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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>TELSA</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/BiBfJKMJu0A?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0" id="undefined"></iframe><p>“There were parts of the factory where I couldn’t go, that were marked secret. I don’t even know what they were doing. I started to work in the industry in TESLA and I found out, as we were saying in Czechoslovakia, that we were 100 years behind the apes in electronics. Because what they were doing, they were actually doing reverse engineering. They took a transistor, American-made or some other made, or integrated circuit, and they took it apart to find out how it was made and then they tried to make the same thing. But we were running a huge operation. I was a supervisor for a while on the epitaxy, on silicon wafers which were for power transistors. After I was offered membership in the Communist Party and I very politely refused, I was no longer supervisor. I worked as a technologist in integrated circuits and then I left the area to work in the office for inventions and patents – it was still in the same factory, but a different place – and improvement suggestions. I was there for a couple years, and after that, just took off.”</p><h4>Tramping</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/GxtTcUxH8Mw?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0"></iframe><p>“Tramp here means somebody who lives on the street; this was completely different, they just used the word – they were like Sokol, but unorganized. There were no leaders. On weekends, they went out and got on trains. Usually they had on soldiers’ dress, like old-time uniforms from the first World War, even backpacks and stuff. And they would sleep outside without a tent, because a tent was considered to be, I don’t know the word for it, but like spoiled. For people who really don’t belong in nature – they sleep in tents, they could as well stay home, or get in a car, drive somewhere and then put up a tent – it was like, no. You have to get on a train and walk. And it was really nice.</p><p>“It was just singing songs. I was even collecting tramp songs for a long time. I really liked it, because those are truly, truly romantic songs about America, which people in America have no idea. It’s just funny how people romanticized this country.”</p><h4>Banjo</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/LVNMRyUHt8A?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0"></iframe><p>“The five-string banjo, actually, I just fell in love with it – I was already playing the guitar. There was a movie, one of the movies they let through, because the movie didn’t contain any scene about a private [swimming] pool. There was a commission approving the films for distribution and one of the things, which I found out, if there was a private pool, the movie was out. It couldn’t be shown. This was not the case; the movie was Bonnie and Clyde – there were no pools in Bonnie and Clyde, just some shooting. And there was this track when the cars were going, it was a chase and there was this track. It was Earl Scruggs playing “Foggy Mountain Breakdown.” That was exhilarating. We went to see that movie maybe four times, just to hear that. And I couldn’t believe it. I was playing at the time the four-string banjo which is a completely different instrument, and I thought, how is his picking so fast? I was trying to copy it and there was no way.”</p><h4>Precautions</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/y74w22Uwsco?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0"></iframe><p>“So we have hidden all the documents in our luggage. There was a piece of luggage, it was this bag, and it had an inforced bottom. It was like thick paper. So I took it apart, sliced the paper apart. I dug out space on both sides, and our marriage certificate and documents which we needed to have with us, I put there, glued everything together, put it overnight under a piece of furniture. I also made it black on both sides, inside and outside, in case they would use some light or something, I thought maybe that would help, the black color would block it, and put it back together. I wouldn’t believe that it was there. And the money that I bought on the black market, where do you hide the money? Well, our son who was nine years old, Bobby, same name as me – our older son’s name is Mark, Marek – so Bobby had a little [stuffed] doggy. And I thought that the doggy, he had a inforcement in the neck, to keep the neck up. So Vilma carefully cut an opening in the bottom of the dog, we took out the inforcement and rolled the money into a roll, put it back on the inforcement, and she nicely sewed it back. So our son had the money all the time, in his doggy.”</p><h4>Refugee Camp</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/td2AJwEorao?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0"></iframe><p>“There was so-called isolation. They put everybody who was new in so-called isolation. You couldn’t talk to anybody else, you were going to meals at different times from everybody else, and we were not allowed to open a window and talk to anybody. The reason for that was that they needed to first separate any people who were escaping from the law, who killed somebody, and in those couple days they hoped they would be able to find out. But also, most important, there was an interview after those three days, and they didn’t want people to get smart, to know what to say, because based on that interview, the Austrian authorities decided if they give you political asylum or not. So if you got political asylum you could stay in Austria, if not, you had to go somewhere else.”