p>Zdenka and Bretislav have two children, Tina and Thomas. The couple live together in Seven Hills, Ohio. Nowadays, Zdenka works as a coding and billing representative in a Cleveland hospital and is active in a number of local Czech societies, Sokol in particular. She travels back to the Czech Republic on almost a yearly basis.</p>
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Otto Zizak Jr.
<p> </p><p>Otto Zizak Jr. was born in Poprad, Slovakia, in 1976. Before immigrating, his father, <a href="/web/20170609111930/http://www.ncsml.org/exhibits/otto-sr-zizak/">Otto</a>, worked as an engineer and on an agricultural cooperative while his mother, Božena, was an economist. Otto was a member of the Young Pioneer group and enjoyed sports and music. Shortly after the Velvet Revolution in 1989, Otto’s father left for the United States, and Otto and his mother joined him at the end of the school year. He says that although his first impressions of JFK Airport were ‘daunting,’ his impressions of life in the city improved significantly. The Žižáks settled in Brooklyn where Otto started high school. Otto attended the City University of New York (CUNY) and majored in psychology. He then began graduate classes in the same subject and worked for his parents while they were starting their own business. Otto was also interested in interior design and renovations and worked on several construction projects.</p><p> </p><p>On one of his return trips to Slovakia, Otto reconnected with an old schoolmate, Maria. She moved to the United States in 2002 and the pair married shortly thereafter. Drawing on Maria’s background in the hospitality industry and Otto’s experience in construction, in 2007 they opened Korzo, a restaurant in Brooklyn which incorporates the flavors of Slovakia and other European countries with local, seasonal ingredients. They have since opened a second location. Otto occasionally writes and records music, both in English and Slovak, and has had the opportunity to perform with well-known Slovak artists. Otto and Maria have three children who speak fluent Slovak and enjoy visiting Slovakia. Today, Otto’s family lives in New York City.</p>
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Oliver Gunovsky
<p>Oliver Gunovsky was born in Trenčín, western Slovakia, in 1944. When he was four years old his father, Peter, left the country under the threat of arrest for his involvement in the black market, and his mother, Maria, felt pressure to move as well. Oliver lived with his grandparents, Gregor and Maria Malec, for a number of years in Trenčianske Teplice before joining his mother in Liptovský Hrádok where she was working in the restaurant industry. He remembers enjoying elementary school where he participated in sports, plays, and poetry readings and had a lot of friends. Because of his father’s illegal exit from the country, Oliver says his choice of secondary school was limited. He applied to three schools, including a military school, and was rejected from all of them. He was given a place in an engineering school in Bánovce nad Bebravou, but transferred to Ružomberok after one year to be closer to his mother. During secondary school, Oliver played many sports, and he especially excelled at cross-country skiing. Even though he had no contact with his father and, at this point, did not know his whereabouts, Oliver says he was not allowed to compete internationally for fear that he would try to leave as well.</p><p> </p><p>Oliver graduated from engineering school in 1962 and worked for one year in a machinery factory before joining the army. It was at this time that he first got in contact with his father and discovered he was living in England. When he left the army in 1965, Oliver attempted to obtain a visa to visit his father, but says he was repeatedly denied. In the spring of 1968, he was issued a travel visa and left for England on August 13. Upon hearing about the Warsaw Pact invasion eight days later, Oliver decided to stay in England. His wife, whom he had married only a few months earlier, was able to join him in the fall. Oliver worked for his father, who owned a butcher shop, grocery store, and restaurant. After a short time, Oliver then found a job at a hotel. He and his wife applied for immigrant visas to several countries and were granted permission to move to Canada. They settled in Kitchener, Ontario, with their young son, also called Oliver, in 1970. In Kitchener, Oliver worked his way up the restaurant business and eventually owned the Metro Tavern, which he says was known as a schnitzel house, but also served other Central European fare, and became a gathering place for Slovaks in the area.</p><p> </p><p>In 1982, Oliver and his family moved to Florida where he hoped to open another restaurant. When that plan fell through, he moved to Bethesda, Maryland, and opened a fast food schnitzel restaurant, which he sold after one year. After the Velvet Revolution, he was a founder of the American Czechoslovak Society (later the American Czech and Slovak Association), which assisted young Czechs and Slovaks who were visiting the United States to learn about western businesses, politics, and communities. In 1991, Oliver went back to Slovakia for the first time since leaving, and he continues to visit his mother there regularly. Today, Oliver lives in Washington, D.C.</p><p> </p>
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Mark Zejdl
