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Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Hayes Night School, Cedar Rapids, IA, c.1924 (back)
Subject
The topic of the resource
Czech-Americans--Cedar Rapids, IA.
Description
An account of the resource
Black and white photograph of Hayes Night School, 1924-1925 class, photograph by Flender’s Studio, 87 16th Ave, Cedar Rapids, IA (back)
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Flender’s Studio, 87 16th Ave, Cedar Rapids, IA
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
NCSML Archive SC 1.31.4
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
c.1924
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
National Czech & Slovak Museum & Library
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
No known restrictions on publication.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
jpg
Language
A language of the resource
en-us
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Still Image
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
SC1314HayesNightSchool192402
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Cedar Rapids, IA
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
School Materials
Subject
The topic of the resource
Czech-Americans--Cedar Rapids, IA.
Description
An account of the resource
Items related to the Czech School (Ústřední Matice Školské) and other schools in the Czech community of Cedar Rapids, IA.
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
NCSML Archive SC 1.31.4
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1920s-1960s
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
National Czech & Slovak Museum & Library
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
No known restrictions on publication.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
jpg
pdf
Language
A language of the resource
en-us
cs
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Still Image
Text
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Cedar Rapids, IA
Still Image
A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials.
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
photograph
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Hayes Night School, Cedar Rapids, IA, c.1924
Subject
The topic of the resource
Czech-Americans--Cedar Rapids, IA.
Description
An account of the resource
Black and white photograph of Hayes Night School, 1924-1925 class, photograph by Flender’s Studio, 87 16th Ave, Cedar Rapids, IA
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Still Image
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
jpg
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
c.1924
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
NCSML Archive SC 1.31.4
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Cedar Rapids, IA
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Flender’s Studio, 87 16th Ave, Cedar Rapids, IA
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
National Czech & Slovak Museum & Library
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
No known restrictions on publication.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
SC1314HayesNightSchool192401
Language
A language of the resource
en-us
1924
Cedar Rapids
Iowa
photograph
school
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Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Recording Voices & Documenting Memories of Czech & Slovak Americans
Subject
The topic of the resource
Recording Voices & Documenting Memories of Czech & Slovak Americans was an oral history project launched by the National Czech & Slovak Museum & Library in 2009. The project captured and preserved the stories of Czechs and Slovaks who left their homeland during the Cold War and settled in New York City, Washington, D.C., Cleveland, Chicago and the San Francisco Bay Area. During the second phase of the project, the NCSML recorded the stories of immigrants who came to the United States after the fall of communism in 1989 as well. By the conclusion of the project in August 2013, the NCSML had collected more than 300 oral histories. <br /><br />Both phases of the project were made possible by grants from the Institute of Museum and Library Services. <br /><br />On the project’s website, you can read biographies of Czechs and Slovaks who began a new life in the United States, watch video clips from their interviews, and view photos and other archival materials they shared with us. <br /><br />Full length interviews are available for further research at the National Czech & Slovak Museum & Library. For more information, contact Dave Muhlena, Library Director, at dmuhlena@ncsml.org.
Oral History
A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
Transcription
Any written text transcribed from a sound
<h4>Life of a Miner</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/cUOpasPKCNA?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0" id="undefined"></iframe><p>“I guess it was a hard job, but as a foreman, not as hard as the ones that were doing the physical labor. Uranium is a very bad material, so a lot of those guys would get cancer really young. They would make good money. Those dudes, I remember them. They would make so much money, they would make a lot more than some doctors and stuff, but they would die young and they would spend it out, just partying, drinking. I remember that.”</p><h4>Refugee Camp</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/AvfdMFfaCEA?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0"></iframe><p>“There were a lot of Czechs, a lot of Slovaks, a lot of Romanians. The camp wasn’t too bad. We were one of the luckier ones – we had a small cottage. They even had hot showers there. A lot of other people weren’t as lucky. They slept in a tent and had to use public showers which they had there. The food was horrible, I mean horrible. They would make chicken and cabbage every day. I love chicken, but after the camp I couldn’t eat it for a couple years; I couldn’t eat chicken for a few years. I had a good time. I would go to the flea market over there, sell whatever I could sell to get my own spending money. You know, when you’re 17 you need some money.”</p><h4>Return Home?</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/SpgYNxF3NYc?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0"></iframe><p>“Back then, yeah I did think about it, but it was different. I was thinking, if I go back now, what’s going to happen to me? I didn’t see anything good happening to me if I would do that. My father wanted me to do that, because he missed me. He missed us all, must have been very hard for him. But I was thinking, if I go back over there, I’d be doomed. I’d be lucky if I got to finish school, the trade school, and then it would just be bad all around. Plus, I would have to go into the army. I would have a scar on my record already, I think it would be pretty difficult. But I did think about it, yes. I did miss my country and my friends.”</p><h4>1st Return</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/puZTRJ6tuFs?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0"></iframe><p>“My first trip [back] to Czechoslovakia was in 1989 and I stayed there for New Years in 1990, so it was very fresh what just happened there. And I still had to go through that stuff. I had to register at the police station, I had to exchange a certain amount of money every day as an American tourist. Although it wasn’t communist any more, it was still the old rules over there. There was a lot of confusion there I guess. What I remember though, with a few dollars in my pocket I was like a king over there. It’s not like that anymore, but you could get a lot back then. It was amazing, it was really was. You could treat like 10 people for 20 dollars. They all got fed and they could drink, and it would cost you nothing.”</p><h4>Cicero Changes</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/JLpKHPMkE00?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0"></iframe><p>“The whole neighborhood changed. It used to be all Czech over here. I remember we’d drive down Cermak Avenue and there would be Czech butcher shops, a bakery, other restaurants, Czech bars, even Polish places. And now you drive down Cermak Avenue and pretty much it’s all Spanish. This [Klas Czech Restaurant] is the last Mohican on Cermak Road. I love this place, it’s very unique.”</p>