</p><h4>Peet Seeger</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/fS0yEDouJPA?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0"></iframe><p>“We came to Baltimore, and I was here for just a couple years, and I heard that my huge idol, Pete Seeger, who I admired so much playing his five-string banjo and how he played guitar – just a tremendous influence on me, and he was in Baltimore, so I had to go see him, even when we didn’t have much money, but this is something I would regret for the rest of my life if I missed it. So I took my two sons and we went to the concert and I was so happy that he was there. But then, President Reagan was president at the time, and Pete Seeger started to sing a song – “This Old Man” – [which] was making fun of President Reagan. I couldn’t believe it, and I noticed all the policemen standing there and I thought, what are they going to do. They’re going to climb on the stage and take him down or turn off the speakers or something. And then I watched – they were standing with their backs to the stage, only watching the audience so nobody would cause any trouble. They were protecting the singer; they were protecting him if somebody didn’t like him so nothing would happen to him. That was just unbelievable. I saw democracy at work. And I was really impressed by that, even when I didn’t like the song.”</p><h4>Fujara</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/HxXpzEAPmrA?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0"></iframe><p>“I started to play at festivals, and right now I have about 80 performances behind me. I started to make workshops. The first American fujara workshop was right here, at this house. After that, I did a workshop in Rožnov where I used to work in the TESLA factory. It was just three years back. It was also a two-day workshop and I was playing at a concert. Of course, the most important thing was last year, about one year ago in the Library of Congress. It was really a highlight of my life so far because it was for the American Musical Instrument Society, and they were of course recording it and it’s ‘forever’ in the archives, I mean, the archives of Congress. And I knew it, unfortunately, ahead of time. So you can just imagine the pressure that I had performing in a room full of experts on instruments and music and they wanted me to talk to them about the fujara and about everything concerning the fujara and the overtone flutes. And then it was recorded and everybody will be able to see it on the internet, all my friends. It was really a lot of pressure, but I somehow got through 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
Bohuslav Rychlik
Description
An account of the resource
<p> </p><p>Bohuslav Rychlik was born in Krnov, Moravia, in 1950. His parents, Bohuslav and Františka, had moved to Krnov after WWII, because their home in Pustiměř had been destroyed by Americans who were bombing a nearby airport. Under the communist regime, Bob’s father lost his job as a senior office clerk and began working as a laborer, while his mother stayed home and raised Bob and his two sisters. Bob’s father, who died when he was 10, was a keen musician who played piano and violin and passed his talents on to his children. Bob was taught piano first by his sister and later in music school, and taught himself to play the guitar. Although he was fond of filmmaking, Bob says that he had ‘no chance’ to pursue this interest, and that he went to a technical high school in Rožnov pod Radhoštěm to prepare for a career in electronics. After high school, Bob says he decided not to attend university, as he did not want his mother to sacrifice anymore for his education. He got a job at the TESLA factory in Rožnov where he held several different positions before leaving the country.</p><p> </p><p>In August 1983, Bob and his wife, <a href="/web/20170710094829/http://www.ncsml.org/exhibits/vilma-rychlik/">Vilma</a>, decided to leave Czechoslovakia with their two young sons when they had the opportunity to vacation in Split, Yugoslavia. While there, Bob tried to buy tickets for a day trip to Italy, but says he was denied because his passport was valid only for Yugoslavia. They traveled to Belgrade where they learned about the UN High Commissioner for Refugees office. After an interview and a 6-week wait, Bob and his family were given papers allowing them to leave Yugoslavia and enter Austria. They spent about seven months in refugee camps in Traiskirchen and Ramsau before receiving permission to move to the United States. Bob and his family arrived in Baltimore, Maryland, on May 17, 1984. Having learned English at school, Bob says he was able to find work fairly quickly, while his wife took English classes at a community college. The Rychliks became American citizens in the spring of 1990.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Bob says that he is very proud of his sons, who were both valedictorians at Baltimore Polytechnic Institute and earned full scholarships to college. He continues to play music, and more recently has focused on the <em>fujara</em>, a large, flutelike, traditional Slovak instrument. Bob engineered the first <em>fujara</em> workshop in the United States, which he held at his home, and included participants from several different countries. He frequently performs around the Washington, D.C. area and, in 2010, Bob presented a lecture at the Library of Congress for the American Musical Instrumental Society. He has returned to the Czech Republic several times and currently lives in Mount Airy, Maryland, with his wife, Vilma.</p><p><a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20170710094829/http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Y5fonktBzQ" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Bob’s lecture on the fujara at the Library of Congress, 2010</a></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
