Zelmira went to high school in Rakovník and then studied journalism at Charles University in Prague. Zelmira was an excellent student and, along with Jiří Dientsbier (who became a close friend), was offered membership in the Communist Party after her first semester. Zelmira had several summer jobs, including at a county newspaper in Podbořany, very close to where she had been born. During her last year in university, Zelmira worked at Czech radio (Český rozhlas). She and her husband, Milos Zivny, married during this last year as well and the pair stayed in Prague.
Zelmira worked as a journalist for the magazine Svět v obrazech for many years and traveled throughout the Eastern Bloc, including to Uzbekistan. Zelmira says that things began to change after the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968. She gave up her Party membership and helped Jiri Dientsbier publish a book. Coupled with her connections in the West (professional contacts as well as distant family members ), Zelmira began to feel a lot of ‘pressure,’ and she was taken in for questioning several times. When her daughter did not get into the high school she had hoped to attend, Zelmira and Milos began to think seriously about leaving the country. In 1984, they received passports and permission to take a vacation in Yugoslavia. Zelmira, Milos and their two children crossed the border into Austria and spent several months at Bad Kruezen refugee camp. With the help of the American Fund for Czechoslovak Refugees, the Zivnys moved to the United States and settled in Oakland, California, in February 1985.
In September 1985, Zelmira was offered a job with the International Rescue Committee as a refugee resettlement worker. She later joined her husband who had started his own cabinetry business. Zelmira and Milos have been heavily involved in the local Sokol organization since their retirement. Although she says that Prague will always be in her ‘heart and head,’ she is very happy in the United States. Today she continues to live with Milos in the house they bought shortly after arriving in Oakland.
]]>Zelmira Zivny was born in the village of Blšany in 1937. Zelmira’s mother grew up in Komárno on the Slovak-Hungarian border and had met Zelmira’s father while he was stationed here with the Czechoslovak Army. He then took a post teaching at a Czech school in Blšany, which was in the Sudetenland. When this area was annexed by Adolf Hitler as part of the Munich Agreement in September 1938, Zelmira’s family was forced to leave. After moving several times in six months, Zelmira’s father found a teaching job in Kněževes, a town near Rakovník. Following WWII, Zelmira’s family moved to the nearby town of Jesenice where she attended school.
Zelmira went to high school in Rakovník and then studied journalism at Charles University in Prague. Zelmira was an excellent student and, along with Jiří Dientsbier (who became a close friend), was offered membership in the Communist Party after her first semester. Zelmira had several summer jobs, including at a county newspaper in Podbořany, very close to where she had been born. During her last year in university, Zelmira worked at Czech radio (Český rozhlas). She and her husband, Milos Zivny, married during this last year as well and the pair stayed in Prague.
Zelmira worked as a journalist for the magazine Svět v obrazech for many years and traveled throughout the Eastern Bloc, including to Uzbekistan. Zelmira says that things began to change after the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968. She gave up her Party membership and helped Jiri Dientsbier publish a book. Coupled with her connections in the West (professional contacts as well as distant family members ), Zelmira began to feel a lot of ‘pressure,’ and she was taken in for questioning several times. When her daughter did not get into the high school she had hoped to attend, Zelmira and Milos began to think seriously about leaving the country. In 1984, they received passports and permission to take a vacation in Yugoslavia. Zelmira, Milos and their two children crossed the border into Austria and spent several months at Bad Kruezen refugee camp. With the help of the American Fund for Czechoslovak Refugees, the Zivnys moved to the United States and settled in Oakland, California, in February 1985.
In September 1985, Zelmira was offered a job with the International Rescue Committee as a refugee resettlement worker. She later joined her husband who had started his own cabinetry business. Zelmira and Milos have been heavily involved in the local Sokol organization since their retirement. Although she says that Prague will always be in her ‘heart and head,’ she is very happy in the United States. Today she continues to live with Milos in the house they bought shortly after arriving in Oakland.
“When I was one year old and Hitler got the Sudetenland, my parents had to move. Today you would say they were refugees, and they were. My mom was 24, 25, and suddenly there she was with my sister who was three years old and I was one year old, and she had to leave that town within 24 hours, with two kids and whatever she could carry, because my father was still in the Army; they didn’t release them yet. So she did. She didn’t have any place to go being from Slovakia and her husband’s parents were relatively – from the Czech point of view – far away. But there were more people who had to leave, so they said ‘There is a parish there the small town of Městečko and we know that that monsignor is ready to accept refugees.’ So this is where she landed with us, and they had to move three or four times within six months. Then finally my dad got another position as a teacher in small town or large village – a rich town, a lot of hops – which was called Kněževes , close to the town of Rakovník, and this is where we spent the War.”
“One of my first remembrances is the middle of the night and we were awake because there was that very deep sound, and there was a pinkish or yellowish shine all over the sky and my father was standing close to the window and said ‘Has to be Leipzig or Dresden. This is where they are bombarding tonight, but it’s terrible; it’s very, very intense.’ So it was the night that Dresden got bombarded.”
“I was joined to the Communist Party when I was two months at the university. No, actually, the first semester. After the first semester, Jiří Dienstbier and myself had the best results, and the professor who was in charge of the department called us both and told us ‘Congratulations, you are good students, you will be good journalists, and let me tell you that I am ready and I am supporting you’ – you had to have a grantor – ‘I am your grantor so you can join the Communist Party.’ And then he left, and we were sitting there in the lobby. Both of us were from sort of old democratic families. His parents were treating poor people during the depression and so on, so they were socially oriented. So we were sitting there because we didn’t expect it, and you could say ‘thank you, no’ and you wouldn’t get a job in a factory, and then Jirka said ‘Maybe it will be good for something. We will at least be part of the people who make decisions.’ So this is what happened, but nobody ever asked us to sign anything, any petition or whatever. We were just… this was it. It might be part of why Jiří was later on sent to that internship to Czech Radio and why I was accepted there. And in the foreign broadcast the Communist Party wasn’t the main point there, and when ’68 came I said ‘I’m so sorry; I cannot take it anymore.’”
“We got Americanized quite quickly I have to say. Maybe next generation. But we are very happy to live here. There are plenty of things we like about America. Nobody whines; people understand that they come somewhere and they have to take care of themselves. That’s your business; that’s your problem. Which is not that much… The Communists were telling you ‘The state will do it. The country will do it. You don’t do it.’ People got used to it. We never liked it and we are happy that mood is not in the air. And our children are happy here, so we would never left. Of course, if we never left we would be living in Prague and being happy there, but we prefer to be here. We prefer to be Americans.”
“Nobody will take Prague out of our hearts and heads. We know it and we’ll always feel it. And it’s nice to see that it’s changing and so on. But also, the country has changed a lot and we would have to start again. For the third time? No. I really like the spirit of America, I have to say.”
Following WWII, Rudy immediately entered medical school at Masaryk University in Brno. He graduated in 1950 and began his internship at the state hospital in Děčín in northern Bohemia. Shortly thereafter, however, Rudy was drafted into military service. Although the compulsory term of service was two years, Rudy was promoted and required to remain in the army. After five years, Rudy returned to Děčín where he worked as a general surgeon and, later, a thoracic surgeon.
In 1966, Rudy was invited to visit friends in France and was given permission to make the trip. He did not return to Czechoslovakia and spent one year in a refugee camp in Nuremberg, Germany, where he also worked in a U.S. Army hospital. He arrived in the United States in 1967 and settled in Chicago (where a cousin of his lived). Rudy did the requisite training and worked for many years as a urologist with the University of Illinois Research and Educational Hospital (now University of Illinois Medical Center). Today Rudy lives in Oak Brook, Illinois with his wife.
]]>Rudy Misurec was born in Dobré Pole, a small village in southern Moravia on the Austrian border, in 1924. His father, Gustav, was a railroad worker while his mother, Hildegarde, worked part-time selling tickets at the railroad station. Rudy had one older brother, Karel. Rudy went to elementary school in Dobré Pole and started gymnázium in the nearby city of Břeclav. With the signing of the Munich Agreement and start of WWII, Rudy’s family moved to Brno where Rudy finishedgymnázium and passed his maturita exam in 1943. He was then recruited to work in a plant making plane engines for the German war effort. Rudy says that his factory was targeted by Allied forces and bombed while he was working there.
Following WWII, Rudy immediately entered medical school at Masaryk University in Brno. He graduated in 1950 and began his internship at the state hospital in Děčín in northern Bohemia. Shortly thereafter, however, Rudy was drafted into military service. Although the compulsory term of service was two years, Rudy was promoted and required to remain in the army. After five years, Rudy returned to Děčín where he worked as a general surgeon and, later, a thoracic surgeon.
