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Paul Burik
Paul Burik was born in the southern Bohemian town of České Budějovice in 1954. His father, Nicholas, was a doctor, while his mother, Vlasta, worked as a pharmacist. When Paul was still a toddler, the family moved to Prešov, in eastern Slovakia, which…
Peter Demetz
Peter Demetz was born in Prague in 1922. His mother, who was Jewish, was a seamstress and his father (of German ethnicity) worked in a theatre. When Peter was about five years old, he moved to Brno with his parents and lived there for ten years.…
Peter Hruby
Peter Hruby was born in Prague in June, 1921. His father, Petr, owned a shoe shop in the Prague district of Karlín (which Peter says went bankrupt as shoemaker Tomáš Bat’a cornered the local footwear market), while his mother, Marie, stayed at home…
Pierre Dobrovolny
Pierre Dobrovolny was born in Brno, Moravia, in October 1933. His father Ferdinand was an artist who worked with, among others, the Czech archeologist Dr. Karel Absolon. Pierre’s mother Růžena was a seamstress. Growing up, Pierre wanted to become a…
Savoy Horvath
Savoy Horvath was born in 1933 in Brno, Moravia. Six years later, his family moved to Hradec Králové where his father worked at a German airport as an interpreter and accountant for the Nazis. Savoy’s father was also the leader of a Czech resistance…
Thomas Hasler
Thomas Hasler was born in Prague in 1941. His mother, Charlotte Jurdová, was a linguist with a doctorate in philology from Charles University, and his father, Karel Hašler, was a very popular Czech songwriter, actor, director, and playwright who,…
Vera Borkovec
Vera Borkovec was born in Brno in 1926. She grew up in Prague with her parents and younger sister until 1934, when her father became the director of Škoda Works in Tehran, Iran. Vera remembers Tehran as a progressive city, and the schooling she…
Vera Dobrovolny
Vera Dobrovolny was born in Prague in 1938. Her father Jan worked as a quality controller for Škoda during WWII and then as a technician at Správa spojů (the state-owned telecommunications company). Her mother Aloisie, meanwhile, worked as a…
Vladimir Cvicela
Vladimir Cvicela was born in Kl’ačany, Slovakia in 1946. He came from a farming family and says that, after school, he would chase rabbits with dogs and play hockey with the other village children. Growing up, Vladimir wanted to become an…
Zdeněk Bažant
Zdeněk Pavel Bažant was born in Prague in 1937. He was raised in Prague, though during WWII he spent a long period in southern Bohemia with his aunt. His father and grandfather were engineering professors ČVUT (Czech Technical University) and his…