<p>Mark Zejdl was born in Petrovice, a village outside Prague, in 1943. His parents owned a butcher shop in Prague; however, Mark lived with his grandparents in Petrovice until he started school due to unrest in the capital brought on by WWII and the Communist coup. Mark has vague memories of the end of the War and also recalls helping his grandmother with daily farm responsibilities. Mark’s father’s business was nationalized after the Communist coup, and he and his family moved to northern Bohemia near Bílina when he was sent to work in the coal mines there. Mark says that he was a very good student who loved to read and hoped to study medicine; however, after ninth grade, he was not allowed to pursue this field and instead went to a training school in Karlovy Vary to become a cook. While there he worked at the train station and began taking night classes in microbiology and chemistry. After finishing his training, Mark moved to Prague where he continued his higher education and applied for medical school. He was not accepted, and completed two years of mandatory military service. Mark found a job as an economist in the food industry and was fired when he refused to join the Communist Party. In 1968, Mark was living close to Czech Radio on Vinohradská třída and was active in the streets during the Warsaw Pact invasion.</p><p> </p><p>In 1970, Mark says that things got ‘really tight’ in Czechoslovakia and he decided to leave. He had secured a job in Frankfurt as a cook, but returned to Prague once to visit his family. On the way back to Frankfurt, Mark was asked to step off the train; however, he says that he was forgotten about in some commotion, ran away from the train and crossed the border into West Germany on foot. Mark spent time in Munich and Berlin working as a chef before deciding to go to the United States on the recommendation of some friends. He arrived in San Francisco in 1971 and soon found a job in the Fairmont Hotel. Mark worked in the kitchen and the front of house in several hotels and restaurants and eventually opened his own seafood restaurant called The Seagull in the Sunset District. He opened a few other establishments and also worked in real estate. Mark says that he was ‘impressed’ by the United States and the willingness of Americans to assist him.</p><p> </p><p>After Mark’s first visit back to the Czech Republic in 1999 he and his wife, Brenda, returned for visits every year. When he retired, and because he had business interests there, the couple decided to move to Prague. He holds dual citizenship and, while he is enjoying his time in Prague, Mark believes he will return to the United States.</p>
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Jerry Jirak
<p>Jerry Jirak was born in Prague. His parents owned a restaurant and tavern in the city’s Old Town, which the Jirak family lived above. Jerry’s father died when he was four, and his mother died 12 years later, leaving Jerry and his sister Alena to fend for themselves. Jerry says that his sister became a seamstress while he worked as a waiter in Prague’s Café Fenix among other locations. During WWII, Jerry studied at hotel school in Prague. He says he learned 850 words of basic English as part of his training. An enthusiastic Boy Scout as a child, Jerry became involved in the movement again after it was reestablished in liberated Czechoslovakia in 1945. He worked at the movement’s headquarters in Prague and traveled to France in 1947 to attend the annual Scouting Jamboree. It was at this event that he got to know Clarence Beebe, the head of the Scouts’ Drum and Bugle Corps in Madison, Wisconsin. Twelve years later, Mr. Beebe was to become Jerry’s sponsor to the United States.</p><p> </p><p>Jerry left Czechoslovakia just after the Communist takeover in March 1948, during the first few weeks of his military service which he was summoned to do in Sokolov, near the West German border. Jerry says that he and a friend asked for leave to visit the dentist and in fact took a train to the border, which they crossed overnight. After a few days at a refugee camp in Regensburg, Jerry was sent to France, where he gained a job in a steel factory near Nancy after being turned down in his bid to become a farm hand. He says that work at the factory was hard, and that laborers were undernourished; he once got in trouble for stealing cherries from a nearby orchard in a bid to assuage his hunger. Jerry decided to flee the factory and apply for a visa to the United States; he could only do this by returning to Germany, which he did after a stint working in construction in Luxembourg.</p><p> </p><p>Jerry says that back in Germany, however, he was told at the American Consulate that his chances of getting to the United States were slim. He opted to emigrate to Australia instead and arrived in Sydney in December 1950. His first job was in Melbourne, at a factory owned by Heinz, where he made ketchup and tomato soup. After nine years in Melbourne Jerry was sponsored by his old scouting contact Mr. Beebe to come to Madison, Wisconsin. He spent a short time working in a hospital kitchen in the city before coming to Chicago, where some of his acquaintances told him he would receive better pay. Jerry has lived in the western suburbs of Chicago ever since. Over the years he has become involved in a number of Czech organizations in the city, including the Czechoslovak National Council of America. He has presented the Czechoslovak Radio Hour on Chicago’s WCEV every Sunday for almost the past 30 years. He has two children.</p>
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Jarek Mika