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Alex Vesely
Description
An account of the resource
<p>Alex Vesely was born in Příbram, central Bohemia in 1966. His father was a foreman in a mine and his mother worked an office job. He remembers having a happy childhood, with his grandparents visiting often and spending vacations in a houseboat on the Vltava River. Alex and his brother and sister grew up in an apartment in town, but later moved to a house that his father had built a few miles away in the country. He attended trade school where he studied electronics, but left for the United States before finishing his studies.</p><p> </p><p>In 1983, Alex’s mother decided to emigrate with her children and second husband. They escaped while on vacation in Yugoslavia and stayed in a refugee camp in Belgrade for several months before flying to the United States. Alex’s family arrived in Chicago in November 1983, having chosen that city because their sponsors, Alex’s stepfather’s parents, lived there. They were met at the airport by Judy Baar Topinka, a local politician of Czech and Slovak heritage, and settled in Riverside, Illinois. Alex completed his schooling in Chicago, where he took English classes; his new friends also helped him to master the language. He returned to Czechoslovakia for the first time at the end of 1989 – right after the fall of communism. Alex says at this time, the country was in a state of confusion and transition because the situation was still ‘very fresh.’</p><p> </p><p>Alex has been a waiter at Klas, a traditional Czech restaurant in Cicero, Illinois, and also worked a series of technical jobs in heating and cooling. He currently works in construction and, as a sculptor, has participated in some art shows with other Czech and Slovak artists. His pieces are sculpted from materials such as wood, granite, and fiber optics. Alex says he tries to visit the Czech Republic at least once a year, where his daughter lives. He currently lives in Chicago.</p>
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
National Czech & Slovak Museum & Library
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
NCSML Archive
Ales Vesely
Arts
Child emigre
Education
English language
Ethnic diversity
Pribram
Refugee camp
Restaurant/hotel industry
school
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Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Recording Voices & Documenting Memories of Czech & Slovak Americans
Subject
The topic of the resource
Recording Voices & Documenting Memories of Czech & Slovak Americans was an oral history project launched by the National Czech & Slovak Museum & Library in 2009. The project captured and preserved the stories of Czechs and Slovaks who left their homeland during the Cold War and settled in New York City, Washington, D.C., Cleveland, Chicago and the San Francisco Bay Area. During the second phase of the project, the NCSML recorded the stories of immigrants who came to the United States after the fall of communism in 1989 as well. By the conclusion of the project in August 2013, the NCSML had collected more than 300 oral histories. <br /><br />Both phases of the project were made possible by grants from the Institute of Museum and Library Services. <br /><br />On the project’s website, you can read biographies of Czechs and Slovaks who began a new life in the United States, watch video clips from their interviews, and view photos and other archival materials they shared with us. <br /><br />Full length interviews are available for further research at the National Czech & Slovak Museum & Library. For more information, contact Dave Muhlena, Library Director, at dmuhlena@ncsml.org.
Oral History
A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
Transcription
Any written text transcribed from a sound
<h4>Killing Rats</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/WC7zfxOv-A0?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0" id="undefined"></iframe><p>“They were very big. I was little; that’s why they were even bigger. At night they were very hungry and they used to bite us. There were many more families living in that estate and they had sentries to chase these things away. My dad, before he went to work at the factory, made these steel rods for the kids, and we used to go and kill the rats. Chop them right in the middle. And then we took off the tail and, when the dads came back from work, we showed them the tails, how many we killed. Like cats, they show you the kill, and we were like cats. And our parents were so proud of us when we killed them, because these things were hungry and they used to go through the walls, because the walls were really wet. It was an interesting education. I was a killer of rats as a little kid.”</p><h4>Czech School</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/_Enn6lT8pVE?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0"></iframe><p>“It was an indoctrination.”</p><p><em>In what way?<strong><br /></strong></em><br />
“A bunch of lies, which thank God my dad contradicted and gave me some literature so I could find out the truth. So I think the commies were right not letting me proceed with my education because I definitely was a liability, because there was my dad and his version of the truth and then there was this new version of the truth, which was basically a lie, historic lies and blah blah blah. I knew the truth. And I had problems for it, too.”</p><p><em>Can you mention any times that you did get in trouble and what you said that was not appreciated?</em><strong><br /></strong><br />
“I told the class that I knew how Lenin died. It was no good. I said that he died of syphilis, which was true, and nobody knew it here, and it was a big, big problem. The secret police came and investigated where I heard it from. They wanted to pin it on my dad, and I told them I heard it in a pub, guys talking about it. They said ‘What guys?’ I said ‘Well, I don’t know them.’ They asked ‘What time of day’ and ‘When did they go there?’ and I had to lie. And the secret police came with me to the pub and they positioned themselves, and then I was supposed to point these people out. It was a big operation, man; it was no joke. Even for such bulls*** like this, for the truth. So I’m there like an idiot [saying] ‘Hmm, they’re not here.’ They tried twice and then they gave up.”</p><h4>Leaving the Country</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/7d19pOZms8I?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0"></iframe><p>“The first time I didn’t succeed; I was captured, but I had a perfect cover. I found a student ID card, so I changed my name on it, and I was a student of biology on that card, at Charles University. I went through the mountains and I had this literature about the Alps flora, so when I was caught by the soldiers I said ‘Hey man, I’m just collecting materials for my studies and you don’t mark your borders very well.’ I was already in Austria, but I couldn’t make it down the mountains. So they took me down. But they made a mistake; they took me all over, about ten kilometers, and I knew where all the sentries were before they took me down. They knew I was bulls***ing. They said ‘If you ever show your f***ing face here again we’re going to bust you up and send a report to Prague,’ because, when they did that, you were arrested in Prague. But they didn’t do that in this instance because I had an ID card and they were not sure. Three months later, my friend wanted to leave and I said ‘I know how,’ so he paid me to take him across. And we succeeded, because I knew all the sentries.”</p><h4>Return to Czechoslovakia</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/_GcGk8Io7Lk?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0"></iframe><p>“For me, the first time I came back was sort of nostalgic, to remember old places, places of my youth. It was more about that, and the Charles Bridge, walking on the Charles Bridge. It was an important journey. I understood how these people who haven’t been here for years and found that they could come in briefly, how could they feel. It was like coming out of prison, and you could walk and there was no guard behind you. It was the same kind of sense I had. It was like somebody unleashed you. You could left, you could go right, without fear. And with my American passport, I felt a little bit more secure.”</p><h4>Return to Prague</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/SbSMfdxLcxM?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0"></iframe><p>“We don’t have the same attitude, the same thoughts. We are different. I left when I was 19; when I came back I was more than 60. I lived most of my life in the West. I was educated in the West. I’m different, and I know I’m different and, since I came here, I even know why I’m different. I don’t have that totalitarian thought and this intolerance towards new things. But I don’t really dwell on it. I don’t let it come to me because I’m enjoying my stay here, because there are a lot of good things as well.”</p>