In 1966, Rudy was invited to visit friends in France and was given permission to make the trip. He did not return to Czechoslovakia and spent one year in a refugee camp in Nuremberg, Germany, where he also worked in a U.S. Army hospital. He arrived in the United States in 1967 and settled in Chicago (where a cousin of his lived). Rudy did the requisite training and worked for many years as a urologist with the University of Illinois Research and Educational Hospital (now University of Illinois Medical Center). Today Rudy lives in Oak Brook, Illinois with his wife.
“It was a place which was known, evidently, to the Allies that there is a possibility of building something and making some engines for the Folke-Wulf, so they then one day came with their planes and bombed it.”
Were you working when it was bombed?
“Yes, yes. The American planes were coming through that area, going most often to bomb Austria, mainly Wiener Neustadt, where there were some factories which they considered important, and we many times had an alarm and we were so pleased because they had to chase us out of the buildings. But the day when it really came to the point where the bombing fleet was bombing the factory, it was so sudden that we didn’t actually have much time to get out. So we were actually still in the buildings of the factory and just trying to run out when the bombs were falling. It was quite frightening, you know, because you can hear the bomb coming from 5,000 or 10,000 feet – I don’t know how high – so you can hear the bombs coming down, the whistling sound, but you don’t know where it comes down and if it will kill you or not.”
Well, was everyone ok?
“Oh yes, there were people killed.”
“Right away after the end of the War when the universities were opened. So at first, we had a flat wagon and they used us to go to the city. They knew where the German professor was living – there was a German university and a Czech university [which was closed during WWII], and the Germans were gone – and we were collecting the books from them and bringing them to a place to be saved. That is what we were doing right away before the university was fully functional, and then once the university was fully functional I was visiting [and studying at] the university. It’s amazing; in the beginning there was a big interest and in the first meeting, I remember, there was a gentleman saying ‘There are more than 300 students here, but don’t think all of you will finish; only about half of you will finish,’ because it’s difficult to study, a lot of studying.”
“In 1950 I was promoted as a doctor of medicine, and then I went for residency training into the hospital at Děčín, which is in northern Bohemia on the Elbe River. There I started an internship but, after several months of the internship, I was drafted and I had to go into military service although I didn’t like the military at all! Unfortunately, at the time there was a law in the General Assembly that – the military service was two years – but the government had the option to use Paragraph třicet devět [39], and they could put you in an additional three years of military service and there was no way that you could say no. So then after two years of military service in the army, I was promoted as a captain and I spent an additional three years in the military service, which I was very unhappy about because my friends had the opportunity to go and study additional medicine, because that was my goal, and I had to be in the military and I didn’t have any way out. So then after three years I was finally able to go again to the residency in the hospital.”
“The French were always friendly to Czechoslovakia and they were actually considered as big allies, and there was a gentleman with a family and other French people who decided to go to the Czech Republic to spend the winter vacation there. Because we were skiers we met there in the winter time and Christmas time and, this way, we had friends in Paris. So that’s how I met them, and then they did invite me to visit them and at the time I said ‘I most surely will not be able to use the invitation’ because it was impossible to get from Czechoslovakia to the Western part of the world. But, possibly because the gentleman whom we met there, the Frenchman, was a member of the Maquis – the Maquis was the underground group of the French resistance, and if this was the reason, or what was the reason, I don’t know – but I got permission to go to France, and then I decided not to come back.”
“My wife is from the old country and she keeps some of the Czech customs, but most of that blends together with the life in America because the country will not adjust to you; you have to adjust to the United States. And we were fairly successful. It was not for free; we had to work very hard, but we succeeded.”
For a short time, Roman and his family lived in a refugee camp. They were then sent to live with a German family. Roman attended school and worked at a golf course where he caddied for American soldiers. His father worked in construction. In 1950, they sailed to New York and took a train to Cleveland where several of Roman’s family members had settled decades earlier. Roman’s father worked as a carpenter and his mother found a job as a cleaning lady. They bought a house in Cleveland six months after arriving. Roman graduated from high school in 1952 and attended Ohio University where he studied engineering. He also received a degree in architecture from Case Western Reserve University. In 1971, Roman opened his own architecture firm. Although he visits Slovakia often and raised his children to be aware of their heritage, he says that he and his family ‘took roots’ in the United States and were very proud to become American citizens. Today he lives in Davenport, Iowa, with his wife Mary.
]]>Roman Scholtz was born in Kežmarok in northern Slovakia in 1934. His father, Ludwig, studied the craft of cabinet-making and was a manager of a cabinet shop. His mother, Adele, worked as a weaver in a factory, and the family lived in factory housing. Roman had one older brother, Ewald. When Roman was eight years old, his family moved to Poprad where Roman’s father opened an auto repair shop with relatives. Roman says that the first years of WWII passed fairly peacefully for his family, until the Slovak Uprising began in August 1944. The partisans quietly took over Poprad and were fought back in Kežmarok, and Roman has memories of seeing the effects of the fighting. His brother, a member of the Slovak Army, was conscripted into the German Army, and it would be several years before Roman saw his brother again. Roman himself spent a few months with relatives near the Moravian border. In January 1945, his family’s equipment and machinery was appropriated for the German war effort. Told they could stay with their possessions, Roman and his family traveled to Jablonec nad Nisou and Jičín in Bohemia before returning home to Poprad at the end of the War. Immediately after returning, Roman’s father was sent to a detention camp for ethnic Germans while Roman and his mother secretly traveled to Kežmarok and stayed with his grandparents. Roman returned to school for one year and then, in July 1946, he and his mother were arrested and sent to a detention center. They reunited with his father and were deported to Germany in September 1946.
For a short time, Roman and his family lived in a refugee camp. They were then sent to live with a German family. Roman attended school and worked at a golf course where he caddied for American soldiers. His father worked in construction. In 1950, they sailed to New York and took a train to Cleveland where several of Roman’s family members had settled decades earlier. Roman’s father worked as a carpenter and his mother found a job as a cleaning lady. They bought a house in Cleveland six months after arriving. Roman graduated from high school in 1952 and attended Ohio University where he studied engineering. He also received a degree in architecture from Case Western Reserve University. In 1971, Roman opened his own architecture firm. Although he visits Slovakia often and raised his children to be aware of their heritage, he says that he and his family ‘took roots’ in the United States and were very proud to become American citizens. Today he lives in Davenport, Iowa, with his wife Mary.
“Life on the kolonie was absolutely wonderful. Everybody lived very sparsely, as most Europeans. We had an entry area and a little storage room. We had a kitchen which was a kitchen, dining, and living area, and a bedroom area, and that was it. Outhouses on the outside. They were attached on one side, and the storage unit on the other side, of this four-plex. There were little gardens in the back and everybody could have a vegetable garden. This whole thing consisted of maybe 80 apartments that were there and in the middle was the common area which contained a social hall and laundry. Although, the washing of clothing was done in what was called the White River next door. That’s where the washing occurred and the rinsing occurred. The water came right out of the mountains, thus it was pure. Then everything was hung to dry and then after that they had a big thing like a mangle [ringer], and that was like a huge trough with stones in it, and they rolled this over the sheets to straighten them out a little bit, iron them, basically. That’s how people existed. We had close friends next door to where we lived. My mother was a weaver. And all this happened because my grandfather, my mother’s father, was a foreman in that factory.”
“They were informed that the next day all the hunters and everybody should come to the military barracks on the east side of town – we had two military establishments, an Air Force and a military – and bring their weapons so they could train to resist the Russian advance, and they would be told what to do and how to do it. So my dad and uncle, of course they went there, and by noon of that day I thought ‘Well, I’ll just go and check and see what’s happening,’ so I took a bicycle and rode out to that camp and I saw them, behind the camp fence, and they were just milling about and doing nothing, and it was boring, so I got back on my bike and biked back home.
“Well, as I was biking home – we lived on the street called Liptauerstrasse, Liptovská ulica – what happened is, I looked up and, about a quarter mile or so, maybe more, away, I saw trucks with all kinds of red flags on top, and I rushed home, right inside the door and I told my mom ‘There’s something not right.’ So then we went into a room that faced the street and we watched and then suddenly these people were all walking by with machine guns drawn, and the front guy had a whistle in his mouth, and red banners. Well, these were the partisans who were taking over the town. They had made an arrangement with the military to peacefully take over the town. All the men with guns were in the camp, so they didn’t have anybody to fight, and that’s how it was. That’s how all the peaceful times then ended. Because what happened then is, the next day, the partisans then tried to take over my hometown [Kežmarok]. These people had heard what had happened in Poprad. In Kežmarok, they had gotten ready, taken over the military, and, with the military’s help, had prepared for the partisans and actually fended them off.
