2 10 14 https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/24397/archive/files/2cd8c8ecb59895c1aeabf2e5a191e5aa.jpg?Expires=1792627200&Signature=BIY5wXG73tCcqsplnOkswayjwxLnWFxAonIZ6z-vsg9aX2C1yjUDEsn%7EObD4DYDvHk3I3pdeF1%7EgPmeS-gOZtKtEj-wCFJlvrfK3FBIq9YUfpOD0UiHAPEhXJHgyZVyJRBot8J2csKkKIzuv9J0xTcXJ6hR4S%7E%7Ex%7EWldjATyoxVpG0K6AhVd6x1DTPjd5VXjzjjZkqK63NwVMaeyoFKapBD%7EtGs5WvvzBHD-1M-sKRu7IVWXszu3FIG1JQgtPXwhu-rh7p0yWctrzbS7RGt00V128WcabtVK%7EBeYYGCzJb6cCp7Ez98OgGisTMCJg7N2Cg3HKkSpd8N8RPv5KPrmxA__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM dc7e5fd80fb609653ca3cae05387eaa1 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 &amp; Documenting Memories of Czech &amp; Slovak Americans was an oral history project launched by the National Czech &amp; Slovak Museum &amp; 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 &amp; Slovak Museum &amp; 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>Velvet Revolution</h4> <p>“I was 14, so at that age you start forming ideas about the world, and we felt that there is something wrong with all the things they are telling us, and communism fell and it was like ‘Oh yeah, so this is what that is.’ We had been told that the communist system is the best system ever, but you can see that people emigrated from communism to Western Europe, but it never happened the other way. So we were like ‘There’s something wrong. Why all these people from Germany don’t come here and all people from Slovakia are trying to escape to Austria and Germany?’ We were like ‘Ok, maybe that’s not all true that this is the best system ever.”</p> <h4>Biology</h4> <p>“It was fun to learn new stuff. I was interested in biology, so I enjoyed it. It was a really good social life with your colleagues and classmates because you studied a lot together and after that, when passed the exam, you had fun together, and after that you study again. Because I studied biology, we used to have a lot of field trips and field classes, so it was kind of nice to get out of the city and still be in school, but be in the field.”</p> <h4>Charles University</h4> <p>“There was no need to learn the Czech language. Of course, growing up in Czechoslovakia, there is mutual understanding, so I could understand everything. I just kept speaking Slovak because I would rather speak normal Slovak than broken Czech if they can understand me, and there was no problem. My thesis, I wrote in Slovak because I could have written it in broken Czech or decent Slovak, so I chose decent Slovak. There were some official documents that had to be written in Czech; of course I was using Czech in these official grand reports or emails, but for day to day work I used Slovak.”</p> <h4>Trip to America</h4> <p>“It was really interesting. The first time I visited the U.S. it was in late fall/early winter of 2001, so it was right after the attack on the World Trade Center. It was really chaotic because they had really chaotic security, and it was during the anthrax attack so everybody was freaking out about anthrax. They made us walk through sponges soaked with a lot of chemicals. They almost took all our clothes off. They went through all of our luggage. It took us forever. We almost missed connections; everything was late. So it was really chaotic. But when I was in the U.S. again, it was really interesting, because at the time, people were really patriotic everywhere with the American flag and ‘God Bless the U.S.’ So I thought that this was the U.S., but no, it was just a response to the terrorist attack.</p> <p>“I remember really enjoying my time there in the U.S. because it was Florida, and coming from Prague (it was December) there was already snow, and I came to Florida and it was really nice weather. So I enjoyed that and thought ‘Oh, this is a perfect country to live.”</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 Jozef Description An account of the resource <p>Jozef was born in Košice, eastern Slovakia, in 1976. He says that he had a ‘really nice childhood’ and enjoyed spending weekends with his family at their cabin in Slanec, a small town outside of Košice. Jozef was active in a karate club and computer programming club, and showed an affinity for science from a young age. He was in eighth grade at the time of the Velvet Revolution in 1989 which he says resulted in numerous name changes for the schools he attended. After graduating from<em>gymnázium</em>, Jozef studied biology at Univerzita Pavla Jozefa Šafárika [Pavol Jozef Šafárik University] in Košice. Summers he spent working in construction. He recalls one particularly fun summer during which he worked in the Czech Republic picking hops.</p> <p> </p> <p>In 1999, Jozef enrolled in a molecular biology doctoral program at Charles University in Prague and his research focused on childhood leukemia. During this time he attended several conferences in the United States; his first trip was in the wake of the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Through contacts he made at conferences, Jozef applied for and was given a research position at the University of Illinois at Chicago. One year later, he transferred to his current position at the University of Chicago. Jozef says that he has two homes, one in Chicago and one in Slovakia, but that he finds it easy imagining his future in the United States.