American citizenship
Arts
Cultural Traditions
Education
English language
Pustimer
Refugee camp
Roznov pod Radhostem
Tramping
Western/Pop culture
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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>Holocaust</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/5SOvldrw26c?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0" id="undefined"></iframe><p>“When the Nazi occupation came, in 1942 or 1941 they all had to vacate their premises, their house – they had a beautiful house in one of the nicest parts of Prague – and they were deported to Terezín, where most of the Jews from the Czech Republic, some from other countries as well, lived there. My mom basically survived Terezín, one of just a couple hundred kids, but her entire family, which means parents – my grandparents – her brother, her uncles and aunts and everybody, was deported to Auschwitz almost to the end of the WWII, and upon arrival in Auschwitz they were put right in the chambers. So nobody survived. My mom’s brother was about 18, 19 years old and, according to the German perception, he was still healthy and young, so he was deported and sent on a train from Auschwitz to the east side of Germany to a labor camp. But the train was bombed by the Allied Forces and as the train stopped he jumped out and with friends – this was about February of 1945, so very close to the end of WWII – and they were more or less crawling and walking and freezing through Poland and made it all the way to Prague. From the entire mom’s family, just her and her brother survived.”</p><h4>Leaving Czechoslovakia</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/O-WVRgwHljI?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0"></iframe><p>“I was in the military in 1968. Right after I graduated from technical school, I went to the military. On August 21, when the Soviets came around, I don’t know how it even happened, but my dad said I had to come home and so one of the officers called me to his office and said ‘There is a letter from your dad, and you need to come home,’ which under normal circumstances was absolutely unheard of. You know, as a young man you have to go to two years in the military. So he’s reading the letter from my dad to me and then he takes his big stamp and he just puts a stamp on it and says ‘Just go.’ Today I think he probably knew what was happening because it was about two weeks after August 21. Maybe he left too; I don’t know. But I went back to my home town. It took us two days; we packed. One car, five people with five sleeping bags and five pillows and maybe 20 dollars in our pockets, and we left for Austria.”</p><h4>Switzerland</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/lvtcKw6qAKM?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0"></iframe><p>“In Vienna we were led into the sports dome, a large sports athletic complex. There were thousands of Czechs and Slovaks, sleeping on the floor and on the bleachers. I mean, thousands. It was a mess. I remember like it was yesterday. And as my mom walks in – again, I see it just like it’s happening right now – she said ‘No other concentration camp.’ And she turned around and walked out. So we were all walking behind her, and I noticed that she was crying, because she didn’t expect that. So we really didn’t know where to go, and then as we were walking out to our car, some people said ‘Go to the Swiss embassy. They are taking Czechs. Go there and they are going to take care of you. I couldn’t speak any German, but both my parents could speak German so I guess they understood what was happening, so that’s where we went. The Swiss just took our information from us and then they found out that my dad’s youngest brother, with his family, already defected a couple says before us to Switzerland.”</p><p><em>And your dad didn’t know?</em></p><p>“I don’t know. But when I recollect all these events and what was happening, I think he really didn’t know, because that’s where we would have gone first. Why even bother to go to the sports hall in Vienna with my mom crying and finding out what’s going to be next? So I assume that he really didn’t know.”</p><h4>Visiting America</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/3e1WLYDEqWM?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0"></iframe><p>“My friend and I played semi-professional ice hockey, and it was between the seasons and he said ‘Why don’t we go to America?’ It was [1976 sic.], there were the Olympics in Montreal and, since we were in the Olympic center, we knew many of the Swiss athletes and they said ‘Well, come and visit us. We’ll have a good time.’ It was not as tight security as today. You could walk in the Olympic village and go for a beer with the athletes; today it’s impossible. We said ‘Well, why not?’ Both of us couldn’t speak a word of English. It was in April of ’76.