“One of my experiences as a young kid: We had, besides repairing trucks, cars and vulcanizing tires – that’s what my father’s responsibility was – we also had gas pumps outside for regular gas. The second day, after the attacked Kežmarok, one of those tanks came back to the pump station to fill up with gas again, and there was part of a body still on the tank. Somebody had been hit. They didn’t even remove and clean; they pulled it just like that with that on it, so… horrific sights for a kid to be seeing.”
“We got to Poprad and then we stayed with our neighbors, the Lubajs, and the Lubajs took us in. Of course, people knew my dad as we walked from the train station to our home and, then next day, it was very in common in Europe to have to go to the city hall and to sign papers saying ‘I’m now a resident back here.’ So my dad, having been seen, he went there and was immediately put into detention camp. The Germanic people and Hungarians were all put in detention camps. At night, my neighbors knew this was happening and they arranged for us, overnight, to go to Kežmarok on foot – which was like nine miles – to my grandparents’. So we got to my grandparents’ house and we stayed from June until the end of September inside, so nobody would know where we are hiding.”
“In the end of July, 1946, on a Sunday morning, the state police came and arrested my mother and my grandparents and took them to the initial camp, a castle in Kežmarok, and that’s where we were, in a castle. My mother had a nervous breakdown there. But things were so badly managed and there was so much disorganization. We were arrested in the morning and there were maybe 100 people or so in this initial detention area. I noticed that by afternoon some of the friends, Slovaks, would come to the gates and try to communicate – this was so sudden and such a horrible thing – and some guards would allow them to come between the two gate doors. They couldn’t arrest my grandmother because she was ill. She was in bed, so they left her there and took my grandfather. So I took my grandfather to the doors and when there was a little lapse of observation, I took him in between and ultimately I said to the guard ‘He’s just visiting.’ So they said ‘Ok’ and let my grandfather out. He got back home and was never re-arrested again, and so that’s how it was. My mother and I were then put on trucks and shipped to that military camp in Poprad, where my dad and uncle went with their guns and all that, and that was a big detention camp then for Germanic and Hungarian people. And from there, then we were shipped out to Germany, in September of 1946.”
“We weren’t really welcome. We were intruders. These people suddenly were asked to take in people that they had never seen before. It’s like you having to take people into your home that you didn’t know, didn’t relate to at all. You were forced to do it. So that wasn’t all that pleasant. And not that they were so unpleasant. They tried to help, but they themselves were… Think about it, 1946 wasn’t all that pleasant. People were on rationing cards. We had milk that you could see through and bread was rationed, margarine was rationed. Everything was rationed. The nutritional conditions were very poor. In 1946 in the winter, I would go to adjacent villages, to the farmers, and ask for a little flour. They’d take a soup spoon of flour and put it in your bag and then you’d go to the next one and he’d put in a soup spoon of flour, and that was it. It was very, very bad. You had to beg for food. That next fall, in 1947, you’d volunteer to work for farmers for food. We would pick potatoes, for instance, and it was all manual, and then you could have a little potatoes afterwards. So things weren’t all that pleasant.”
“I also worked on a golf course caddying for American soldiers. They were allowed to play golf, and I got paid ten cigarettes for carrying the bag for nine holes or a package for eighteen holes, or five candy bars for nine holes and ten for eighteen holes. On the way home, every time we left the golf course, we’d stop at a little restaurant and there were people that would buy these things from us for the black market. I made more money than my dad did working by selling these American goodies to the black marketers.”
“To be American was really important, because America had done so much. After we left Slovakia, Czechoslovakia, and crossed the border, there was security and safety. The American zone offered you that kind of lifestyle. You felt safe and comfortable. You may not have had food enough because there was very little food available but, nevertheless, the food wasn’t as important as the freedom. You were secure. There was no uncertainty about your existence, having to worry about who would come and get you the next day or would you be in prison the next day. All that was gone. And then when you saw the luxury – the cigarettes they’d throw away, half candies eaten sometime – then you’d realize ‘Hey these people are really something. They’re wealthy. They’re what everybody’s trying to achieve.’ You kind of became proud to be an American. After losing all of that… Think about that. You lost your previous identity in a way, national identities. It’s important to be an American. My father was absolutely delighted to be an American, and my mother. So too my brother. We really became Americans. Not nationalists. We didn’t think America was always the best, the finest, the strongest. We didn’t need to be the most powerful. But we were good. And that’s important.”
Milos began working for Vodní stavby, the largest building company in Prague. He started as a draftsman and later worked his way up to engineer and manager. Milos says that because he was not a member of the Communist Party he was denied higher-level management jobs. He is particularly proud of working on the Prague Metro system during his years at Vodní stavby.
With his wife under some pressure from the secret police and his daughter being denied entrance to a high school she hoped to attend, the Zivnys began to think about leaving the country. In 1984 they received permission to travel to Yugoslavia for vacation and, the first day there, Milos, Zelmira and their son and daughter crossed the border into Austria. Milos says that his first thought was to go to Australia, but instead they were helped by the American Fund for Czechoslovak Refugees. In February 1984, the Zivnys moved to the United States and settled in Oakland, California. Milos found a job working for a cabinet shop – thanks, in part, to his knowledge of the metric system. After a few years he opened his own cabinet-making company with a partner and ran it for close to 20 years. After retiring, Milos and Zelmira became heavily involved in the local Sokol organization and enjoyed other opportunities with the Bay Area Czech community. Today, Milos and Zelmira live in the house they bought shortly after moving to Oakland.
]]>Milos Zivny was born in Kroměříž, a city in Moravia, in 1935. His father worked as an accountant for a state health insurance company while his mother stayed home to raise Milos and his two younger sisters. Following the Communist coup, Milos’s mother worked as a nurse and his father was kicked out of his job and worked in a factory in Brno. As a boy, Milos was a member of the svaz mládeže youth organization and also enjoyed playing sports, particularly basketball and volleyball. Prior to attending a technical high school in Vsetín, Milos was sent to Zlín to work in the Bat’a factory for one year. After four years of high school, Milos studied engineering at Vysoká škola železničná, a technical university in Prague. It was there he met his wife, Zelmira. The couple married in 1955, before graduating from university.
Milos began working for Vodní stavby, the largest building company in Prague. He started as a draftsman and later worked his way up to engineer and manager. Milos says that because he was not a member of the Communist Party he was denied higher-level management jobs. He is particularly proud of working on the Prague Metro system during his years at Vodní stavby.
With his wife under some pressure from the secret police and his daughter being denied entrance to a high school she hoped to attend, the Zivnys began to think about leaving the country. In 1984 they received permission to travel to Yugoslavia for vacation and, the first day there, Milos, Zelmira and their son and daughter crossed the border into Austria. Milos says that his first thought was to go to Australia, but instead they were helped by the American Fund for Czechoslovak Refugees. In February 1984, the Zivnys moved to the United States and settled in Oakland, California. Milos found a job working for a cabinet shop – thanks, in part, to his knowledge of the metric system. After a few years he opened his own cabinet-making company with a partner and ran it for close to 20 years. After retiring, Milos and Zelmira became heavily involved in the local Sokol organization and enjoyed other opportunities with the Bay Area Czech community. Today, Milos and Zelmira live in the house they bought shortly after moving to Oakland.
“I don’t remember too much the beginning of the War but I remember especially the end of the War. The situation of Kroměříž, in central Czechoslovakia – or this time, Böhmen und Mähren – was on the way for American pilots going from Italy bombarding Germany, going over Czech Republic. And every day we heard this humming and saw thousands and thousands of B-17s and B-24s flying over, and the sirens of course. The Germans had flights all around but they were not shooting because the plans were really high. But it was something that I never forgot because all over you see the [hum of the planes], and they were floating down these small strips against radar. And this I remember very well.”
“There was some special rule at this time. Communists will tell you when you graduated from high school or university, they tell you ‘You will be working in this town at this post.’ They gave you a special paper called umístěnka and they shipped you there. But we got married the last year of university because we knew when we got married they would send us to one place, not husband to Slovakia and wife to west Czechoslovakia or something like this. We were married in the beginning of the last year, and she started working in Prague in Czech rozhlas [radio] and after we graduated we had some special meeting with the people from university and they were actually sorting out where we were going. I claimed that my wife is already working in Prague; she has a place in Czech rozhlas and I would like to get my special paper for working in Prague. And they accepted it. It was actually good. The special paper meant that I started working for a company in Prague, and the company was Vodní stavby. It was the biggest building company in Prague. They had around 10,000 people working there; it was a huge company.”