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Antonin Kratochvil
Description
An account of the resource
<p>Antonin Kratochvil was born in Lovosice in northern Bohemia in 1947. His father, Jaroslav, owned a photography studio there, while his mother, Bedřiška, stayed home to raise Antonin and his two older sisters. Following the Communist coup in 1948, Antonin’s father’s business was nationalized and his equipment seized. The family was sent to a cooperative in Vinoř where Antonin’s mother worked in the fields and his father in a factory. In 1953, the family moved to the Karlín neighborhood of Prague. Antonin attended school, which he says consisted of ‘indoctrination’ and ‘lies,’ while his father provided books and literature for Antonin to learn from a different perspective. Antonin often assisted his father with his work as a photographer. He was also interested in sports and tramping. After completing ninth grade, Antonin knew he would not be able to continue to higher education because of his bourgeois background, and he trained as a builder.</p><p> </p><p>In 1967, Antonin secured a passport by signing up for a tour to Egypt with a youth organization. Although he did not go on that trip, he used his passport to travel to Yugoslavia. After an unsuccessful first attempt, Antonin crossed the border to Austria in the fall. He was in Traiskirchen refugee camp for a short time and then went to Sweden where he was assigned to work in a boat yard. He soon started his own business dealing in the black market and spent six months in jail in Sweden before returning to Traiskirchen. He next made his way to France and then to Amsterdam. He received a scholarship to attend art school and earned a bachelor’s degree in fine art photography. In 1972, Antonin moved to the United States. He settled in California where he worked for the <em>L.A. Times</em> and became the assistant art director for the <em>L.A. Times</em> magazine. He also opened a studio where he shot album covers and publicity photos for musicians. Antonin moved to New York where he focused on photojournalism and earned accolades for his photographs and stories on events such as the 1979 revolution in Iran and the Soviet war in Afghanistan. He also covered the Velvet Revolution in Czechoslovakia for <em>Mother Jones</em>. Antonin has won many awards for his work and has published five books, including <em>Broken Dream: 20 Years of War in Eastern Europe</em>, which documents life under communism. Antonin recently moved back to Prague with his wife.</p>
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
National Czech & Slovak Museum & Library
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
NCSML Archive
Arts
Refugee camp
school
Vinor
Western/Pop culture
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99dfaa0bd07fec1570a4aeab77b88262
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Recording Voices & Documenting Memories of Czech & Slovak Americans
Subject
The topic of the resource
Recording Voices & Documenting Memories of Czech & Slovak Americans was an oral history project launched by the National Czech & Slovak Museum & Library in 2009. The project captured and preserved the stories of Czechs and Slovaks who left their homeland during the Cold War and settled in New York City, Washington, D.C., Cleveland, Chicago and the San Francisco Bay Area. During the second phase of the project, the NCSML recorded the stories of immigrants who came to the United States after the fall of communism in 1989 as well. By the conclusion of the project in August 2013, the NCSML had collected more than 300 oral histories. <br /><br />Both phases of the project were made possible by grants from the Institute of Museum and Library Services. <br /><br />On the project’s website, you can read biographies of Czechs and Slovaks who began a new life in the United States, watch video clips from their interviews, and view photos and other archival materials they shared with us. <br /><br />Full length interviews are available for further research at the National Czech & Slovak Museum & Library. For more information, contact Dave Muhlena, Library Director, at dmuhlena@ncsml.org.
Oral History
A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
Transcription
Any written text transcribed from a sound
<h4>School</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/97xpUHvEEMk?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0" id="undefined"></iframe><p>“What I remember about school is that the first day of schooling, my official first school experience, was that we had to Heil Hitler when we first started the school day. So these teachers who are all Czech patriots would always do it funny. They wouldn’t do it right, and then the principal would walk down the hall and if he saw a teacher doing it wrong, they could be reprimanded. But they’d do that as a gesture of anti-Nazi [sentiment].”</p><p><em>And the principal was a Nazi?</em></p><p>“No, no, just a Czech that was concerned that a Nazi might be looking over or some inspector would come and see this. The other thing we did was we had to learn German, so as a point of patriotism we made sure we didn’t do well. So I could have very good German, but I don’t because of this. We’d come back with a C [grade] and the parents would say ‘Great! You’re doing great.’”</p><h4>Concentration Camp</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/U1_RboI6iQk?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0"></iframe><p>“My mother, at the end of the War, came back first, and I was living with an uncle of mine. I was so happy to see her; I said I wanted to go home immediately, so we went out on the street and we hailed a truck, and this truck took us home and I was so happy. It had to be one of the happiest days of my life. And then from that point on, everyday my mother would go to meet the transports to see if my father was on a transport coming back from Mauthausen, and for days and days she came back with nothing, so I kind of thought ‘Well, that may be it,’ but then one day she found him.”</p><h4>Mission</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/2izCULfcufo?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0"></iframe><p>“My father, in 1947, came to the States on a mission connected with the YMCA, because he was involved with the Y. He went back [to Czechoslovakia] thinking he had done his mission which was to explain to the Americans that Czechoslovakia was going to be the bridge between the two, between East and West. So it might be communist, but it wouldn’t be anti-American, because the Czech communists were different. Bad idea, but at that time he was operating on that idea.”</p><p><em>Did they believe him?</em></p><p>“Well, some people did because Czechoslovakia had been liberated by both, Russians and the Americans, so on that basis there was this thought that it could be the bridge between East and West. And my father believed it at the time. So he made a tour; it was two months or so. And he thought the tour went well as far as getting the idea across, that Czechoslovakia was not part of the Soviet bloc.”</p><h4>Decision</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Qt8PvZmbuzs?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0"></iframe><p>“My father, I think, was very conscious of the fact that he wouldn’t survive another concentration camp or another prison. My mother was aware of that as well. So no, he did not hesitate at all, because other people were already getting arrested. And, actually, when he was being interrogated by the communists, it just happened that this guy came in and he said ‘Oh, you’re here’ and my father said ‘Yes, I was asked to appear at some hearing’ and this guy said ‘You come see me after you’re finished at [a] room’ in this office building. So my father went there and this guy said ‘You remember me?’ and my father said ‘Of course I remember you.’ It turned out that he had been in Mauthausen with my father but he was a big communist now and he told my father ‘Get out as quick as you can,’ so we did. But even if that hadn’t happened, I think he would have gone, because my father felt so strongly that he couldn’t survive another thing like that.”</p><p><em>Well that’s very kind of the communist.</em></p><p>“See the reason he did that is that my father had been very good to him in the camp. He would always give him an extra roll or whatever because he liked him as a human being. He was always very cooperative and very kind. He was a nice guy.”</p><h4>No Communication</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/5tziM5eW87I?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0"></iframe><p>“There was always that fear that we would get them in trouble, so we never wrote, and I think at some point they must have found out where we were, but there was no contact. Except one time. One time, the uncle that I used to live with during the War – he was a doctor – he did get out for a conference in Munich and my parents were in Munich. He wrote them, or they were somehow able to communicate and he said ‘Is there anything you want that you left behind?’ Even though we hadn’t told anybody, my mother did tell him that we were going to leave, and he said ‘If there’s anything you really want, bring it to our house and we’ll keep it for you.’ So when my parents asked if there was anything we really wanted to have if we ever came back, I decided to pack up my glass menagerie and it was taken to my uncle’s house, where I lived during the War. Then in the early ‘70s he was able to get out of the country to go to a medical conference and he was able to go to Munich. Somehow he was able to communicate with my parents and he asked ‘Is there anything I can bring?’ They said ‘Bring Barbara’s menagerie if you can’ and he did. So this is extremely precious. And now I’ve added to it a little bit since, and now my grandsons adore this menagerie and they’re so good. They just kneel and look and study and gaze at these wonderful blown-glass figurines.”</p><p><em>So these are examples of Czech glass.</em></p><p>“Exactly. Well, now there’s some other things in there now, but mostly they’re Czech blown glass.”</p><h4>Going Back</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/FGfNjSDG-E0?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0"></iframe><p>“The general atmosphere, even though it was hopeful, seemed grim to me and the conversations sounded like conversations I remembered after the War, like ‘This person’s coming back from prison;’ ‘This person’s being arrested by the communists;’ ‘This person’s being somehow mistreated.’ It sounded so similar that I decided I wouldn’t go back until things really changed. Then it looked like things were going to change, for the better obviously, but that got completely nixed by the Soviets, so then it was another 20 years. I didn’t go back until 1990 and then I started going back a lot. And then in 2007, I had a wonderful swan song of my career. I took 20 Hofstra students to Prague. I was the director of the whole program.”</p><p><em>What was the program?</em></p><p>“Hofstra University in Prague. They got credit for history, art, architecture… We had about five or six courses, they could choose three and they got nine credits, and we also did a trip to Auschwitz. It was wonderful. These kids were so wonderful. I was so proud of them. They were great.”</p>
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Barbara Reinfeld
Description
An account of the resource
<p>Barbara Reinfeld was born in Prague in 1935. Her father, Miloslav, was a journalist who had also worked as a parliamentary stenographer for the National Socialist (or Beneš) Party. Her mother, Zdislava, who studied in the United States for two years, taught English and physical education before Barbara and her older brother, Erazim, were born. In 1941, Barbara’s father was arrested for resistance activity and sent to Pankrác prison for one year. He was then sent to Mauthausen concentration camp for the remainder of the War. Barbara’s mother was taken to Terezín in 1944. While both of her parents were imprisoned, Barbara lived with her mother’s brother in Prague. Barbara’s parents survived Nazi detention and returned to Prague at the end of the War. In 1947, Barbara’s father, who was active in the YMCA, was sent to the United States on a goodwill mission. Soon after he returned, the Communist coup occurred and Barbara’s parents decided to leave the country. In March 1948, the family traveled to Kvilda in southern Bohemia where they met a guide and other escapees. They crossed into Germany on foot and were sent to Regensburg refugee camp. Barbara’s father, with his connections through the YMCA, secured an apartment for the family in Munich where they stayed for almost one year while waiting for permission to immigrate to the United States.</p><p> </p><p>In August 1949, Barbara and her family sailed to New York City. They were greeted by their sponsor, Mr. Sibley, whom Barbara’s father had met while on his mission to the United States. For a few months, Barbara’s family lived on a farm owned by Mr. Sibley in upstate New York. In 1950, Barbara’s father got a job with Radio Free Europe and they moved to the borough of Queens in New York City. Barbara attended Adelphi Academy in Brooklyn and then Carleton College in Minnesota. Meanwhile, Barbara’s parents moved to Munich where her father continued his work with Radio Free Europe and her mother became a librarian. Barbara received her master’s degree in history from Columbia University and began studying for her doctorate. She married and had two children. Barbara returned to Czechoslovakia twice in the 1960s. She finished her dissertation on the Czech writer and journalist Karel Havlíček Borovský and received her doctorate in Czech history from Columbia in 1979. Barbara taught history at the New York Institute of Technology and Hofstra University for over 25 years. In 2007, she took a group of students from Hofstra to Prague where they took classes and experienced the culture. Barbara has been a long-standing member of the Czechoslovak Society of Arts and Sciences (SVU). In her retirement, she volunteers at local landmarks and is looking forward to traveling to her home country once again. Today, Barbara lives in Carle Place, New York, with her husband, Bob.</p>
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
National Czech & Slovak Museum & Library
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
NCSML Archive
1948 emigrant/refugee
Benes
Child emigre
Community Life
Concentration camp
Education
Journalism
Karel Havlicek Borovsky
Kohakova
Pankrac
school
Teachers
World War II
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b675dac4a9fe11b1ca22beff55b00eda
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Recording Voices & Documenting Memories of Czech & Slovak Americans
Subject
The topic of the resource
Recording Voices & Documenting Memories of Czech & Slovak Americans was an oral history project launched by the National Czech & Slovak Museum & Library in 2009. The project captured and preserved the stories of Czechs and Slovaks who left their homeland during the Cold War and settled in New York City, Washington, D.C., Cleveland, Chicago and the San Francisco Bay Area. During the second phase of the project, the NCSML recorded the stories of immigrants who came to the United States after the fall of communism in 1989 as well. By the conclusion of the project in August 2013, the NCSML had collected more than 300 oral histories. <br /><br />Both phases of the project were made possible by grants from the Institute of Museum and Library Services. <br /><br />On the project’s website, you can read biographies of Czechs and Slovaks who began a new life in the United States, watch video clips from their interviews, and view photos and other archival materials they shared with us. <br /><br />Full length interviews are available for further research at the National Czech & Slovak Museum & Library. For more information, contact Dave Muhlena, Library Director, at dmuhlena@ncsml.org.