</p><p>“So we flew to New York and in the Bronx we bought a 1968 Cadillac, because we loved this big ship. I mean, gosh, I’d never seen anything that big. You could play ping-pong on the hood. And each of us had a hockey bag with our stuff – you could out four hockey bags in the trunk! I thought that was really cool. So we bought this for 800 dollars, a 1968 Cadillac, and we traveled all around the country. We probably have seen all of the national parks, and we zigzagged the country all over. When we got to Los Angeles, some of my mom’s family was there, so we were with them and there was a lady who could speak Czech, so after several months I could speak Czech; that was great too.</p><p>“And our hockey club president lived in Hawaii in the off-season. So he said ‘When you guys are in Los Angeles, just call me and I’ll buy a ticket for you and I’ll pick you up.’ And we got our tickets and flew to Hawaii and we were his guests for two weeks. We didn’t spend a penny! He fed us; he lived in Waikiki Beach in a penthouse on the top. Especially for me, I was still kind of fresh coming from Czechoslovakia. So it was wonderful. We went to Canada, almost to Alaska, just to the bottom of Alaska. And then on Highway 1 we went all the way to Montreal and were there right when the Olympics started and mingled with the Swiss.”</p>
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Frank Fristensky
Description
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<p>Frank Fristensky was born in Olomouc in Moravia in 1948. He lived with his parents on his paternal grandparents’ farm outside of the city until 1953, when the Frištenskýs moved to Rožnov pod Radhoštěm, close to the Slovak and Polish borders. Frank’s mother was originally from Prague, where her Jewish family was quite wealthy. During the Nazi occupation, her entire family was sent to Terezín. Although she and her brother survived, the rest of her family was deported to Auschwitz and killed in the gas chambers. Frank’s paternal great-uncle, Gustav Frištenský, was a world-famous Greco-Roman wrestler. Frank’s grandfather accompanied Gustav on his tour of the United States in 1913 and 1914, and Frank recalls hearing of his admiration for the country. Many of Frank’s family members were keen sportsmen – and to this day, Frank carries on that tradition.</p><p> </p><p>Frank attended a technical school in Valašské Meziříčí and, upon graduating, began serving his two-year military service. After the Warsaw Pact invasion on August 21, 1968, Frank was unexpectedly discharged from the army at the request of his father. Shortly after, he left the country with his parents and two younger brothers. The family settled in Switzerland where, coincidently, Frank’s uncle and his family had traveled just days earlier. Frank attended the Swiss Federal Institute of Sport and received a degree in teaching and coaching sports. After graduating he joined a semipro hockey team.</p><p> </p><p>In 1976, Frank traveled with a friend to the United States. They spent several months driving around the country and visiting Hawaii, and they ultimately traveled to Montreal where they attended the Olympics. Although Frank returned to Switzerland, he hoped to move to the United States. Two years later, after attending a conference in Texas, Frank visited his friend, Arnošt Lustig, who lived in Washington, D.C., and taught at American University. Arnošt helped him to secure a job at American as the women’s volleyball coach, assistant athletic trainer, and assistant physical education professor. Frank says that his first classes were taught with the help of a German translator, as he did not know English.</p><p> </p><p>Frank met his wife, Victoria, while at American University. The couple had a daughter and moved to Michigan when Frank became the head volleyball coach at Eastern Michigan University. When Frank’s father fell ill, he and his family returned to Switzerland for what he thought would be a short time. They remained in Switzerland for nine years, and their two younger children were born there. Frank and his family moved to Durango, Colorado, in 1996. Today, Frank is a personal trainer and fitness consultant. He also runs a tour company that specializes in travel to central Europe. Frank is extremely proud of his Czechoslovak heritage and has taken a particular interest in his family history. He recently organized a Fristensky family reunion, which was held at Bohemian National Hall in New York.</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
emigrant
Jews
Military service
refugee
Roznov pod Radhostem
Sports
Terezin
Valasske Mezirici
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
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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>Opportunities</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/LAuVtJ37uVY?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0" id="undefined"></iframe><p>“I was a straight-A student, and at that time I was 14 and I was firmly decided that I wanted to go and study medicine, I wanted to go to medical school. Then it suddenly became a problem that my father and mother were not members of the Communist Party. Actually, my father hated the regime back then and he wouldn’t keep his mouth shut, so all of that was already part of my secret profile, that I was coming from a family that were not loyal communists. That meant the schools of my choice were closed to me, same like to my husband. In Czechoslovakia there was no tendency at the time just to be pretty and marry some guy who has a good profession, [and] he’ll take care of you. Over there, both needed to have an income and career, even women. So it was necessary that I would have any education possible, doesn’t matter whether I like it or not. So the opportunity arose that medical school was closed for me. I would not be accepted even though I had good grades.