“My first year in university. Because I was playing very good volleyball and basketball and our school team had some friendship with DDR (Deutsche Demokratische Republik) with a school in Dresden and I was on this team. We went there for one week, playing volleyball and basketball, and some travel. This was the first time I was able to go to a foreign country. I was already in university – 1955.”
Was there a marked difference between East Germany and Czechoslovakia at that time or were they quite similar?
“They were very similar, but the DDR was not strict about… Everything in Czechoslovakia was government owned. In East Germany, there were still some private, small shops at this time. You could go to a small bakery and buy something; there was absolutely nothing like this in Czechoslovakia. But the system of produce was very similar. They had maybe some more stuff – for example, I remember raisins. They had more raisins; we could buy raisins in Dresden, but not very often in Prague. But we had more lemons; they had almost no lemons. Some things were really strange. They had restrictions in foreign trade in all communist countries, but each communist country had some slight difference. But there was no big difference.”
“There is two parts of the Czech community. There is one Czech community which is old. They are immigrants or daughters and sons of immigrants which are getting very old. This is Sokol itself. We are mostly around 60, 70 or 80, and this part is unfortunately going down. There is no way to get young people. We are trying, because there is a new Czech community in Silicon Valley. There are really a lot of young people who came here for work or girls who came to au pair and got married here. A couple of years ago they asked for a contribution to a Christmas party, making vánočka (Želka baked I think eight vánočka). We went there and there were 200 kids! Czech origin, Czech parents or half Czech. This is the young community we are trying now to bring to Sokol, but I’m afraid it doesn’t work too well. Because Sokol, even in the Czech Republic, it’s not… The younger generation has a completely different point of view.”
From a young age, Magda was interested in painting and drawing and joined an art club. She attended a high school in Karlovy Vary that specialized in decorative china and ceramics. After her graduation, Magda’s uncle, who had emigrated shortly before, invited her for a visit to the United States. Magda says that her parents were encouraged when she received a visa without any trouble and also requested permission to travel abroad. In July 1967, Magda and her family traveled to Switzerland and applied for permission to immigrate to the United States. Shortly thereafter, they flew to New York City and settled in Queens where Magda’s parents quickly found employment: her father as an engineer and her mother in the UN gift shop. Magda herself got a job designing plastic plates. She took classes part-time at Queens College and received an MFA with a concentration in painting. Magda worked for many years as a freelance textile designer. With her then-husband, Magda bought an old barn in Connecticut and converted it to art studios. She recently received a doctorate in divinity studies from Wisdom University and today focuses on broadening her drawing and painting techniques while occasionally exhibiting her work and teaching art.
Although Magda describes the Czech community in New York as ‘divided’ at the time of her arrival, she became close with a group of fellow émigrés who often played soccer and went skiing together. Her first trip back to Czechoslovakia was in the early 1980s; she next returned after the fall of communism with her parents, who briefly considered returning there to live. Magda visits the Czech Republic each summer and says that she hopes to retire there someday. Today she lives in New Haven, Connecticut.
]]>Magda Mraz was born in Liberec in northern Bohemia in 1948 and grew up in Chomutov with her parents and younger brother. Magda’s mother, Milada, was of Czech ethnicity but grew up in southern Slovakia where her father owned several successful hotels. Milada studied hotel business in Lausanne, Switzerland, and later worked as an accountant in a spa/hotel in Jáchymov. Magda’s paternal grandfather owned a large manufacturing business and her father George (born Jiří) was sent to Britain to study. When WWII broke out, George joined the British Army. Magda says that upon his return to Czechoslovakia, he had a hard time as a result of spending the war years abroad. Magda was ten when her family moved to Ostrov nad Ohří, as her father lost his job as an engineering professor at a technical school because of his ‘bourgeois’ background.
From a young age, Magda was interested in painting and drawing and joined an art club. She attended a high school in Karlovy Vary that specialized in decorative china and ceramics. After her graduation, Magda’s uncle, who had emigrated shortly before, invited her for a visit to the United States. Magda says that her parents were encouraged when she received a visa without any trouble and also requested permission to travel abroad. In July 1967, Magda and her family traveled to Switzerland and applied for permission to immigrate to the United States. Shortly thereafter, they flew to New York City and settled in Queens where Magda’s parents quickly found employment: her father as an engineer and her mother in the UN gift shop. Magda herself got a job designing plastic plates. She took classes part-time at Queens College and received an MFA with a concentration in painting. Magda worked for many years as a freelance textile designer. With her then-husband, Magda bought an old barn in Connecticut and converted it to art studios. She recently received a doctorate in divinity studies from Wisdom University and today focuses on broadening her drawing and painting techniques while occasionally exhibiting her work and teaching art.
Although Magda describes the Czech community in New York as ‘divided’ at the time of her arrival, she became close with a group of fellow émigrés who often played soccer and went skiing together. Her first trip back to Czechoslovakia was in the early 1980s; she next returned after the fall of communism with her parents, who briefly considered returning there to live. Magda visits the Czech Republic each summer and says that she hopes to retire there someday. Today she lives in New Haven, Connecticut.
“They were originally welcomed. All the Czechs were welcomed as helpers to the newly liberated states [of Slovakia] from the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Many teachers, many people in higher positions were Czechs because there wasn’t such a thing as education in the Slovak language, previously. If you wanted higher education, you had to study in Hungarian. So Czech, being a Slavic language, was much closer to Slovak. And there were many young people who actually ended up studying either in Olomouc or in Prague. Both of my aunts married Slovaks, but ones who spoke Czech because they studied at the colleges in the Czech part. The attitude was originally very positive toward Czechs bringing more culture and sophistication to Slovakia, which was kept very rural by the Hapsburgs because, along the Danube, the soil was much more fertile than in Bohemia. So it was more a nation of peasants and the intelligentsia developed only later, and it was led by Czechs.
“But all of the sudden, with the arrival of fascism, there was an option to become an independent state, and all of the sudden everybody became a big patriot, a big Slovak patriot, and Czechs were no longer welcome; Czechs and Jews were kind of pushed away. So that’s why my grandfather lost his hotel, which he built from scratch, in Nové Zámky which was on the occupied border in southern Slovakia, and went to Bratislava which was the capital and still a little bit off-limits at the time.”
“It was more a matter of integrity I think. When they came to the United States, they were looking for different spiritual venues, but in Czechoslovakia nothing else existed and remaining Catholic meant that they would be adhering to their values, which they considered superior to the communist ones. So it was partly political. It was kind of a silent protest.”
“During our teenage years, we all turned into sort of activists. We had a performing group called Škamna which was based a little bit on the principles of Laterna Magika. We had some film projections in the background, some black theatre, recitations; we had our own band and we made our own songs. We were very successful in the neighborhood and we took it different towns. We were playing pieces from the books and plays by Hrabal or Kundera or Škvorecký and we felt very much part of the protest movement. We had the big kulturák, or House of Culture, where the stage was available to us. So we were pretty active in that way, trying to promote the more liberal and liberating ideas of the contemporary Czech writers and playwrights.”
“Always. Ever since they got married. As a matter of fact, they got married for the purpose of being able to leave the country. However, communism took over and both grandfathers were arrested. This was after my paternal grandparents didn’t see their children for six years. My aunt got married and pregnant, so somehow my father had to delay his departure because of the wedding and, with all the delays, eventually the borders closed again and it was impossible [to leave] anymore. They wanted to leave the country very much immediately after the War because, having a Western perspective, they were convinced easier that – or at least my father – that communism will indeed take over Czechoslovakia [sic], and Eastern European countries in general. So they wanted to leave. And my father would have become a British citizen and would have had some advantages as a veteran of the War, so he wanted to pack up my mother and go but, also, she became pregnant very quickly with me, so it would have been difficult under those circumstances. So they missed their chance, and they got stuck for another 20 years.
“They took the first chance they could later on. As a matter of fact, when I got my high school diploma, I asked my uncle to invite me to America, and I was granted the visa without any problems; it was unusual. So my parents were encouraged and they said ‘Well, when she got it so easily, why don’t we all try?’ and, to our great surprise, their passports arrived a couple of weeks later. Instead of me going to the U.S., I joined them in their car and we went to Switzerland as a whole family, and there we asked for American visas and we got them without problems. At that time, a year before the Russian invasion, each nation had a certain quota of immigrants, and Czech was not fulfilled at all, and my father being an engineer, he was on the more wanted lists, professionally. So that’s why it was so quick.”