</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 Czech language Education Kosice Pavol Jozef Safarik University Post-1989 emigrant Slovak Language Velvet Revolution https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/24397/archive/files/b9e99df73e12c1414878e372ab2aa81e.png?Expires=1792627200&Signature=fqaaTWCs2VUh6qf%7EWjjGW4c9NXWTz8iOr4zzgJ2Vf0sjc0JsTXEpxE41Pt6ZCeRsygexQa5H3Y%7EEKYLBZOCf%7EufsszWbqx0sUjX3OaO24bhCpMruN4y-0AR7IudQBWPwfZQmmLI7RotHItMqOk%7EYO69c8%7EYsfzNuaGeGOgpdwHCruVw7Yu6lzPispCZJKjvIryYcsPUaBTN6J10emriiopuBqEdpJo5p6enTbly8Ljwc9h2dr7lUsKeBlJ2wmDm2srtQziyTZTDobiVGyZFX-Dvj3V2fDz%7E7eWtCGyHpd4gGF10Pn7ofNbBKuzacigM%7EEgtJMN4Jq67e3t-kI5YKmw__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM eaf18669f53d041aa0be406155c703ad 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 &amp; Documenting Memories of Czech &amp; Slovak Americans was an oral history project launched by the National Czech &amp; Slovak Museum &amp; 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 &amp; Slovak Museum &amp; 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>Childhood</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/vOxDzUYCddw?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0" id="undefined"></iframe><p>“I have the best memories. I had a very good childhood. We were kind of middle-class-ish; we had a summer house on the outskirts of Bratislava. In the city we had a three-story building where my family lived too – my grandma lived there, my aunt lived there. I was very, very wanted; I was the [youngest sic] girl after little Theresa died, so I have the best memories. I had excellent school friends. I can say only the very best. A lovely childhood ruined, of course, after 1938 because of the War. Then everything went down.”</p><p><em>What happened?</em></p><p>“For instance, my father was a tailor and he had sometimes even 30 or 40 employees. It was a big enterprise, and lot of the Jewish customers no longer were able to order or came, so that he lost his better lady customers. Because of that, then we moved to a smaller place. The War years were not easy on anybody.”</p><h4>WWII Ends</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/0ODwI_hx1uQ?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0"></iframe><p>“The Germans started to collect any male they could at the very end – and I’m talking here about the end of March and beginning of April 1945; Bratislava was liberated on April 4 – and when my father heard that, and since my brothers were 17 and 18 at that time, in other words, in a very dangerous age group, he wanted to run with them to our summer house and hide there. They were trying to go through the front line where the Russians and Germans were fighting before it closed and they never made it because the Russians came closer and closer. So they made it back to Marianska Street where we lived just in the nick of time. Maybe an hour later Bratislava was occupied by Russians and liberated. Many times we had Russian generals and soldiers sleep in our house. The police came around and asked for people to accommodate, and we had excellent relationships with them, speaking the Russian language too.”</p><p><em>So the Russians were good guys.</em></p><p>“Very. Very welcome, very wanted. For us they were really our liberators.”</p><h4>Multilingual</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/6qmPAwAZRR8?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0"></iframe><p>“My first kindergarten schooling was in the Czech language because we lived in Grösslingová and that was quite a famous city [school] where better middle-class people had their children. This was still under the Czechoslovak Republic when I was born, so my first education was really in the Czech language. Then came the decision to put me in the Ursuline convent school, which was supposedly the best and there we had Hungarian and Slovak mixed education. After that, by 1941-ish, I was enrolled in the German gymnázium, which of course I couldn’t finish. I was 16 [when deported] and not yet ready and I eventually made my maturita examination and finished my gymnázium education in Budapest. So I was raised in four languages. We always spoke all languages at the dinner table. Everybody could say it in the best way he wanted to, so it was an international polyglot family dinner every night.”</p><h4>Hungarian Border</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/eU8EwzqcbPE?