<p> </p><p>Jarek Mika was born in Ostrava in eastern Moravia in 1978. His father, Josef, was from a small village nearby, and Jarek has fond memories of visiting the farmhouse with his many relatives and experiencing his grandmother’s cooking. Jarek grew up with his mother, Radana, and his older sister. In fifth grade, he was expelled from the Pioneer organization after decorating a bulletin board with pictures of President Reagan. Jarek recalls the Velvet Revolution in November 1989 and says that the ‘mentality of people changed’ after the fall of communism; he also noticed a marked difference in his teachers. Jarek attended a private high school in Jihlava which focused on business and management. He says that his expulsion from Pioneers had prevented him from taking Russian language classes and, instead, he studied German with a private tutor. As a result, Jarek spoke fluent German upon beginning high school and found a job at a language school teaching German to business executives. According to Jarek, this experience widened his horizons and he decided to move to the United States to learn English and study.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>In 1996, Jarek began studying English at a community college in North Carolina and transferred to the University of North Carolina, Charlotte. He graduated with a degree in international business. While in school, Jarek worked for a bank and, by the time he graduated, was working as a loan processor team leader. He then moved to Washington, D.C. to continue his banking career where he worked for an international banking group for two years. After several years in mortgage banking, Jarek left the profession and decided to open a restaurant. Drawing on his love of cooking – Jarek says that he often cooked to unwind from his stressful career as a banker – he took culinary courses at the Art Institute of Washington and opened Bistro Bohem, which features Czech cuisine, in March 2012.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Jarek received his American citizenship in 2011, a step he took because he ‘feels American.’ His mother moved to the United States to be closer to Jarek, and he visits the Czech Republic often to visit his sister and her family. Jarek also has several real estate properties in the Czech Republic. Today he lives in Washington, D.C.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p><a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20170808005933/http://www.bistrobohem.com/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Bistro Bohem’s website</a></p>
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Ivan Vaclav
<p>Ivan Vaclav was born in 1943. He was raised in Bošáca, a town famous for its slivovitz, in western Slovakia. He says he had a happy childhood there, and remembers stealing plums from the numerous fruit trees around the town. His father was the head of the local recreation area and Pioneer Camp. Ivan says that he took over this job when his father died. Ivan’s mother, meanwhile, worked at a restaurant and bar in nearby Inovec. Ivan has one older sister, who also came to the United States.</p><p> </p><p>Despite ‘having a good life’ in Czechoslovakia, Ivan decided to leave the country with his wife in September 1969. The couple spent four months in Austria, where Ivan’s wife gave birth to their oldest daughter, Jackie. The family arrived in New York City on December 29, 1969. Ivan remembers the city was ‘dirty,’ and that there were cockroaches in the Manhattan hotel in which they were accommodated. Almost straight away, the family bought a car and drove to Chicago, where they have lived ever since. In 1970, Ivan started a painting and decorating business in the city, which he ran for almost seven years. Ivan and his wife also became partners in the Czechoslovak restaurant called Bratislava which was located on North Clark Street during the 1970s.</p><p> </p><p>Eventually, Ivan set up a construction and remodeling firm and founded a car business, which he refers to as ‘practically my hobby.’ He says that the United States has provided him with a ‘great, great opportunity’ to pursue his interests and ambitions. He became an American citizen in 1976. Over the years, Ivan has been active in the Slovak and Czech communities in Chicago – he has been associated with the CSA Fraternal Life organization, as well as with the Slovak Athletic Association. Today, he lives in Glenview, Illinois, with his wife, Anna.</p>
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George Suchanek
<p> </p><p>George Suchanek was born in Prague in 1940. His mother, Milada, immigrated to the United States with her parents when she was six years old. After she finished her education, the family returned to Prague where they bought property and started a business. George’s father, Josef, originally from Velký Osek, a village in Central Bohemia, trained to be an auto mechanic and moved to Prague to open his own repair shop. He eventually became a skilled airplane mechanic. George has one older brother, also called Josef.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>After graduating from primary school, George says that only three professions were available to him: bricklayer, miner, or steelworker. However, a well-placed friend of the family was able to help him enroll in culinary school. After four years of school, George served in the military for two years and then, as he had trouble finding a good job, again went to school for two more years. George joined an orchestra after his stint in the army and, in order to be able to work and perform, he took a job as a cook in a printing factory. While on a work brigade with the youth organization ČSM (of which he was not a member), George and his peers saved a large warehouse from burning down. As a result, the workers were awarded a tourist trip to Austria. George arrived in Austria in June 1965. Although he says it was never his intention to leave Czechoslovakia, at the end of the trip George left the group and made his way to the police station where he claimed asylum. He was sent to Traiskirchen refugee camp. While living in Austria, George saw an advertisement for a job at Vašata, a Czech restaurant in New York City. He was accepted as a cook and, in November 1965, traveled to the United States.