“My first job was in New York City. I was making designs on plastic plates, which wasn’t particularly creative, and I wasn’t paid. The guy had some kind of outdated information that if he hires foreigners or anybody under the pretext of hiring them as apprentices, he doesn’t have to pay them. So after two months a friend of the family asked me ‘How much are they paying?’ and I said ‘Nothing, so far.’ He said ‘You can’t leave it like that; you have to go to the Department of Justice and tell them you are not getting paid.’ So I did and I had a hard time with my broken English, but they invited my employer and he had to pay my salary back, plus some penalty. So I felt very rich and in the meanwhile the lady from the department of employment found me another job, which paid what seemed like a lot of money to me at the time. I think it was $75.00 a week, but to me it was a fortune, so I was very happy about the situation. It was a very good demonstration of justice existing in the States – that a little girl could win against the employer.”
“I went to Paris, I lived there for two years, and during that stay I went to Prague while it was still under communism. I arrived there at midnight, tried to call my aunt, the phones were kind of disconnected, and in my nervousness, I forgot my passport in the phone booth. I didn’t find out until the morning; eventually I did get in contact with my aunt, who picked me up, and I said ‘Oh by the way, I have to go back to the airport. I forgot my passport there.’ My aunt had a fit. She said ‘Oh my god. You left your passport. How could you?’ So we rushed to the airport and my aunt was much more nervous than myself. That kind of tells you about the psyche of somebody who matured in America, land of the free, and somebody who was subjected to the communist persecution; she was beside herself. We arrived at the airport and there was the clerk who was waving the passport and saying ‘Can you imagine if this would get into the wrong hands?!’ Not only did I have my passport there, but there was also a return ticket to Paris. Can you imagine? So I was very lucky then, but at least there were honest people at the airport.”
Jana Krenova was born in Prague in 1959. Her father, Mirko Křen, originally from Plzeň, was a photographer and her mother, Vlasta, often assisted her father with his projects. At the end of WWII, Mirko was on hand to shoot the liberation of Plzeň by American troops; his photographs, as well as the fact that he was a small-business owner, led to his arrest and six-month imprisonment by communist authorities in 1948. Jana spent her early years in the neighborhoods of Žižkov and Vinohrady, where she started school. During the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia in August 1968, Jana’s family was on vacation in Italy. Although her father hoped to stay abroad, his failing health led them to return, and he died at the end of the year.
Jana’s mother continued her photography business and, several years later, she remarried a Czech-born Argentinean citizen. Jana says that her life became quite ‘bourgeois,’ as they moved to a villa with two BMWs and were able to travel extensively (Jana regularly spent her winter vacations skiing in Switzerland). For high school, Jana attended Střední průmyslová škola grafická [School of Graphic Arts] where she focused on photography. Upon graduating, she worked for one year as a staff photographer for ČTK news agency. Jana says that the combination of family pressure and the oppressive Communist government led her to leave the country permanently. In July 1979, she flew to London and then on to New York.
During Jana’s first days in New York, she was helped by Viera Noy whom she had met on a ski trip in Slovakia and for years worked several jobs to support herself. She received a green card and, in 1984, moved to Switzerland. Jana had a daughter and found a job as the art director and photographer for a magazine in Zurich. She returned to New York in the summer of 1989, shortly before the fall of communism in Czechoslovakia, and worked a series of jobs as a magazine art director. In 1997, Jana began freelancing and frequently traveling to Prague for photo shoots. Today, she splits her time between New York City, Prague and Barbados.
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Jana Krenova was born in Prague in 1959. Her father, Mirko Křen, originally from Plzeň, was a photographer and her mother, Vlasta, often assisted her father with his projects. At the end of WWII, Mirko was on hand to shoot the liberation of Plzeň by American troops; his photographs, as well as the fact that he was a small-business owner, led to his arrest and six-month imprisonment by communist authorities in 1948. Jana spent her early years in the neighborhoods of Žižkov and Vinohrady, where she started school. During the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia in August 1968, Jana’s family was on vacation in Italy. Although her father hoped to stay abroad, his failing health led them to return, and he died at the end of the year.
Jana’s mother continued her photography business and, several years later, she remarried a Czech-born Argentinean citizen. Jana says that her life became quite ‘bourgeois,’ as they moved to a villa with two BMWs and were able to travel extensively (Jana regularly spent her winter vacations skiing in Switzerland). For high school, Jana attended Střední průmyslová škola grafická [School of Graphic Arts] where she focused on photography. Upon graduating, she worked for one year as a staff photographer for ČTK news agency. Jana says that the combination of family pressure and the oppressive Communist government led her to leave the country permanently. In July 1979, she flew to London and then on to New York.
During Jana’s first days in New York, she was helped by Viera Noy whom she had met on a ski trip in Slovakia and for years worked several jobs to support herself. She received a green card and, in 1984, moved to Switzerland. Jana had a daughter and found a job as the art director and photographer for a magazine in Zurich. She returned to New York in the summer of 1989, shortly before the fall of communism in Czechoslovakia, and worked a series of jobs as a magazine art director. In 1997, Jana began freelancing and frequently traveling to Prague for photo shoots. Today, she splits her time between New York City, Prague and Barbados.
“He had the very first photography store in Plzeň that had been shut down and confiscated by the Communist Party after the War when the Communists took over Czechoslovakia. Then they confiscated his store in a very nasty way; they sent a woman into his store when he was not there, and she would leave some kind of fake propaganda against the new regime. So then, the secret police came in and they said ‘What is this, Mr. Křen?’ and he wasn’t even there when it happened. So that’s how it happened. They set him up. They found some kind of anti-communist propaganda and they put him in prison. That’s how they did that. They had a reason to confiscate the store – the Communists would not allow any private enterprise anyway, but this was the way they did it. They actually locked up my father; he was in prison because he was a store owner. This was like the biggest crime, but they had to explain it differently, so that’s why they plotted this scene where this woman left some kind of propaganda in his store.”
“He was 25 years old when the Americans liberated Plzeň and he was taking pictures of the American Army liberating Plzeň, which was not convenient for the Russians who later on claimed that they liberated the whole country. And it was not allowed to even say that the Americans liberated part of it, so the fact that my father had proof that the Americans were in Plzeň and freed Plzeň was against the interest of the Russians and the Communists. That actually is one of the reasons why my father was arrested, because they came into his store and wanted to get all these negatives that were proving this fact. They were actually quite well-hidden because my aunt (the sister of my father) hid those negatives in the basement of her house.
“Finally, there was a book published about 15 years by Zdeněk Roučka, and he was collecting all the pictures that existed from that time – which most of them my father shot; that’s why he’s listed as number one. My father was risking his life. There were bullets flying around his head and, later on, he was in prison just because of that. Because he had to prove that it was not just the Russians who freed Czechoslovakia.”
“We moved from Vinohrady to Zvihov, and our life all of the sudden became this bourgeois lifestyle. We had two BMWs – don’t forget, this was the heart of communism, so two BMWs – a villa, and we even had a woman who would clean up, like a cleaning lady. That was really unheard of for that time in Czechoslovakia. I would even drive this BMW to high school. I went to Střední průmyslová škola grafická [School of Graphic Arts], so a couple times I was driving in the BMW and I felt like a Hollywood star. I actually did earn some kind of… people looked at me a little bit differently. Also, what separated me a lot from my peers was the fact that I was able to travel more than other kids, because my stepfather was an Argentinean citizen and my mother also had some connections, so were kind of fortunate that we could travel. In wintertime, I went to skiing in Switzerland; in summertime, I always went someplace. That’s why kids in my school, in my class, looked at me a little bit differently.”
“When I was dreaming about coming to the United States, in my mind, I had seen those movies, and most of them were shot in California. So I saw the palm trees and the blue sky, the ocean and those tan and fit people. I thought ‘Wow, that’s where I want to go;’ however, when I landed in New York with $150 in my pocket, that was just about it. I could not really go any further with that. So I got stuck in New York and I had to make a living here, and that was another lesson in my life; it was really hard to do that. By the time I was able to make enough money to even buy the ticket to California, I was kind of used to New York and liked New York, so I was no longer tempted by California. And I did go, but I somehow liked New York from the moment I started working here.”
“There is only one time a year where I make Czech food, and it’s a fusion between Czech and American customs. On Thanksgiving, I don’t make turkey because I am not crazy about turkey – it’s dry. I do duck, and I bake the duck the Czech way because it’s one of the best dishes the Czechs are making. So I bake duck and I make the red cabbage and I also do the potato dumplings. So that’s the once a year that I cook Czech food [and it’s] on an American holiday. So now I combined it. Duck is a bird as much as the turkey, and it tastes better.”