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0"></iframe><p>“I left after the Hungarian Revolution and my last day in Hungary was three days before Christmas. My escaping is a very interesting story and luckily, again, I had a good star above me helping me. The railroad people were very kind to us and helped us [know] when to escape and how to escape the last part on foot, because by that time Soviet tanks were already coming on the hour, by the hour and we had a very short time to cross the border. It was very risky. A lot of people died and if we would have been caught, we would have been sent to prison, so that was very difficult. The actual three hours that I needed to cross the border was a very stormy, snowy night and I helped a family with a baby and we most likely walked around in circles. We didn’t know where to go because we couldn’t see in front of our nose; the snow was falling and windy and bad. But here I am and I made it.”</p><h4>NY Job</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/fx4Jo0xBzD4?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0"></iframe><p>“Since my father was a tailor, I had a fashion school degree and I knew a lot about fashion. So I went to the unemployment office here in New York and said that I would like to find a job in the fashion industry, and it happened to be that a company called Johanna Frankfurter was looking for somebody to help. When I went to introduce myself, it turned out to be a lovely lady from Vienna and, since I spoke German and lived in Vienna for a short while, we fell in love and she immediately hired me. All she is asked is ‘Do you know how to make buttonholes?’ and I said ‘Of course I know,’ because there are three types of buttonholes. For those who are not familiar with the fashion industry, you can make them with fabric, you make them as embroidery and you can even match when you have square fabrics and patterns. My father taught me so I knew a lot and the only problem I had when I asked for the job and introduced myself was when she said ‘Make it three-quarters of an inch’ as a sample, and I had no idea what three-quarters of an inch was because I was raised with centimeters. I did not dare to give it away that I didn’t know, so I thought ‘It cannot be that small like on a shirt; it cannot be as big as on a coat; it must be the in-between like on a jacket or something,’ and I made exactly a three-quarters of an inch buttonhole without knowing. So they came and measured it and said ‘Perfect.’ Then I gave it away and said ‘Sorry if I did not match it exactly, because I have no idea what an inch is.’</p><p>“With that, I just indicated I was very ignorant and uneducated for the American system; however, I knew more than anybody else there. They discovered that I knew how to handle velvet, I knew how to handle specials silks, knew how to make patterns, how to cut. So in no time I became almost like the leader at the company which was excellent. The relationship was so good with Mrs. Frankfurter; she became like my mother and I became like her daughter. The other thing was that she let me go and study. I said ‘My goal is that I want to continue and I want to finish and I want to end up with a PhD.’ So she helped me and I could go away anytime I wanted to. For instance, we made fashion shows at the Plaza Hotel, among others, and the wedding dresses, always the biggest job, was always me. And I went there Saturdays and Sundays and I worked on my own to make sure I finished everything. So our relationship was excellent, which gave me an excellent salary that I could pay for Columbia – I didn’t ever have a loan – and could support my parents in Hungary.”</p><h4>Split</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/dnzKx8jwEHA?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0"></iframe><p>“I felt a little disturbed by that. The reason is I was born in Czechoslovakia, so my childhood, my education, my upbringing was always in the Czechoslovak spirit, the Czechoslovak Republic. Then when Slovakia was first created, that was during the fascist period and that was something negative rather than positive. Then after 1945 when Czechoslovakia was combined again, we were euphoric, we were happy. Then came the communist takeover and the whole change, so it’s almost like a roller coaster you go and experience. Now when I go back – the latest was a year ago, to Prague – I think that it was a good decision. That the two have different backgrounds, and I’m talking economic backgrounds. The Czech Republic region was always more industrial and more advanced and the Slovak [region] was more agrarian, so to speak. They always supplied. I was told all the eggs and all the bread always came from Slovakia. True or not true, I do not know. But today Slovakia has a chance to become more industrialized – Volkswagen apparently has a company there and other American steel industries created companies in Slovakia, so they have a chance to grow on their own.”