</p><p>“We had to select a school where I would have a chance to get in to, and at that time there was a tendency in technical schools to want more girls. There was this construction school, architectural school which had two parts – architectural part and plumbing part, like piping in the buildings, heating systems, water supply, sewage and all that. So my parents convince me. They said ‘You have no other choice, you need to go to this school,’ and I didn’t like it. My father played on that I liked to design and said ‘Well, you’ll be designing lobbies, interiors of buildings,’ and that sounded nice to me, so I said ok. So I did tests, I was accepted, I passed the tests. I wanted to be in the architectural class; of course I ended up in the plumbing class. There were two plumbing classes and one architectural. Again, the architectural class was for special people, people which had green at the time. So I got these mechanics and physics, all these technical books, brought it home, realized what I was up to and I cried. And my father said ‘Well, you have to have a maturita exam, you have to have any possible education because you have to have some profession, and you have to fight. You are a good student.’ So I did.”</p><h4>Happy Life</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/QLsbXldfH-I?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0"></iframe><p>“We would do lots of trips, short trips, because in Czechoslovakia at the time, normal people didn’t have a car. Gasoline was very expensive and it simply didn’t fit your budget to have a car. You had to live within a smaller scale, with biking distance. So the boys had small bikes, we had bikes, we used to do bike trips. We used to go to the woods and do bonfires and fry the sausages, so as far as that, the childhood the boys had was very nice. Also, when they were older, they would go out and for a half day I wouldn’t know where they were. They would just come for dinner, and I would have a peaceful time to make dinner for them. In a way, we lived through very simple and happy socialistic years. We didn’t have all these luxuries young people and everybody has here, but you really don’t need them for a normal, happy life. You can do with less and still be happy.”</p><h4>Clothes</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/hzqoFAo32HQ?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0"></iframe><p>“You could buy material cheaper at the time, and if you made stuff yourself, you could do something modern, something upgraded, very nice, special, nobody else had it. So that’s how I used to dress because I had a knitting machine and a sewing machine, and I was dressing up myself and my family, too. It was funny, my husband would bring me from the factory these pieces of cloth, like squarish cloth in pieces. A couple of them were the same color, so I sewed a shirt for my boys, and I decorated it a little bit and they had a free shirt. It was free material, right. It was stolen in socialism in the factory. Also, I could go to a secondhand shop and bought fabric which couldn’t be cheaper, or pieces of fabric, but you could put them together and do nice designs and I used to sew jackets. Actually, I have a few things here just for memory, just for nostalgia.”</p><p><em>If you were making things that were different than anybody else, that was important to you.</em></p><p>“It was because I was a woman who took after my mother, I liked to dress nicely. If I had something done myself and I wore it and somebody said ‘Oh this is nice, where did you get it?’ I could say ‘Well, I did it myself.’ It was something extra, it had more value, I was more proud of it.”</p><h4>Child Care</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/eefMdpyMQT4?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0"></iframe><p>“The problem was still that we both had to work and we couldn’t get kindergarten. So we had to change the shifts. And one of us would be with the kids in the morning, then would bring the kids to the factory entry, waiting when the other one was coming out, he would grab the kids, the other one would go to work. And that’s how we lived for two years. We were still trying hard to get kindergarten. I think after two years or two and a half years we finally got it, but that was a very, very difficult life.”</p><h4>Leaving Plans</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/9Cp4eqAgS1I?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0"></iframe><p>“Me, as a young girl, I went to visit my uncle in West Germany with my father. So I was aware about how it looked outside. I was not fooled by socialistic propaganda, that things in the west are bad, because that was not true. They lived much happier and easier lives than we were. So I knew I would love to go out, but I didn’t realize when Bob was studying English that maybe he was already planning something like that, because I thought he was studying English because he loved all these folk songs, you know, Johnny Cash, Joan Baez, and he was always in contact with the western side through music. So when he told me that we got tickets to Yugoslavia, and then we will not go back, I instantly agreed.”</p><h4>Refugees</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/JIVIAT9vxH8?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0"></iframe><p>“We went to that office without the kids and they always asked us ‘Do you have money?’ We said ‘Yes;’ they said ‘Come tomorrow.’ We came tomorrow, and the same thing. Then I realized it led nowhere and meanwhile, some other people were accepted. So I said to my husband, ‘Hey, we’ll take the boys, baggage, everything what we have, we’ll stay in that waiting room, we won’t leave until they take us.’ So that’s what we did, and they threatened us. They said ‘We will call the Czech embassy,’ and I started to cry. I run into the office and I was crying, and Bob ran after me and he was saying that we were persecuted, so then finally they gave us the interview. Both of us had to write reasons [why we should be accepted as refugees]. We didn’t write some horrific reasons, we wrote reasons why we escaped – all those reasons that I told you – these little ones, one after another one, but in a row, and added up, your life becomes impossible there. And you realized, ok we suffered because of our parents, because our parents were not politically correct, they were not communists. But I don’t want my sons, my bright kids to work for communists. They would not go to school like we could not. So, we were accepted.”</p><h4>Czech Hobby</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Krf6zglKA3o?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0"></iframe><p>“Until we left, everywhere I went on the bike, in a skirt, no hardhats, never fell, never had an accident, all these years, all the time on a bike, my kids, my husband. Here when I see those bikers, I just have to laugh. All these helmets, all these special clothing for hundreds of dollars, and then in order to bike, you have to put your bike on the car, drive somewhere that you do biking just for the sake of biking. For me, biking was a way of life. I went to the market with my bike, I went with my boys on my bike when they were little, later on they had their bikes. So, that’s the one thing which I miss here, the biking.”</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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Vilma Rychlik
Description
An account of the resource
<p>Vilma Rychlik was born in Zubří, Moravia in 1952. She grew up in Rožnov pod Radhoštěm with her father, Vilém, an electrician, her mother, Zdeňka, and her brother, Tomáš. When she was six years old, Vilma’s father was sent by his employer to China for one year. The rest of the family joined him for six months; however, Vilma says she did not get to enjoy China because she was hospitalized for most of the trip. She remembers her childhood as very free and simple. Vilma says that once a week, she would help her grandmother in Zubří, from whom she learned to bake, sew, and knit. At school, she was a good student and enjoyed most subjects, but she was especially fond of chemistry, as she loved her teacher. When it was time for Vilma to go to high school, she hoped to attend medical school, but realized she would not be accepted. Instead, her parents convinced her to attend a technical school focused on construction. Although she wanted to be in the architecture program, she was placed in the plumbing and piping program and eventually graduated with honors.</p><p> </p><p>Upon graduating, Vilma had difficulty finding a job in her field and settled for working at TESLA as an elementary draftsman. Also at this time, Vilma married her husband, <a href="/web/20170710094927/http://www.ncsml.org/exhibits/bohuslav-rychlik/">Bob Rychlik</a>. They had two sons, Mark in 1972 and Bobby in 1974. Vilma recalls that the first few years with their sons were difficult, as they both were working and did not have child care. Vilma was also unhappy with her job, as it was very easy and she was not working in the field she had studied. She tried many times to secure a better position, but says that she was not successful because of her undesirable political background. Vilma was finally given a position as a materials accountant in the construction department of TESLA and was able to work her way up as a utility pipe designer, eventually becoming a specialist on reverse osmosis systems. Although she was frustrated with the obstacles in her professional life, Vilma recalls day-to-day life being very pleasant in Czechoslovakia. Her sons took music and art lessons and the family regularly went on camping and biking trips. Vilma says that she had to be resourceful and learn to make the best out of what was available.</p><p> </p><p>In August 1983, Bob was able to secure travel visas to Yugoslavia for the whole family. Once there, the Rychliks made their way to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees office in Belgrade. After an interview and a six-week wait, Vilma and her family were given papers allowing them to leave Yugoslavia and enter Austria. They spent about seven months in refugee camps in Traiskirchen and Ramsau; in Ramsau they lived in a guesthouse (with a number of other refugee families) and both Vilma and Bob found jobs. Although Bob received asylum status and they could have stayed in Austria, they decided to go to the United States. The family arrived in Baltimore on May 17, 1984, and Vilma found a job shortly after as a sprinkler system designer. Even though she took English classes at a community college, she says that it was difficult for her to learn English, as the family spoke Czech at home so that the boys would not forget the language. Vilma says that she was very proud when they received American citizenship in 1990 and does not regret their decision to leave. Today, she lives with Bob in Mount Airy, Maryland.</p>
Creator
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National Czech & Slovak Museum & Library
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
NCSML Archive
Bauerova
Education
English language
Family life
Fashion
marriage
Refugee camp
Roznov pod Radhostem
Women workers
Zubri