“I did not come to New York to be with the Czechs; I really did not. Being also raised under communism, you have a little bit of a distrust of being part of any kind of belief system or any organization. You wouldn’t even be able to get me on a cruise; even Club Med scares me, because it’s part of any organized, fun group. Even if it’s fun group, not just a religious group, it’s still organized, and I have a certain aversion. I have too much of a free spirit to have organization that I should be part of and follow. That’s completely out of it for me.”
George says he did spend several days in the woods at the very end of the War. When he returned to Vsetín, he recalls seeing corpses of Czechs accused of collaborating with the Nazis. Following WWII, George continued with his engineering studies in Vsetín, as part of which he says he learned English from a Czech soldier who had fought in the British Army during the War. Upon graduation, George went to work at MEZ Vsetín. He moved to Plzeň following his mother’s death in 1954, where he took a job at Škoda. He was employed by Škoda until leaving Czechoslovakia with his wife and son in 1968.
George was on vacation with his family in Yugoslavia in August 1968 when he heard that Warsaw Pact troops had invaded Czechoslovakia. He says that the Yugoslav police informed Czechs and Slovaks in the country at the time that they could stay if they wished. George had a cousin in the United States, however, and so the family tried to immigrate there. The Knessls traveled to Austria, where they were housed at a number of refugee camps, including Traiskirchen, while their visa applications were processed by the American Fund for Czechoslovak Refugees. Within a couple of months, the family had visas and was flown to New York City.
George’s first job was in a hotel in Pennsylvania, which he says in no way used his experience as an engineer. The Knessls ended up settling in Chicago, where George’s cousin found him a job as a draftsman in the factory in which he worked. In Chicago, George became involved in the Spolek českých inženýrů [Czech Engineers’ Club], through which he says he found a job at General Motors. In 1972, the Knessls bought a house in Berwyn, in which George still lives today. He calls his home ‘an American miracle.’ George continues to be active in the Chicago Czech community.
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George Knessl was born in Volyně, southern Bohemia, in 1929. He was raised by his mother in Vsetín, near the Slovak border. George never knew his father as he was killed shortly before George was born. George attended technical school in Vsetín, which he says was severely disrupted towards the end of WWII, with classes being evacuated on account of bomb scares. When George turned 16 towards the end of the War, he received a letter conscripting him as a laborer to help with the German war effort. George says instead of responding to this summons, he remained at home and positioned himself so as to be able to run into the woods should officials come and investigate his whereabouts.
George says he did spend several days in the woods at the very end of the War. When he returned to Vsetín, he recalls seeing corpses of Czechs accused of collaborating with the Nazis. Following WWII, George continued with his engineering studies in Vsetín, as part of which he says he learned English from a Czech soldier who had fought in the British Army during the War. Upon graduation, George went to work at MEZ Vsetín. He moved to Plzeň following his mother’s death in 1954, where he took a job at Škoda. He was employed by Škoda until leaving Czechoslovakia with his wife and son in 1968.
George was on vacation with his family in Yugoslavia in August 1968 when he heard that Warsaw Pact troops had invaded Czechoslovakia. He says that the Yugoslav police informed Czechs and Slovaks in the country at the time that they could stay if they wished. George had a cousin in the United States, however, and so the family tried to immigrate there. The Knessls traveled to Austria, where they were housed at a number of refugee camps, including Traiskirchen, while their visa applications were processed by the American Fund for Czechoslovak Refugees. Within a couple of months, the family had visas and was flown to New York City.
George’s first job was in a hotel in Pennsylvania, which he says in no way used his experience as an engineer. The Knessls ended up settling in Chicago, where George’s cousin found him a job as a draftsman in the factory in which he worked. In Chicago, George became involved in the Spolek českých inženýrů [Czech Engineers’ Club], through which he says he found a job at General Motors. In 1972, the Knessls bought a house in Berwyn, in which George still lives today. He calls his home ‘an American miracle.’ George continues to be active in the Chicago Czech community.
“Well, I can say it is nothing beautiful, but the next day I was going downtown to take a look. The first thing when I crossed the bridge, I saw the dead body of a woman over the side. They say that she was a collaborator with the Gestapo. It means people killed her. When the Army came, they had a rule that for the first two days, they are not responsible for any law. It is a lawless situation. When I went farther into the park, there were dead bodies of these collaborators. People again, people got together and killed them, because they were collaborating with the Gestapo. It was the ugly part, you know, but it was only one day before they cleaned it.”
“We found another camp where we were only supposed to stay for two days. And when I went to swim in the sea in the morning, (because I don’t have a shower in the morning when I’m by the sea, I jump into the sea) – I went swimming, and when I was getting out of the water, there was a German professor crying, saying how the Russians had invaded Czechoslovakia with tanks, and how this damaged socialism. But I didn’t give a toss about socialism anymore.
“All the Czechs in the campground sat around radios and listened to the news from the United Nations and in general, so that we knew what was going on. After two days it was obvious that practically nothing is going to happen at an international level. The Yugoslav police paid us a visit; they invited us to a hotel nearby, where they told us our options and said that we can stay in Yugoslavia.”
“[When it came to emigration] one thing was easier for us, because for two years I had already guessed that there will be major economic problems in Czechoslovakia. Our factory was working at something like only 16% capacity. I thought I would have to emigrate for economic reasons. But of course the Russian invasion changed this into political reasons – that’s beyond debate.”
“The Czech Engineers’ Club had meetings every month. I mostly went there from the time that I had a car, which I bought in 1970 (we were here only one year without a car; it took us one year to save for a car). So, when I had a car, I went there every month. They kindly accepted me as one of them, and of course I now had a source of information. The next time I was looking for a job – the head of the club was Eda Vachrlon – I helped him with invites and I did everything, and he helped me get into General Motors and then we were working on the same floor. Unfortunately, what I am talking about is all in the past, because these people were all older than me. Today, I am 81 and they are no longer alive. So, due to an insufficient number of members, this organization no longer exists.”
One of Eugenie’s coworkers had relatives living in West Germany who sent Eugenie and her husband, Vladimir, a letter inviting them for a visit. They took advantage of this opportunity several times before deciding to leave Czechoslovakia permanently. In the spring of 1968, Eugenie and Vladimir crossed the border and stayed at a refugee camp near Nuremberg. During their eight month stay, Eugenie worked cleaning floors and in the Grundig factory while her husband worked in a toy factory. The couple had a car (which they had driven across the border) and traveled on weekends.
Eugenie and Vladimir arrived in New York City in December 1968. Sponsored by the Red Cross, they were first put up in the Wolcott Hotel, which Eugenie called ‘terrible.’ They shortly found an apartment in Queens and Eugenie began working at Booth Memorial Hospital. Although she initially had a hard time getting her state nursing license, Eugenie worked for over 30 years as a newborn and pediatric nurse. She and Vladimir raised one daughter, Monica. After receiving her American citizenship, Eugenie began traveling back to Czechoslovakia frequently. Now widowed, Eugenie lives in the house in Queens that she and Vladimir bought not too long after their arrival.
]]>Eugenie Bocan was born in Prague in 1942 and grew up in the Podolí district of the city with her parents and her younger sister. As a young girl, Eugenie recalls swimming in the Vltava and taking trips to the country to visit her father’s relatives. During WWII, it was those same relatives who provided food to Eugenie’s family, as items like meat and eggs were in short supply in the city. Eugenie’s father, Václav, was a bank clerk, while her mother, Milada, worked in a shoe store. Although Eugenie enjoyed chemistry in school, she says she was not allowed to continue those studies in university and, instead, attended nursing school where she specialized in newborn and pediatric nursing. Upon graduating, Eugenie worked for one year at the children’s psychiatric facility in Prague – an experience she calls ‘very interesting.’ She then became a maternity nurse and also worked for a short time in a dentist’s office.
One of Eugenie’s coworkers had relatives living in West Germany who sent Eugenie and her husband, Vladimir, a letter inviting them for a visit. They took advantage of this opportunity several times before deciding to leave Czechoslovakia permanently. In the spring of 1968, Eugenie and Vladimir crossed the border and stayed at a refugee camp near Nuremberg. During their eight month stay, Eugenie worked cleaning floors and in the Grundig factory while her husband worked in a toy factory. The couple had a car (which they had driven across the border) and traveled on weekends.