</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 Elizabeth Rajec Description An account of the resource <p>Elizabeth Rajec was born in Bratislava in 1931. She grew up in the center of the city where her parents, Vavrinec and Theresa, owned a tailoring business. She also lived with her two brothers, one sister and grandmother. Due to her diverse background (her four grandparents were Austrian, Slovak, Hungarian and Croat), Elizabeth spoke several languages at home and school. Her family owned a cottage in the outskirts of Bratislava and Elizabeth has fond memories of spending summers there. In 1947, Elizabeth and her family were deported to Hungary following the passage of the Beneš decrees. She calls this event ‘devastating,’ especially for her parents. The family settled in Budapest where Elizabeth graduated from <em>gymnázium</em> and studied Germanic languages and literature at university. After graduating, Elizabeth volunteered to translate for a Slovak folk group that was performing in Budapest. She was then offered a job as a translator and director of cultural affairs for a Czechoslovak cultural organization in Budapest.</p><p> </p><p>In December 1956, following the Hungarian Revolution and the subsequent Soviet occupation of the country, Elizabeth decided to leave Hungary. She crossed the border on foot and made her way to a refugee camp in Vienna where she stayed for about one month. She sailed to the United States and arrived in New York in February 1957. After a short stay at Camp Kilmer (a camp for Hungarian refugees in New Brunswick, New Jersey), Elizabeth moved to New York City. She says that although her English language skills were poor, she found a job as a seamstress working for a Viennese woman. While working, Elizabeth was able to attend Columbia University where she received her bachelor’s degree in Germanic language and literature. She later received a master’s degree and doctorate in the same subject from the City University of New York (CUNY). Elizabeth also has a master’s degree in library science from Rutgers University. An expert on Franz Kafka, she taught literature and library courses at City College and the Graduate College of CUNY. She retired as professor emerita from CUNY in 1996 and, in her retirement, has written several books and taken an interest in photography, staging exhibits in the United States and abroad.</p><p> </p><p>Shortly after arriving in the United States, Elizabeth met her husband, Herman Rajec, a Slovak who had immigrated to New York after WWII. The pair became active in the Czechoslovak community in New York, attending dances and events at the Bohemian National Hall. After receiving U.S. citizenship in 1962, Elizabeth returned to Bratislava and Budapest for the first time, and has returned to Europe often to visit family and friends. Today she lives in New York City.</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 Czech language Education German language gymnazium Hungarian language Molnar school Slovak Language Teachers World War II https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/24397/archive/files/fc5236f7a4089e86d38a463f2f7f5dc5.jpg?Expires=1792627200&Signature=uWTm-jfcVA5LyOSPmTAPfBtKi62Rdodafg9100QNyimejFsOYdPwUkBSHi2-JJdc7PuBOPuZbrc9PgDN64lio6cOEu8kniK-FX68UK3q5Vs2RkOREl9eZpCSHbkwx8dOiuY-2%7EiTJCe%7E2Nk6NH-jxxRMv0IkZWGePpvPGRQnaRhiXC3XkYO6gQpyHAPI43P%7EUvAsOsChwLOOcR4WOLhQW0zhvx4m7z65mvp3fy8cxyl8ITiO6JfQIpG9Db8T3XosKgBn6cRY-6ne6-4HpOMohW9KXPJgAlxLiF%7ETqNicaELOCAqbppan6a8x4gh6mmUP706N6XzdS3yCjFAF-Qcf3w__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM dfd9787ee7a3a8f7d7f07e8204d3ef26 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 &amp; Documenting Memories of Czech &amp; Slovak Americans was an oral history project launched by the National Czech &amp; Slovak Museum &amp; 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 &amp; Slovak Museum &amp; 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>Collectivization</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/6nEslS0zJi4?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0" id="undefined"></iframe><p>“There was a group of people coming to the village and they were communist authorities from the district committee, and then regional; then a policeman who was like a guard, and one very thin, tall guy in a long leather coat. All the time, the same people. And sometimes they also took the chairman of the national committee, predseda národného výboru. But those people who were in any kind of position in the local government were practically part of the village, so they were just there because they had to be there, most of the time. I remember those episodes. They were coming every single day to persuade my father to sign up for membership in the cooperative farm and he just said ‘No, no, no’ and then he was annoyed. So he said, all the time to me, ‘Just stay outside and, when you see them, come and tell me, but well ahead of time so I can run away.’ So he ran to the closest forest to hide, or just somewhere in the fields. They even came into the fields after him.