Oral History
A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
Transcription
Any written text transcribed from a sound
<h4>Schooling</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/ISZsvP2FGSg?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0" id="undefined"></iframe><p>“We were never told the right history, for example, the history of the First Slovak Republic. That was completely wiped out from history. I never knew that we had a Slovak flag, Slovak emblem, Slovak national anthem and all that until I came to Canada. So that was kind of blocked out from the younger generation. And I think that’s sad, because history is history and should be taught as history was and is going and so forth. Because you cannot wipe that out. Sooner or later that registers somewhere.</p><p>“But as I kid I did not [notice this], the only thing at times that I would here was if a young man or a woman wanted to go to study university and have a good position, then they had to deny their religion. If they didn’t, then they were not allowed to go to those schools. Or in one case that I know, one of my cousins, he finished his university in ten years, by [studying] in the evenings or something like that, and in some cases even grandparents would have to deny the religion, not only the parents. So, that would be the oppression, I would say. Sometimes that would come up from the kids, like when there was the feast of St Nicholas, Svätého Mikuláša, they usually had their shoes out, clean and all that but you didn’t talk with the teacher about it. Nothing about religion. If something came up, it was like ‘stop talking about it.’”</p><h4>Gardening</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/r4AbjHqoyXY?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0"></iframe><p><span style="line-height:1.5;">“As a kid, I always was in the garden, and then when my mother, God rest her soul, was able to come here for the first time, then she even told me that the neighbors, the ladies, when they used to go to the forest to get some sticks for the stove to burn, she says that I was always in the garden weeding out. And the ladies were surprised, they said ‘How come you leave him in the garden, doesn’t he pull out the good with the bad?’ But I seemed to know what to leave and what to pull out. And the lady across the street, she used to bring her pot, soil and cuttings and she said ‘You plant that for me, because it looks like it will grow for you but not for me.’ I always liked to make bouquets and decorations for some reason, so…” </span></p><p></p><h4>Canada</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/XZTGJhAzdbI?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0"></iframe><p><span style="line-height:1.5;">“Once we tasted life in Canada and saw everything in the stores, and the cars and you name it… Of course, for an 18-year-old, the cars were a big thing. The first thing I thought was ‘I will never learn how to drive here!’ Because there were so many cars, big roads, the number of lanes on the highways and stuff. And I said ‘oh my God!’ You know, back home, when I left as an 18 year old, I think there were maybe two cars or three cars, everybody else had bicycles. But it wasn’t that… we always had food back home, and clothes. We were not rich, but we were living.” </span></p><p></p><h4>Staying in Canada</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/99jxVEnbVZ4?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0"></iframe><p>“I think when we came in, in ’67, and got busy with going to English school, then came ’68 and Dubček and a little bit more freedom, and more people were coming, younger, you know. Our age or a little bit older maybe, and so forth. So you had a good number of people who came to Toronto for example. So you got involved with them trying to help them out. There were different organizations, so we used to go almost every Saturday to dances for example. In summertime after mass we went to a farm, soccer, singing and stuff. So we kind of didn’t think about anything at that point. We were just enjoying the freedom and the new way of living. That’s what I would say.”</p><h4>Becoming a Monk</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/DMVZWRBBkX0?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0"></iframe><p>“The monks were singing their vespers and it just came out from me, I have no clue why – I said ‘This would be something for me!’ Crazy! So monsignor said ‘Well, we’ve got the Slovak monks in Cleveland. And I have a number of priests that I know.’ And, he said ‘We can go and visit.’ And I said, ‘Yeah, yeah, okay.’ And that was the end of that. But his friends used to come to Toronto, because he had a cottage and they used to spend some vacations there, so I used to join them the last week of their vacation. And then one of them from Cleveland for some reason said… and he brought me an application to the monastery here one year, and I looked at it and I just threw it in the garbage. So the following year he said ‘What’s the matter? You chicken?’ He said ‘You can come and visit at least?’ So I said ‘Okay.’ So that year we came and I spent about three days with the monks here. And I said ‘Gee! I think I would like it, maybe.’ And so, they told me to come again for a visit and so I came again for a visit, and that’s how I came actually to the monastery in 1980.”</p><h4>Return to Slovakia</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/OGtDUJm8cp8?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0"></iframe><p>“I would say as you are staying longer in a country, you grow more into the country you are living in. But, in your heart, when it is Christmas, Easter, or some other doings, obviously, you miss your parents and your brothers, especially when you are not able to go back. The first time I went back was after the collapse of communism. That was my first time going back. So by that time, both parents were gone, two of my brothers were deceased, even our parents’ house was sold because my brothers were living in other villages. And so when I came, it wasn’t home. I fell in love with my sister-in-law, whom I met for the first time and their kids. And [they were] of course very welcoming, and I felt like I was back at home again, but it’s not the family home in which you’ve grown up. So, we went there to visit the family that bought it, but they were in the process of remodeling, so they had windows where all the doors had been and it looked like after the War!”</p>
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Brother Gabriel Balazovic
Description
An account of the resource
<p>Brother Gabriel Balazovic was born Julián Balažovič in Dolná Krupá, Slovakia, in 1949. His father worked as a forest ranger and then in a facility for the mentally ill, while his mother stayed at home and raised Julián and his six siblings. Upon finishing school in Dolná Krupá, Julián attended Pol’nohospodárska záhradnícka škola (where he trained to become a gardener) in Rakovice. In 1967, he was invited alongside two of his cousins to visit his aunt Mary who lived in Toronto. He accepted her invitation and came to Canada, where he was impressed by the standard of living and decided to stay. Brother Gabriel says he was handed a ten-month prison sentence in absentia for failing to return to Czechoslovakia. In Toronto, he became a very active member of Sts. Cyril & Methodius Slovak Roman Catholic Church, to which his aunt belonged. He says that he enjoyed a busy social life as a member of the parish, attending dances and soccer matches which were organized by the predominantly Slovak congregation. He began to do a lot of singing and reading within the parish, and he met one nun in particular who spoke with him about the possibility of joining a monastic order. At this time, Brother Gabriel says he also subscribed to the Slovak-American magazine Ave Maria, which was published in Cleveland.</p><p> </p><p>It was during a trip to the United States in the late 1970s that Brother Gabriel says he first thought seriously about becoming a monk. He was traveling to a conference when he stopped at the Czech monastery in Lisle, Illinois. There, he says, he heard the monks sing vespers which had a profound effect on him. He was told by a priest traveling with him that there was a Slovak monastery in Cleveland which he may be able to join. After a number of discussions with members of the Benedictine Monastery at St. Andrew Abbey in Cleveland, Ohio, Brother Gabriel did indeed begin the process of taking his vows in 1980. He has lived there and been a member of the order ever since. He returned to Slovakia for the first time to see his family after the fall of communism in 1989. In more recent years, he has traveled to Slovakia to help with the opening of the Benedictine Transfiguration Monastery in Sampor in 2010. Brother Gabriel still travels on a Canadian passport, but became a dual citizen of Canada and Slovakia following the Velvet Revolution.</p>
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
National Czech & Slovak Museum & Library
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
NCSML Archive
Catholicism
Catholics
Community Life
Dolna Krupa
Education
Julian Balazovic
Pol'nohospodarska zahradnicka skola
Religion
school
Svaheto Mikulasa
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8d1b7e5985b998d106a330fabf20cfcb
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Recording Voices & Documenting Memories of Czech & Slovak Americans
Subject
The topic of the resource
Recording Voices & Documenting Memories of Czech & Slovak Americans was an oral history project launched by the National Czech & Slovak Museum & Library in 2009. The project captured and preserved the stories of Czechs and Slovaks who left their homeland during the Cold War and settled in New York City, Washington, D.C., Cleveland, Chicago and the San Francisco Bay Area. During the second phase of the project, the NCSML recorded the stories of immigrants who came to the United States after the fall of communism in 1989 as well. By the conclusion of the project in August 2013, the NCSML had collected more than 300 oral histories. <br /><br />Both phases of the project were made possible by grants from the Institute of Museum and Library Services. <br /><br />On the project’s website, you can read biographies of Czechs and Slovaks who began a new life in the United States, watch video clips from their interviews, and view photos and other archival materials they shared with us. <br /><br />Full length interviews are available for further research at the National Czech & Slovak Museum & Library. For more information, contact Dave Muhlena, Library Director, at dmuhlena@ncsml.org.