Eugenie and Vladimir arrived in New York City in December 1968. Sponsored by the Red Cross, they were first put up in the Wolcott Hotel, which Eugenie called ‘terrible.’ They shortly found an apartment in Queens and Eugenie began working at Booth Memorial Hospital. Although she initially had a hard time getting her state nursing license, Eugenie worked for over 30 years as a newborn and pediatric nurse. She and Vladimir raised one daughter, Monica. After receiving her American citizenship, Eugenie began traveling back to Czechoslovakia frequently. Now widowed, Eugenie lives in the house in Queens that she and Vladimir bought not too long after their arrival.
“They had problems with food, of course, and because we had relatives in a village, he used to take a train – which wasn’t allowed; there were Germans around and, somehow I understand, it was dangerous and they weren’t allowed to do it, but he did it anyway because we had to eat – then he went there, he brought for them what they needed, and exchange they gave him eggs and meat and a goose or whatever we needed to have some food. I mean, we were never hungry, never ever, but that’s what he did. He used to go and exchange what they ordered from Prague, like clothes and materials for dresses because at that time they were sewing everything, and in exchange they gave him a lot. Also because he was always very kind to them and he helped them in the summer a lot. Then he’d always bring fruit and meat and eggs and we had everything all the time. But I understand it was dangerous because the German soldiers were around busses and trains, and I don’t recall how dangerous or why but I know that my mother was always nervous about if my father will come back or if they will catch him; he wasn’t allowed to do it.”
“In the beginning, all our class was supposed to go out of Prague. It was mandatory for one year to work somewhere in the outskirts of Czechoslovakia where there was a big shortage of nurses, but somehow – I don’t recall how – I stayed in Prague, but I had to go to psychiatry. Children’s psychiatry [hospital], it’s a big place in Prague; it’s called Bohnice. A lot of people know it; it’s slang, like ‘You will end up in Bohnice’ if you get a little crazy. It was a really interesting experience, very, very interesting experience with the children. The children did like me a lot, because they had these old-fashioned nurses who were cruel and nasty to them.”
Is that how nurses used to be?
“No, not in the hospital, but in this institution, the children were disturbed children. They were mentally disturbed, and some of them were there on a trial [basis], if they should go to an institution permanently or be with parents and be treated outside. The children were very, very difficult and they were criminally inclined, some of them; some of them were dangerous. Then there were old nurses, and they had their old methods, like they had seclusion when a child got wild or did something nasty to the nurse. They put him in the seclusion and undressed him, which was so demeaning; I would never do that to anybody, not to ten-year-old boys. It was frightening for him and it was cruel. To me, it was cruel and I never did it. That’s why I had very good interaction with the children, because they knew that I will not do it and I will not tell on them. If they did something bad, I talked to him and I would tell him that wasn’t nice or it wasn’t good to call me some names, but I never put them in isolation or did anything cruel. They loved me.”
“I had a problem in the hospital because I was a regular nurse when I started and I had a boss, male; he was in charge of me and he wanted to promote me to a supervisory position, because he found out that I was perfect for it, but he wanted me to sign papers for the Communist Party because he was a big Communist. And I said ‘No.’ He said ‘What do you mean, no? You go have more money, you go have a good job, you don’t have to do what you do, you go sit in an office and so on.’ And I said ‘Yes, I would love that, and I think I deserve it, but I don’t need to sign anything. I’m not going to be communist to go sit in an office.’ He said ‘I don’t understand you.’ I said ‘I know you don’t understand me because you are communist, and I will never sign it.’ And that’s how it ended.”
“I was very impressed with the Americans because they treated me like everybody else. At work, I was amazed that they would trust me and they were so nice to me. I had my book, translating, and they would go, if I didn’t understand, ‘Give me the book, Eugenie,’ and they would find it and translate the word; they were very kind. The doctors really did appreciate me because I knew actually more than their nurses; because I had two years specialty in newborn babies and premature babies, I had better knowledge than they did. And you don’t need to speak too much. You need to work, and they could see that I know what I am doing.”
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.
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.
]]>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.
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.
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.
“Up to a certain time, I think 8:00 or 9:00 in the evening, the regular soldiers could come in and eat, okay? By 10:00 they had to be in the camp. And after10:00 or 11:00 the big echelons with the stars [came]… And those are the ones, I remember how they used to, how could I say, enjoy themselves. They were dancing on the table and drinking from the glasses, and then they took those glasses and threw them into the corner, there was a pile of glass like this in the morning, you know? Honest to god, I’m telling you! Not only that but some of these guys, they had those long sabers on their side. And so when they got a little tipsy, a little drunk, you know, they’d pull out their sword and there were chairs and this guy, he’d start cutting the chairs and said ‘this is what we’re going to do to the Russians.’ And chips were flying all over the floor. But they didn’t hurt anybody, our people or anything, except they were against the Russians. But these incidents [happened] and when they were going to the washroom outside, the outhouse, my mother had wash-lines stretched across the yard and they were so – poor guys – they were so stupid with alcohol, there was one guy who was hanging his head over the wash-line and vomiting, you know.
“But they just had a good time, these people knew how to enjoy themselves. Next day, they came in, two of them and ‘Mr Sarvady, how much? What’s the damage that we did?’ And my father, he knew what to do, if it was $300, he said $600 or $700, a chair is so much or so much. And not even one word was said about it. Everything was undercover, undercover, yeah.”
“Anybody who sided with the Germans, they rounded them up and they locked them up. My stepfather was locked up for 117 days. But they couldn’t find anything against him. Because he was strictly a businessman and had nothing to do with politics, you know. He never cared for it. So, after 117, they finally released him. But that wasn’t enough, it was a few months later and one of the gendarmes we knew, who used to be in our town, they had to turn Communist too, but they still were friends and one day he came over to our house and told may father, he says ‘Emil, we have orders to lock you up tomorrow.’ He says, ‘it would be the best thing if we wouldn’t find you here, if you know what I mean.’”
“We were going with this guy who picked us up, and we were going in this small paneled truck to Vienna, all four of us. So we were traveling, maybe half an hour, 45 minutes, it wasn’t too far from Vienna, where we were, and all of a sudden, right in the middle of the road, there was a soldier, a Russian soldier with an automatic [weapon] on his side – a brbka they call it, you know, with the bullets, you know. So anyway, the driver had to stop, because he was right in the middle of the road. So anyway, the way it turned out was actually our luck, you know, that this guy came with us, because he just wanted to get a ride. So he got up on the back of the truck with us and was riding with us all the way to Vienna. So we come into Vienna and they’ve got the whole set-up out there, they’re checking credential and Ausweis and everything, you know. And I say ‘Oh my god! Which way to run?’ you know? ‘What are we going to do?’ you know? And there were about five or seven cars and a couple of trucks, and these guys, they took their time, you know, these Russians checking this and checking this. And so it was only about two or three vehicles ahead of us and this guy who was sitting with us started swearing and saying ‘What the hell is the matter with you? What’s the hold up here?’ And he [the guard] says ‘Okay, davaj! Davaj! Davaj!’ So he let us go without checking our credentials or anything!”
“He says ‘All three of you are soccer players and I’ve got a place for you, for all three of you to play soccer on the Hungarian team.’ So I remember, it was the Pannonia team and my two brothers and I, we joined them. There were 11 soccer players and seven of them were Slovak. So [there were] only four Hungarians, but they were a Hungarian team. But we were good. We played about a year or so. And then they got us jobs, I found a job working for Simpson, putting little scooters together, and little baby buggies and so on. They came with a shipment from overseas in little boxes and we put them together you know, and so on.”
“I took the Slovak bible and the English bible and said ‘Well this word is this and this is this, and this word is this’ because the bible is usually word for word the same. And then I started reading newspapers and books and got interested in art and went to art schools and academies and other academies; the Chicago Academy, the American Academy and then the Palette and Chisel… And then I became a studio chairman at the Palette and Chisel, and these are my accomplishments right here – a silver medal, another one is a gold medal, another one is a diamond medal. I was judged by fellow artists, not by the public, by fellow artists – those are the tough ones. And then I started, with another friend of mine, he was a famous seascape artist, Charles Vickery, we started another club, I approached him if he would help me, because my problem was that I was foreign, I didn’t know that much English, I said ‘You’re established, you’re one of the top seascape artists and painters,’ I say ‘Would you help me?’ He says ‘Yeah, we will start it, okay.’ So that’s how we started the club Oil Painters of America; I was the original founder right here.”