</p><p>“But he was not the only one. He was this kind of mid-size farmer, but there were also people who owned more land, so my father was talking to them and they kind of tried to resist. But it was so much pressure from the Communist Party, from I don’t know where else… I remember once, they even took my father at night. When they came at night to our house, we all were up and [wondering] what was going on. Then they broke up them up and [they signed]. But it was also this way when they came: ‘Oh, you can sign up because Jano already signed up,’ and he hadn’t. So they kind of created a trap for them. So this is how it happened.”</p><h4>Chaperoning</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/2XBF55rlBpY?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0"></iframe><p>“Anybody couldn’t travel [to the West], but I could travel to the Soviet Union, Hungary, Bulgaria, Soviet Union, Romania, Soviet Union and the Soviet Union. So I was there about five times. I even led a group of children – I was there twice or three times – in Tula. I was with 32 children all the time; that was also interesting, to compare the life of our children and the Russian children. They were poor, poor children. We really stirred things up there. They were very unhappy having us there. We tried to provide our children a summer vacation, not drilling. They were there for having fun and not marching along the river Voronka, and the Russian children were so envious because they were tied up with the rules and regulations. We were supposed to follow it too, but it was horrible to follow.”</p><h4>Cartographer</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/ikBQF2c8cGc?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0"></iframe><p>“I even entered the Communist Party at that time because they were nagging me – the same way they did to my father to get in the cooperative farm. It was just so annoying and I had enough. I didn’t do anything else afterwards; my life did not change a bit. I went to church still, every Sunday. This is what I think, that people… I know that maybe it was not right from the point of view of certain people, but not everybody could leave the country. And I couldn’t imagine that I would leave my country. I really couldn’t. So I just really tried to get the best of it. It doesn’t mean that I somehow used this. There were people who really get into the Communist Party for a certain purpose. But one thing was getting in; the other was getting out. You couldn’t get out, because otherwise it could be a very hard consequence on the whole family, on everybody.”</p><p><em>What happened that ultimately led you to join the Party? You were invited, presumably?</em></p><p>“No, there was not an invitation; there was forcing. I asked them ‘Why me?’ and they said ‘Oh, we need the people who really do a good job at work, who are responsible’ and so on and so on. But it was so strong. Every single day I was called to the big boss’s office or this contract guy – he was a chairman of the Party – so I had them all the time on my neck. They had certain quotas to get what they called intelligentsia and the blue-collars, so they had to fill up the quota for intelligentsia. It took them probably two years until I broke down and gave up.”</p><h4>Fellow Slovaks</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/a8zzpF2L_VQ?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0"></iframe><p>“At first, yes, I tried because I needed to communicate, because it was so frustrating and depressing. That’s why I was doing those translations because at least passively I came into contact with the language, and that was important for me. I couldn’t call all the time – it was too expensive; I couldn’t afford that – and Skype was not working at that time yet. And I didn’t know too many people. Mostly, those older people, but I was glad because I can learn from whomever. Whoever has something to offer, I am willing to get. It was my gain. But I knew many people, young people, and I go occasionally, but since I still have that [massage] business, not as intense as it was before, but I still have it because I have to, so I didn’t have too much time. What I miss is [acting] on stage and hiking. People here are working a lot, so it’s almost impossible to coordinate our time. It’s possible, but everybody tries to do their best and do what they have to do. I didn’t go too much; I was once in the Shenandoah Valley and that was it for hiking. So that’s what I miss. I miss rocks very much.”</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 Anna Streckova Description An account of the resource <p>Anna Streckova was born in Banská Bystrica in central Slovakia in 1947 and grew up in the nearby village of Selce with her parents and two brothers. Anna’s earliest memories of are working on her family’s farm during school vacations and the collectivization of the farm in the early 1950s. She was involved in amateur theatre as a student and has continued this hobby throughout her life. After graduating from high school, Anna began working at the Military Cartographic Institute. She says that working on maps of Western countries was like ‘being a spy’ and piqued her interest in the West. Anna worked as a cartographer for 14 years and says that she joined the Communist Party in the 1970s after years of ‘nagging’ by her supervisors. When the new <em>dom kultúry</em> [House of Culture] opened in Banská Bystrica, Anna became the head of the department of amateur art activities where she organized programs such as children’s theatre, puppet shows, storytelling, and folk activities. She says that many of these programs were closely watched by the secret police and other communist authorities to discourage subversive messages.