Oral History
A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
Transcription
Any written text transcribed from a sound
<h4>WWII</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/iqS28OF33Mo?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0" id="undefined"></iframe><p>“I remember that the Germans came to my house a few times looking for some revolvers or some guns, trying to catch something that could make problems. It worked out all those years pretty good, thank god. We had the pastry shop, so I never knew what it meant to be hungry after all. For example, I walked with my friend home, and her father was working at the match factory. She opened the door and she was yelling, ‘Mom, I’m hungry!’ I thought ‘How does that feel?’ because I really didn’t ever have to feel that, until later when I was on my own.</p><p>“I had a curfew at 8:00 at night no matter what, so I had to be home. I had friends coming, actually even relatives from Prague, because they couldn’t go to their places in Šumava, so they stayed in Sušice and we had good times, because there was a couple of cousins and they’d bring their friends. I had four cousins in Sušice, so we all ganged up together and it was ok. We just had to be careful about what we were doing.”</p><h4>Immigration to Australia</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/SRjmW9ETevU?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0"></iframe><p>“We boarded a boat in Bremerhaven in Germany and [the ship] used to be a military boat before. It took us 38 days to go from there, through the Suez Canal – I should say Gibraltar first – the Suez Canal, and then we finally made it to Melbourne, Australia, and they had a strike so we couldn’t get off the boat. But anyway, we had a good time on the boat. There was about 18 Czech people, guys and women, and everybody had some little duties and I was an assistant to a doctor who was from <em>Podkarpatská</em> [Sub-Carpathian] Russia and he studied in Prague, so he spoke perfect Czech. And he helped us on the boat; we were able to go to the bridge, and the time passed okay. The sea was pretty nice to us; it wasn’t really too bad.</p><p>“So we came to Melbourne, finally made it out, and the Czech people who came already, who came before us, [saying] ‘Is there any Czech on the boat?’ and this and that. So they took us to Bonegilla which was another camp and we stayed a month. I had a month of a beautiful vacation. Beautiful weather; there were guys who rented horses so we went horseback riding; we had bicycles we could go around on; there was a lake we could go swim in; and they cooked for us! Can you imagine?”</p><h4>Pastry Shop</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/8-8hCD4GmPA?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0"></iframe><p>“We made Czech pastries, Czech <em>kolačky</em> and Czech turnovers. Czech this and Czech that and Czech cookies and Czech rye bread, and it was said that it was a very good bread. So we had a good recipe for it, I guess. I didn’t know how to make bread. My younger son, he would sit in the proof box, watching the bread rise, and when the oven was cleaned up, he would take a rest in there. He would lay down on one of the floors.</p><p>“Cermak Road in the main street in Berwyn and we were close to the crossing of Oak Park – it was like the center of town almost. There were about seven Czech bakeries at the time, and there were different Czech stores, like a furniture store and a clothing store [called] Pivoňka’s, and different things like that. A lot of people spoke Czech in the stores, but they spoke Czech like the Franz Josef Czech was which different. Then came the younger generation, younger emigration. We were not in the store anymore, but we still kept up with all that.”</p>
Dublin Core
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Title
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Dagmar Kostal
Description
An account of the resource
<p>Dagmar Kostal was born in Klatovy (in southwestern Bohemia) in 1925 and grew up in nearby Sušice. Her parents, Karel and Marie, owned a bakery in town. Dagmar attended elementary school in Sušice, but after fifth grade was sent to a school in Hartmanice, a town close to the German border. When the Munich Agreement was signed in September 1938 and Hartmanice (as part of the Sudetenland) was annexed to Germany, Dagmar returned home and finished her schooling there. She then went to school in Písek to learn the baking trade. Following the War, Dagmar apprenticed in Prague, where she also took English classes at Charles University. In 1946, Dagmar continued her training in Basel, Switzerland. When this was complete, she found a job in a pastry shop in Neuchatel where she met and befriended other Czechs. She says that her father urged her to stay abroad, as he was anticipating a communist takeover. When the coup occurred in February 1948, Dagmar knew that she would not be able to return to Czechoslovakia and turned to the International Refugee Organization (IRO). The IRO helped her immigrate to Australia in 1949 where she, after a 38-day boat trip, arrived in Melbourne.</p><p> </p><p>Dagmar stayed at Bonegilla refugee camp for one month – a time that she calls ‘a beautiful vacation.’ She found a job at a bakery and took a room in a house with her fellow Czech émigrés. In 1950, Dagmar married Miroslav Kostal. The pair bought their own pastry shop in a suburb of Melbourne and, shortly after, had their first son, Michael. Eight years later, the Kostals moved to the United States with the idea of going into business with Miroslav’s uncle. In 1959, they sailed to San Francisco and drove to New York while stopping at landmarks throughout the country. After a short time in New York and New Jersey, Dagmar and her family moved to the Chicago suburb of Berwyn where they had friends and had enjoyed the large Czech community while passing through. Dagmar and Miroslav again bought a pastry shop which they owned and operated for a number of years. They were active in the Chicago Czech community. Dagmar says that the family spoke Czech at home and both her sons (their younger son Martin was born in the United States) went to Czech school. Dagmar is a dual citizen of the United States and the Czech Republic and says that despite more than 50 years in the United States, her ‘heart is completely Czech.</p>
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
National Czech & Slovak Museum & Library
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
NCSML Archive
1948 emigrant/refugee
Community Life
Cultural Traditions
Hlavata
Refugee camp
school
Susice
World War II
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Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Recording Voices & Documenting Memories of Czech & Slovak Americans
Subject
The topic of the resource
Recording Voices & Documenting Memories of Czech & Slovak Americans was an oral history project launched by the National Czech & Slovak Museum & Library in 2009. The project captured and preserved the stories of Czechs and Slovaks who left their homeland during the Cold War and settled in New York City, Washington, D.C., Cleveland, Chicago and the San Francisco Bay Area. During the second phase of the project, the NCSML recorded the stories of immigrants who came to the United States after the fall of communism in 1989 as well. By the conclusion of the project in August 2013, the NCSML had collected more than 300 oral histories. <br /><br />Both phases of the project were made possible by grants from the Institute of Museum and Library Services. <br /><br />On the project’s website, you can read biographies of Czechs and Slovaks who began a new life in the United States, watch video clips from their interviews, and view photos and other archival materials they shared with us. <br /><br />Full length interviews are available for further research at the National Czech & Slovak Museum & Library. For more information, contact Dave Muhlena, Library Director, at dmuhlena@ncsml.org.
