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Kveta Gregor-Schlosberg
Kveta Gregor-Schlosberg was born in Jičín, northeastern Bohemia, in 1925. Her mother’s family owned the chateau, Čeřov Jicin, in which she was born, and Kveta describes her childhood there as a ‘fairy tale.’ Kveta began ballet lessons in Jičín when…
Karel Paukert
Karel Paukert was born in Skuteč, in what is today the center of the Czech Republic, in 1935. His father worked in the local bank, Kampelička, up until the Communist takeover. Following the coup, he was sent to work in the town’s granite mines and…
Juraj Slavik
Juraj Slavik was born in Prague in October 1929, son of the then-minister of the interior, Juraj Slávik. In 1936, Juraj’s father was sent to head the Czechoslovak diplomatic mission in Poland, with whom relations were strained because of both…
Joseph Masin
Joseph Masin was born in Prague in 1932 and was raised nearby in the Czechoslovak military barracks at Ruzyně, where his father Josef was an army commandant. With the outbreak of WWII, Joseph’s father became a leading figure in an anti-Nazi…
Joseph Kmet
Joseph Kmet was born in Chicago in 1930 but moved back to the family home of Bystričany, northwestern Slovakia, with his parents and siblings before he was one year old. Joseph says his father, Ignác, was worried that the family would not have enough…
Joe Gazdik
Joe Gazdik was born in the spa town of Trenčianske Teplice, in western Slovakia, in March 1940. His family had a small farm, which he and his brother helped look after. To make ends meet after WWII, Joe’s father worked on both the family farm and…
Joan Zizek
Joan Zizek was born in 1941 in Pardubice, eastern Bohemia. Her parents, Jaroslav and Růžena, had grown up in the small village of Buček, but moved to Pardubice when her father was offered a job as an agricultural bookkeeper. While still a young girl,…
Jerry Jirak
Jerry Jirak was born in Prague. His parents owned a restaurant and tavern in the city’s Old Town, which the Jirak family lived above. Jerry’s father died when he was four, and his mother died 12 years later, leaving Jerry and his sister Alena to fend…
Jerri Zbiral
Jerri Zbiral was born in Prague in November 1948. Her mother, Anna, was a survivor of the Lidice tragedy in 1942, which saw one Bohemian village razed by Nazi troops in retaliation for the assassination of Reichsprotektor Reinhard Heydrich. The…
Jarmila Hruban
Jarmila Hruban was born in Radešov, on the Czechoslovak border with Bavaria, in 1926. Her father was the mayor of nearby Boubská, the principal of the local school, and a regional administrator of a national cooperative bank called Kampelička. After…