</p><p> </p><p>Anna’s first encounter with the West was in the Montreal airport on a layover on the way to Cuba. She returned to Canada (where an aunt and uncle lived) for a visit in 1989. In 1991, Anna decided to move to the United States due to ‘down-sizing’ at cultural institutions in Czechoslovakia (at this time she was working as a cultural and social coordinator for the Banská Bystrica region). A friend helped her get a job as a nanny and she settled in Washington, D.C. She connected with other Slovak émigrés and studied massage therapy. She also found translation work with the Czechoslovak Services Center and the Smithsonian and taught Slovak-language classes at the Foreign Services Institute. Since 2005, Anna has worked at the Slovak Embassy. She became an American citizen in 2002 and holds dual citizenship. She says that while she would like to stay in the United States and feels more ‘open and enthusiastic’ there, she does not know what the future holds.</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 Arts Banska Bystrica Communist Party members dom kultury Post-1989 emigrant Rural life Slovak Language Women workers https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/24397/archive/files/d3afd6485a83b06c2277e1dfe2a4496d.jpg?Expires=1792627200&Signature=V45QeQXKo9z-O409sWLwhPlrPuD5kIYG9VITB%7EXd6ieHlNzDAY0ZFsyf5maA3nxl1Vjwy9wxY90PlHVlivCIP9U7SPQp9wC3OiwW7rW4n8qyDzG7EN4UYB-5NDhSGlBqdb9dD8ibxyFlOtHE1v4b7OOQZFooL%7E4ccWuOydxbRPNF4G7hKu5jUlPRwa6d9bJeK821euiLAFCuOxdLaYwP1%7EwpnsdFCOXguN47DAQ6f9tAzKPlixCz9zD%7EOLZObjoPU3KS%7E6D0Y3yWiYyTBXY6Thhz1Zo398XlX78NUTF3aqM7vvrWUVyR%7EAYK1ieJM1cBiY1CsSqlHYUApoagC5TtDg__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM e8a0ce745a5e3424d61031612c70dfe5 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 &amp; Documenting Memories of Czech &amp; Slovak Americans was an oral history project launched by the National Czech &amp; Slovak Museum &amp; 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 &amp; Slovak Museum &amp; 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>Obstacles to Emigrate </h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Zl_ElO6fbcM?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0" id="undefined"></iframe><p>“My mother had to sell the house and then my father – since the divorce was pretty nasty – he didn’t want to sign papers, he needed to sign papers for me to leave Slovakia. So he actually didn’t sign the papers; I traveled to Austria and I traveled under an assumed name. Relatives lived in Bratislava, and they had already emigrated. Part of the family emigrated to Canada when, after ’68, the Canadians were taking a lot of Slovaks and Czechs. So part of the family was already in Canada, and they were related to my mother, so I guess they got the idea [for me] to assume one of their names, and we lived with them for about two weeks until I got my story straight.</p><p><em>And how did this make your move easier?</em></p><p>“Well, I don’t think it made it easier; it made it possible to travel with my mother. She traveled under her name and I traveled with my aunt.”</p><h4>Assimilation</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/5VfBPDzSdvc?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0"></iframe><p>“You do because you need to survive. You need to be able to talk to people, and if you just speak Slovak all the time, they don’t speak Slovak in the store or Czech or Russian – now they speak Spanish – so you have to assimilate. You assimilate language-wise, but cultural-wise, that comes with the system. As you live there, you start doing what other people are doing. For my mother, she had to assimilate to the system once she bought a house, you have to cut the lawn, you have to take care of the shrubs and all that stuff. That was part of life, and with the same saying, ‘If you go Rome, you do as Romans do,’ and ‘If you go to Greece, you do as Greeks do.’ You left that life in Slovakia, and you’re surrounded by English speaking people. You still have the cultural things and you still get together with Slovaks in different organizations, but at the same time you have to live life and you have to work and make a living so you have to assimilate.”</p><h4>U.S. Army</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/MAkjpMmUQm8?