Oral History
A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
Transcription
Any written text transcribed from a sound
<h4>Brewery Experience</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/z9oCjIydGnY?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0" id="undefined"></iframe><p>“The brewery was in Nitra and we were just working there as students. So, they let us go near pivo, or beer, but it was either working with bottles or just little things, because we were there for just four hours. It was partially to see what’s going on so it’s not the first time we walk into a factory after we finish school. So they kind of let us observe what was going on in the real world; that was nice. During summers when I was in school, we used to go for letné aktivita – summer activities – and I spent one month of every summer, while I was in school, in Prague in an ice cream factory – I loved that place! – or I worked in Čelnice where they made fruit compote, so that was really nice. I loved those times because we could see and go to Prague. At that time we paid koruna for the metro, and every day we finished work, we showered, changed our clothes and went to Praha.”</p><h4>Family and Summer</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/WTANmoRURJ8?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0"></iframe><p>“Because my uncle emigrated in ’68, we could not get a passport; we could not go anywhere. So we didn’t travel. We just stayed at home, and I think we lived in one of the most beautiful places in the world in Slovakia with the mountains… We also had a little farm. On top of my parents working, we always had a cow, and of course for winter you had to collect the food for the cows, so my father was working the fields and we went and helped. Then we went in the summer to pick blueberries and wild raspberries, but that was in the mountains. So that’s where are summers were. And we had a little lake, but we had to go on bicycles; it was maybe 6-7 kilometers, but we took our bikes, when our parents let us, and a whole group of kids went there for a whole day and we went to the lake.”</p><h4>Pepsi-Cola Factory</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/AOfuCD_NYew?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0"></iframe><p>“To move to Košice I moved to my aunt’s apartment, because they helped me find the job right after school, and I wanted to go to America to see my uncle. Where I lived, in Banská Bystrica [region], they knew my uncle emigrated and it was on file, but in ’85 there were not many computers and my uncle helped me to get permanent residency in Košice. So because I had permanent residency in Košice, I applied for a visa to America from Košice, and that’s how I could go to America to see my uncle.”</p><h4>Learning English</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/TWezrlhFOVI?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0"></iframe><p>“I went to school, the ESOL program, but most of the English I learned with my kids. They started growing up and we read Slovak stories and then English stories. Watching TV, news, and classical stories. But mostly with kids, when they were doing homework, vocabulary…”</p>
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Elena Brlit
Description
An account of the resource
<p>Elena Brlit was born in Pohorelská Maša in 1964 and grew up in the small village in central Slovakia with her parents, younger brother and younger sister. Elena’s mother, Anna, stayed home while her children were growing up and later worked in the factory in nearby Pohorela. Her father, Juraj, worked in a different factory – one that made pumps. During elementary school, Elena was involved in several activities including dance lessons and skiing. She recalls summers spent picking berries and cycling to a nearby lake with friends. Elena attended high school in Nitra, where she lived in dormitory and studied food chemistry. As part of her education, she and her classmates spent several hours a week observing and working in different settings, including a brewery and ice cream factory.</p><p> </p><p>Elena graduated high school and moved to Košice, where her aunt and uncle had helped her secure a job at the Frucola (Pepsi-Cola) factory. According to Elena, one reason for her move was to attempt to visit the United States. Another uncle had emigrated in 1968, and Elena was unable to receive a visa in her hometown. After establishing permanent residency in Kosice, she was given permission to travel and flew to Florida in June 1985. Although her visa was for 20 days, Elena realized she wanted to stay permanently. Shortly after arriving, she met her future husband, <a href="/web/20170609051416/http://www.ncsml.org/exhibits/emil-brlit/">Emil Brlit</a>, and the two married.</p><p> </p><p>Elena became an American citizen in 2000. Since arriving in the United States, Elena has worked with her husband’s dental lab. The couple has two children, both of whom speak Slovak. Elena and her family regularly travel to Slovakia, as her parents still live in the village where she grew up. She enjoys keeping Slovak traditions and has a large circle of Czech and Slovak friends. Today, Elena lives in Sarasota, Florida, with her husband, Emil.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p>
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
National Czech & Slovak Museum & Library
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
NCSML Archive
Banska
Education
English language
Family life
Haluskova
Kosice
marriage
Pohorelska Masa
Rural life
school
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Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Recording Voices & Documenting Memories of Czech & Slovak Americans
Subject
The topic of the resource
Recording Voices & Documenting Memories of Czech & Slovak Americans was an oral history project launched by the National Czech & Slovak Museum & Library in 2009. The project captured and preserved the stories of Czechs and Slovaks who left their homeland during the Cold War and settled in New York City, Washington, D.C., Cleveland, Chicago and the San Francisco Bay Area. During the second phase of the project, the NCSML recorded the stories of immigrants who came to the United States after the fall of communism in 1989 as well. By the conclusion of the project in August 2013, the NCSML had collected more than 300 oral histories. <br /><br />Both phases of the project were made possible by grants from the Institute of Museum and Library Services. <br /><br />On the project’s website, you can read biographies of Czechs and Slovaks who began a new life in the United States, watch video clips from their interviews, and view photos and other archival materials they shared with us. <br /><br />Full length interviews are available for further research at the National Czech & Slovak Museum & Library. For more information, contact Dave Muhlena, Library Director, at dmuhlena@ncsml.org.
