Browse Items (28 total)
- Tags: Velvet Revolution
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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…
Eva Jurinova
Eva Jurinova was born in Žilina in northwestern Slovakia in 1979. Her mother L’udmila is a pediatric neurologist and her father Vladimír is a nuclear physicist who, prior to the Velvet Revolution, worked in the Ministry of Health. He now heads the…
George Drost
George Drost was born in Brno in December 1946. His father, John, was a lawyer while his mother, Doris, stayed at home and raised George and his older brother Rudy. George says the Communist coup in 1948 was a ‘turning point’ for his father, who left…
Igor Mikolaska
Igor Mikolaska was born in Trenčín, western Slovakia in 1978 and grew up nearby in Nové Mesto nad Váhom. His father, also named Igor, worked for a company that made air conditioners until the business was privatized following the fall of communism.…
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…
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…
Jozef Madzo
Jozef Madzo 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…
Katya Heller
Katya Heller was born in Prague in 1960 to an American mother and Czech father. Her mother, Joy, had left the United States in 1947 to travel to Europe with hopes of going to the Soviet Union, but decided to stay in Prague. She then met Katya’s…
Lubomir Ondrasek
Lubomir Ondrasek was born in Topoľčany in western Slovakia in December 1972. His father, Ľubomír, was a military officer and his mother, Elena, worked in various clerical positions. In the early years of his life, he was raised by his maternal…