Ája signed a contract with the Ice Follies, moved to the United States, and skated with the tour for three years. She then joined the Ice Capades. During her 15 years with the Ice Capades, Ája was known as Ája Zanová. Ája’s mother, who had accompanied her on the Ice Follies tour, settled in Los Angeles where she became a voice and music teacher. Ája spent her breaks from the tour with her mother in California. In the late 1960s, Ája met her future Czech-born husband, Paul (Pavel) Steindler on a blind date. She married him in 1969, after leaving the Ice Capades. The couple lived in New York City where Paul owned several restaurants. Ája says that many Czechs congregated at their restaurants, which began her lifelong activity in the New York Czech community. After Paul’s death, Ája returned to the skating world, working as a judge, consultant and rink manager. She is a trustee of the Bohemian Benevolent and Literary Assocation (BBLA) and involved in the Association of Free Czechoslovak Sportsmen. In 2012, Ája received the Gratias Agit award from the Czech Ministry of Foreign Affairs, given to her for her “promotion of the good name of the Czech Republic abroad.” She was also awarded the Medal of Merit in Sports by the Czech president Václav Klaus in 2004. Ája has also been inducted into the World Figure Skating Hall of Fame. Today, Ája lives in Manhattan and frequently visits the Czech Republic.
]]>Ája Vrzáňová-Steindler was born in Prague in 1931. She began ice skating as a young girl and recalls training during WWII with little light due to blackouts. She says she felt a ‘whole new attitude’ that accompanied the end of WWII, as many international figure skaters came to Prague. In 1947, Ája moved to London to be coached by Arnold Gerschwiler. She lived and trained in London for six months of the year, and spent the rest of her time in Prague and Davos, Switzerland. Ája held the title of Czechoslovak national champion from 1947 to 1950 and competed in the 1948 Olympics. She won the World Championships in 1949 and, although Soviet authorities wanted her to travel to the Soviet Union to teach and coach figure skating, her mother convinced them to allow Ája to go to London in March 1950 to defend her title. Ája says that her parents encouraged her not to return to Czechoslovakia and so, after winning the championships, Ája stayed on with her coach in London. She says that after receiving threatening phone calls, she did not leave the house until receiving political asylum ten days later. Ája’s mother was able to leave the country as well; she was a passenger on an airplane that was hijacked en route to Prague and landed in Erding, Germany at a U.S. Army base. Ája’s father lost his job in the Ministry of Finance and ultimately decided not to leave Czechoslovakia permanently. It would be 13 years before Ája saw her father again.
Ája signed a contract with the Ice Follies, moved to the United States, and skated with the tour for three years. She then joined the Ice Capades. During her 15 years with the Ice Capades, Ája was known as Ája Zanová. Ája’s mother, who had accompanied her on the Ice Follies tour, settled in Los Angeles where she became a voice and music teacher. Ája spent her breaks from the tour with her mother in California. In the late 1960s, Ája met her future Czech-born husband, Paul (Pavel) Steindler on a blind date. She married him in 1969, after leaving the Ice Capades. The couple lived in New York City where Paul owned several restaurants. Ája says that many Czechs congregated at their restaurants, which began her lifelong activity in the New York Czech community. After Paul’s death, Ája returned to the skating world, working as a judge, consultant and rink manager. She is a trustee of the Bohemian Benevolent and Literary Assocation (BBLA) and involved in the Association of Free Czechoslovak Sportsmen. In 2012, Ája received the Gratias Agit award from the Czech Ministry of Foreign Affairs, given to her for her “promotion of the good name of the Czech Republic abroad.” She was also awarded the Medal of Merit in Sports by the Czech president Václav Klaus in 2004. Ája has also been inducted into the World Figure Skating Hall of Fame. Today, Ája lives in Manhattan and frequently visits the Czech Republic.
“My training was very difficult because it was the War. I was very young, but I remember the SS soldiers coming into Prague with the goosestep and all of that. I was standing, holding on to my dad’s hand and we were all sort of amazed and watching and [thinking] what’s going to happen and all that. I’m the only child so I must say I was protected from a lot that was going on; of course, many things I saw and heard. But the training was very difficult because of the blackout during the War and we had only an outdoor ice rink. There was only one lamp in the middle of the rink and whoever got there first could take the better spot under the lamp. And we did figure eights and all that, very quiet, no music, just the figure eights following the patterns.
“I loved skating. I really loved jumping and I was not afraid. And it was cold. It was cold as could be. Mami [mom] used to wake me up at 5:00 [and I’d be] on the ice at 6:30. I remember she used to wrap my feet with newspapers, because newspapers are warm. I never knew that, but she wrapped my feet in newspaper before she put them in the boot, and that helped a lot but the boots were not that good either and I had so many corns and so many bloody toes. I don’t know how we did it, but we did.”
“Mami and Dad told me not to come back. They said ‘Don’t worry about it;’ they didn’t say that I’ll never see Dad for 13 years; they never did tell me that it’s going to be difficult and all that. They said ‘We’ll see you soon and just concentrate on defending the world title,’ because I think if they would have told me what actually happened, I would never have gone because I would never leave them alone to go through what they went through, but I didn’t know. I said ‘Ok!’ and I left them. I said goodbye and they said ‘Good luck’ and all that and I said ‘Ok, we’ll be talking’ and that’s how I left. There was no drama leaving because I never, never thought that it would come to what it came to.”
“We had threatening phone calls [saying] they’re going to shoot my mother – it was from the [Czechoslovak] Consulate from somewhere, from England; I would think it was the consulate – and ‘You’ll never see your parents again’ and all of the sudden I said ‘My god! What have I done?’ So my coach said ‘From now on, you’re not going out,’ so for ten days I was in the house. We were in a very quiet street in Richmond and Twickenham in London, and the car was going back and forth and back and forth and we knew that they were watching me, waiting for me to come out, and there were people coming into the house saying ‘Where is Ája? Can we see her?’ I was never home for anybody. I was either in the attic or in the cellar but for anybody, I was not home.
“After ten days, Arnold said ‘I’m leaving and I’ll be back in about half hour and don’t leave. Don’t go away. Don’t go out of the house,’ and I said ‘Ok, ok.’ So he left. We thought he went to teach, to the rink. ‘Mrs. Gerschwiler,’ I said. ‘Please let me go to the corner drugstore, just to buy a couple of things. I have cabin fever.’ And she said ‘No, you’re not supposed to go, but if you hurry, I mean, really hurry…’ I said ‘Yes, yes.’ Well, on the way back, I’ve got a bag of something and I hear the car and I turn around and they speed up and I recognize. I started running and I get to the picket fence and the little gate that I opened so many times. The latch wouldn’t open, and I’m yelling; I’m holding on to the picket fence. They come and they were trying to pull me off that. It was a terrible scene and then, at that moment, I mean, if it was ten minutes later it would have been too late, but at that moment, Arnold Gerschwiler and two men came out of the house and ran towards me, and they were from the British Home Office. He didn’t go teach; he went to the Home Office. I couldn’t go out, so he brought the two men into the Richmond Twickenham house to give me my political asylum. And that was a huge, huge thing that they did for me. One was still holding on to me, the other went into the car and they were saying ‘You’re going to ruin the sport of Czechoslovakia,’ and I was beside myself. I thought a thing like that would never come to anything like that, and I came to the house and I broke down. I really cried. I said ‘What have I done? What are they going to do to Mami and Dad?’ and then I couldn’t find them on the phone. It was the most difficult time of my life, I think.”
“I’m so proud to be a part of our Czech community here. I was always somehow connected with the Czech community, even when I was with Ice Follies or Ice Capades, because they used to do… It helped them because they advertised me as defected from behind the Iron Curtain, and they did Ája Vrzanova Night at the Ice Follies [sic.] The first three years, every city had Ája Vrzanova Evening and you’d be surprised how many Czechs came to the show. It was so heart-warming; it was really wonderful. In Ice Capades, I always visited the Czech community in every city. They didn’t do Ája Zanova – by then I had the shorter name – Ája Zanova Evening. They didn’t do that, but I myself went and looked up the Czech community. Chicago, Omaha, I had lots of wonderful friends that I visited every year.
“And then, of course, Paul was a very big Czech. He had no accent; he defected in 1948. When the communists came in, he left the Czech Republic and first he went to Vienna and then he made his way to America and was a renowned chef. When I met him he had three restaurants and then he built me a restaurant called The Duck Joint and I worked there, because I loved it. It was like my stage. I had my own restaurant; I loved every minute of it. We had a lot of Czech people coming to the restaurant, like Milos Forman; we had Ivan Passer, Martina Navratilova, Ivan Lendl, whoever was here. The ice show came through and they came to the restaurant, so it really was a great 15, 18 years.”