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>In New York, George worked in several restaurants. After a few years he moved to Los Angeles where he worked at the Ambassador Hotel; George was working in the kitchen the night Robert Kennedy was assassinated. George returned to New York and received his American citizenship. He started his own construction company and also built and ran several restaurants, the last of which was Zlata Praha, in Queens. George also acted as a manager and promoter for Czechoslovak entertainers performing in the United States and Canada. He organized several tours and concerts for Karel Gott, among others. Today George lives in New York City with his wife and daughter.</p>
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Dusan Ciran
<p>Dusan Ciran was born in Brezová pod Bradlom, western Slovakia, in 1929. His father Martin died when he was only a few months old and his mother, Darina, subsequently remarried a widower called Emil Sarvady. Around the time that Dusan started school, the family moved to the nearby town of Senica, where his stepfather took over a restaurant which the whole family helped run. Dusan says that WWII was a particularly profitable time for the restaurant with the establishment proving popular amongst the 2,000 German soldiers stationed at the local barracks.</p><p> </p><p>Following the War, Dusan’s stepfather was arrested on charges of collaborating with the Germans, but was released, says Dusan, when such charges could not be proved. In 1949, a family friend who worked for the local police tipped Dusan’s stepfather off that a warrant was again out for his arrest, prompting Dusan’s family to flee the country that very evening. Dusan says he and his family crossed the Morava River into the Soviet Zone of Austria, from which the challenge was still to make it to Vienna and the American Zone of the country. Dusan’s family successfully did so when the truck they were riding in was stopped by a Soviet soldier, who traveled with the family and shouted at his colleagues at the border checkpoint to hurry up and let them through.</p><p> </p><p>From Vienna, the family was sent to Wegsheid refugee camp in Linz where they spent just over eight months. Dusan and his family arrived in Canada in 1950; they were sent first to Lethbridge, Alberta, to pick sugar beets before moving to Toronto, where Dusan and his brothers Emil and Milan played for the local Hungarian football club – Pannonia – and through this found work assembling scooters at Simpson manufacturers. Dusan moved with his family to Chicago in 1952, settling first on the city’s North Side. He quickly found work at the city’s Continental Can Company, where he rose through the ranks to work in the firm’s master plate department, designing and producing labels. Dusan says he made some extra money at this time by playing violin at Chicago Slovak and Czech events. He attended art classes at the Chicago Academy and then the American Academy of Art in Chicago. Together with artist Charles Vickery, Dusan founded the Oil Painters of America club, which to this day attracts a large membership. Dusan currently lives in Cicero, Illinois, with his second wife Anna.</p><p><a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20170611035225/http://www.flickr.com/photos/32224489@N04/page2/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">A link to some of Dusan’s artworks</a></p>
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Alex Vesely
<p>Alex Vesely was born in Příbram, central Bohemia in 1966. His father was a foreman in a mine and his mother worked an office job. He remembers having a happy childhood, with his grandparents visiting often and spending vacations in a houseboat on the Vltava River. Alex and his brother and sister grew up in an apartment in town, but later moved to a house that his father had built a few miles away in the country. He attended trade school where he studied electronics, but left for the United States before finishing his studies.</p><p> </p><p>In 1983, Alex’s mother decided to emigrate with her children and second husband. They escaped while on vacation in Yugoslavia and stayed in a refugee camp in Belgrade for several months before flying to the United States. Alex’s family arrived in Chicago in November 1983, having chosen that city because their sponsors, Alex’s stepfather’s parents, lived there. They were met at the airport by Judy Baar Topinka, a local politician of Czech and Slovak heritage, and settled in Riverside, Illinois. Alex completed his schooling in Chicago, where he took English classes; his new friends also helped him to master the language. He returned to Czechoslovakia for the first time at the end of 1989 – right after the fall of communism. Alex says at this time, the country was in a state of confusion and transition because the situation was still ‘very fresh.’</p><p> </p><p>Alex has been a waiter at Klas, a traditional Czech restaurant in Cicero, Illinois, and also worked a series of technical jobs in heating and cooling. He currently works in construction and, as a sculptor, has participated in some art shows with other Czech and Slovak artists. His pieces are sculpted from materials such as wood, granite, and fiber optics. Alex says he tries to visit the Czech Republic at least once a year, where his daughter lives. He currently lives in Chicago.</p>
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