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0"></iframe><p>“[We were] trying to discern – let’s say they served in the military – once we learned they served in the military, then we pursued that angle. They were already refugees at that point. If they were able to provide us with valuable information, then we could help them with getting their German visa or permit to stay in Germany, or wherever they wanted to go. If they came to us and they wanted to go to the United States, then we would debrief them and find out, and if we could help them, of course we would help them. We really weren’t interested in how they lived. What we were interested in was if they worked for the police, then we wanted to know how the police operated. If they were in the military, which most of them were, which units they served in and how did that operate. Where were the training sites and stuff like that.”</p><h4>Slovak Language</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/kFxnZ104GVE?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0"></iframe><p>“I’m not forgetting the language, but I haven’t been there to be able to develop the language, to grow the language. Language grows and it develops. I owned a translation service for awhile, but I had to look through dictionaries all the time because I haven’t been there to develop the vocabulary. I left as a 13-year old and because I speak basic Slovak, so to speak, I can’t translate. Some people can translate, they look at it and write it down and it’s done. So it’s not a realistic goal for me to have a translation service.”</p><h4>Identity</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/-MQr2hX1Ip0?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0"></iframe><p>“My life in Slovakia was relatively short, so I’m more culturally developed American-wise than Slovak-wise at this point. For me, I maintain my roots so to speak by listening to Slovenské ľudové piesne [Slovak folk songs]. Now I have sons that I have dancing [with the Slovak dance troupe Lucina], so I associate with that. I was in Bratislava-Cleveland Sister Cities, but I’m an American now. I’m more American than I’m Slovak at this point.”</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 Alfonz Sokol Description An account of the resource <p>Alfonz Sokol was born in Michalovce, eastern Slovakia, in 1956. He grew up in the village of Vel’ké Zálužie with his parents, Alfonz and Milena. His father worked in the office of a grain collection and processing facility while his mother stayed at home and raised him. Alfonz’s maternal grandfather had immigrated to the United States for economic reasons prior to WWII; his wife joined him after the War. When Alfonz was in fourth grade, his parents divorced.</p><p> </p><p>Alfonz attended school in his village until fifth grade when he went to a larger school in Michalovce. He recalls his involvement in the Pioneer youth group and says that many of his group’s activities focused on botany. In the summer of 1966, Alfonz and his mother visited his grandparents who had settled in Cleveland. Upon returning home, he says his mother began making plans to emigrate. It took three years before Alfonz and his mother were finally able to leave, as they had to sell their house and receive permission from Alfonz’s father. This permission was never given, and Alfonz left the country under an assumed name. In early summer 1969, Alfonz and his mother crossed the border into Austria. They applied for a visa at the U.S. Embassy, and, while waiting, rented a suite in a guest house. Alfonz’s grandparents sponsored the pair, which facilitated the process and, after five weeks, Alfonz and his mother flew to the United States. They settled in Cleveland where his mother quickly found a job cleaning hotels. On weekends, Alfonz helped his grandmother clean offices at an oil processing plant.</p><p> </p><p>Alfonz went to Hillside Middle School for eighth grade where he says studying was a struggle because he did not speak English. He communicated with a Russian language teacher and a Ukrainian student while learning English from a picture book. He says that biology and math were especially challenging subjects for him. His high school Russian teacher convinced him to study the language in college, and after taking some core courses at Tri-C Community College, Alfonz enrolled at Ohio State University. In 1976, he traveled abroad to Moscow and studied for three months at the Pushkin State Russian Language Institute. On the advice of a professor, Alfonz joined the U.S. Army Reserves as a Russian linguist; he went on active duty in 1981. In the mid-1980s, he was stationed in Munich debriefing Slovak refugees. Alfonz met his wife, Donna, at a Slovak dinner in Lakewood in 1990; the pair married in December 1991. They have three sons together. Alfonz has been involved in the Slovak community in Cleveland, attending dances and picnics and participating in organizations such as Bratislava-Cleveland Sister Cities. Today, Alfonz lives in Parma, Ohio, with his wife and children.</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 Community Life Divorce English language Military service Russian studies/speaker Sense of identity Slovak Language Translator/interpreter Velke Zaluzie