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Anna Vesela
Anna Vesela was born in Lipnica Mała – in what is today Poland – in 1945. She spent most of her childhood in the Orava region of Slovakia. Her father had trained as a joiner in Zakopane but spent much of his career working as an X-ray technician in a…
Barbara Reinfeld
Barbara Reinfeld was born in Prague in 1935. Her father, Miloslav, was a journalist who had also worked as a parliamentary stenographer for the National Socialist (or Beneš) Party. Her mother, Zdislava, who studied in the United States for two years,…
Dagmar Lawrenz
Dagmar Lawrenz was born in Bratislava in 1941. Her mother, Irena, was a secretary while her father, Jozef, was an engineer. The oldest of five siblings, Dagmar was often tasked with watching her younger brothers and sisters when her parents were…
Elizabeth Rajec
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…
Frank Lysy
Frank Lysy was born in Spišské Vlachy in eastern Slovakia in 1916. His father worked as a maintenance supervisor on the Košice-Bohumín Railway, while his mother stayed at home raising Frank and his six siblings. As a child, Frank was involved in Boy…
Hana Voris
Hana Voris was born in Písek in 1947. Her father, Ladislav, was a student in Prague at the time so, for the first 11 months of her life, Hana was raised by her mother Milly Voris and her maternal grandparents at their home in Bělčice. Following the…
Irena Cajkova
Irena Cajkova was born in Městec Králové and grew up with her parents and older brother and sister in the town of Nymburk located about 30 miles east of Prague. Irena’s parents both worked for the railroad industry (her father was a railroad engineer…
Jan Florian
Jan Florian was born in Hodonín in 1964 and grew up in the Moravian town of Strážnice. His mother was an accountant and his father worked as an electrical repairman. Jan’s father also built a greenhouse on their property and made extra money by…
Jan Kocvara
Jan Kocvara was born in 1946 in Trnava, Slovakia. His father (also called Ján) was a tailor who published a book on tailoring and taught at an apprentice school. After the Communist coup, he was forced to stop teaching and writing and began making…
Jana Fraňková
Jana Fraňková was born in Prague just after WWII in 1946. Her Slovak-Jewish mother had been in hiding in southern Bohemia during the War, and her cousin (who lived with Jana and her mother) had spent two years in Ravensbrück concentration camp. Jana…