Oral History
A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
Transcription
Any written text transcribed from a sound
<h4>Childhood</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/vOxDzUYCddw?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0" id="undefined"></iframe><p>“I have the best memories. I had a very good childhood. We were kind of middle-class-ish; we had a summer house on the outskirts of Bratislava. In the city we had a three-story building where my family lived too – my grandma lived there, my aunt lived there. I was very, very wanted; I was the [youngest sic] girl after little Theresa died, so I have the best memories. I had excellent school friends. I can say only the very best. A lovely childhood ruined, of course, after 1938 because of the War. Then everything went down.”</p><p><em>What happened?</em></p><p>“For instance, my father was a tailor and he had sometimes even 30 or 40 employees. It was a big enterprise, and lot of the Jewish customers no longer were able to order or came, so that he lost his better lady customers. Because of that, then we moved to a smaller place. The War years were not easy on anybody.”</p><h4>WWII Ends</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/0ODwI_hx1uQ?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0"></iframe><p>“The Germans started to collect any male they could at the very end – and I’m talking here about the end of March and beginning of April 1945; Bratislava was liberated on April 4 – and when my father heard that, and since my brothers were 17 and 18 at that time, in other words, in a very dangerous age group, he wanted to run with them to our summer house and hide there. They were trying to go through the front line where the Russians and Germans were fighting before it closed and they never made it because the Russians came closer and closer. So they made it back to Marianska Street where we lived just in the nick of time. Maybe an hour later Bratislava was occupied by Russians and liberated. Many times we had Russian generals and soldiers sleep in our house. The police came around and asked for people to accommodate, and we had excellent relationships with them, speaking the Russian language too.”</p><p><em>So the Russians were good guys.</em></p><p>“Very. Very welcome, very wanted. For us they were really our liberators.”</p><h4>Multilingual</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/6qmPAwAZRR8?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0"></iframe><p>“My first kindergarten schooling was in the Czech language because we lived in Grösslingová and that was quite a famous city [school] where better middle-class people had their children. This was still under the Czechoslovak Republic when I was born, so my first education was really in the Czech language. Then came the decision to put me in the Ursuline convent school, which was supposedly the best and there we had Hungarian and Slovak mixed education. After that, by 1941-ish, I was enrolled in the German gymnázium, which of course I couldn’t finish. I was 16 [when deported] and not yet ready and I eventually made my maturita examination and finished my gymnázium education in Budapest. So I was raised in four languages. We always spoke all languages at the dinner table. Everybody could say it in the best way he wanted to, so it was an international polyglot family dinner every night.”</p><h4>Hungarian Border</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/eU8EwzqcbPE?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0"></iframe><p>“I left after the Hungarian Revolution and my last day in Hungary was three days before Christmas. My escaping is a very interesting story and luckily, again, I had a good star above me helping me. The railroad people were very kind to us and helped us [know] when to escape and how to escape the last part on foot, because by that time Soviet tanks were already coming on the hour, by the hour and we had a very short time to cross the border. It was very risky. A lot of people died and if we would have been caught, we would have been sent to prison, so that was very difficult. The actual three hours that I needed to cross the border was a very stormy, snowy night and I helped a family with a baby and we most likely walked around in circles. We didn’t know where to go because we couldn’t see in front of our nose; the snow was falling and windy and bad. But here I am and I made it.”</p><h4>NY Job</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/fx4Jo0xBzD4?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0"></iframe><p>“Since my father was a tailor, I had a fashion school degree and I knew a lot about fashion. So I went to the unemployment office here in New York and said that I would like to find a job in the fashion industry, and it happened to be that a company called Johanna Frankfurter was looking for somebody to help. When I went to introduce myself, it turned out to be a lovely lady from Vienna and, since I spoke German and lived in Vienna for a short while, we fell in love and she immediately hired me. All she is asked is ‘Do you know how to make buttonholes?’ and I said ‘Of course I know,’ because there are three types of buttonholes. For those who are not familiar with the fashion industry, you can make them with fabric, you make them as embroidery and you can even match when you have square fabrics and patterns. My father taught me so I knew a lot and the only problem I had when I asked for the job and introduced myself was when she said ‘Make it three-quarters of an inch’ as a sample, and I had no idea what three-quarters of an inch was because I was raised with centimeters. I did not dare to give it away that I didn’t know, so I thought ‘It cannot be that small like on a shirt; it cannot be as big as on a coat; it must be the in-between like on a jacket or something,’ and I made exactly a three-quarters of an inch buttonhole without knowing. So they came and measured it and said ‘Perfect.’ Then I gave it away and said ‘Sorry if I did not match it exactly, because I have no idea what an inch is.’</p><p>“With that, I just indicated I was very ignorant and uneducated for the American system; however, I knew more than anybody else there. They discovered that I knew how to handle velvet, I knew how to handle specials silks, knew how to make patterns, how to cut. So in no time I became almost like the leader at the company which was excellent. The relationship was so good with Mrs. Frankfurter; she became like my mother and I became like her daughter. The other thing was that she let me go and study. I said ‘My goal is that I want to continue and I want to finish and I want to end up with a PhD.’ So she helped me and I could go away anytime I wanted to. For instance, we made fashion shows at the Plaza Hotel, among others, and the wedding dresses, always the biggest job, was always me. And I went there Saturdays and Sundays and I worked on my own to make sure I finished everything. So our relationship was excellent, which gave me an excellent salary that I could pay for Columbia – I didn’t ever have a loan – and could support my parents in Hungary.”</p><h4>Split</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/dnzKx8jwEHA?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0"></iframe><p>“I felt a little disturbed by that. The reason is I was born in Czechoslovakia, so my childhood, my education, my upbringing was always in the Czechoslovak spirit, the Czechoslovak Republic. Then when Slovakia was first created, that was during the fascist period and that was something negative rather than positive. Then after 1945 when Czechoslovakia was combined again, we were euphoric, we were happy. Then came the communist takeover and the whole change, so it’s almost like a roller coaster you go and experience. Now when I go back – the latest was a year ago, to Prague – I think that it was a good decision. That the two have different backgrounds, and I’m talking economic backgrounds. The Czech Republic region was always more industrial and more advanced and the Slovak [region] was more agrarian, so to speak. They always supplied. I was told all the eggs and all the bread always came from Slovakia. True or not true, I do not know. But today Slovakia has a chance to become more industrialized – Volkswagen apparently has a company there and other American steel industries created companies in Slovakia, so they have a chance to grow on their own.”</p>
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Elizabeth Rajec
Description
An account of the resource
<p>Elizabeth Rajec was born in Bratislava in 1931. She grew up in the center of the city where her parents, Vavrinec and Theresa, owned a tailoring business. She also lived with her two brothers, one sister and grandmother. Due to her diverse background (her four grandparents were Austrian, Slovak, Hungarian and Croat), Elizabeth spoke several languages at home and school. Her family owned a cottage in the outskirts of Bratislava and Elizabeth has fond memories of spending summers there. In 1947, Elizabeth and her family were deported to Hungary following the passage of the Beneš decrees. She calls this event ‘devastating,’ especially for her parents. The family settled in Budapest where Elizabeth graduated from <em>gymnázium</em> and studied Germanic languages and literature at university. After graduating, Elizabeth volunteered to translate for a Slovak folk group that was performing in Budapest. She was then offered a job as a translator and director of cultural affairs for a Czechoslovak cultural organization in Budapest.</p><p> </p><p>In December 1956, following the Hungarian Revolution and the subsequent Soviet occupation of the country, Elizabeth decided to leave Hungary. She crossed the border on foot and made her way to a refugee camp in Vienna where she stayed for about one month. She sailed to the United States and arrived in New York in February 1957. After a short stay at Camp Kilmer (a camp for Hungarian refugees in New Brunswick, New Jersey), Elizabeth moved to New York City. She says that although her English language skills were poor, she found a job as a seamstress working for a Viennese woman. While working, Elizabeth was able to attend Columbia University where she received her bachelor’s degree in Germanic language and literature. She later received a master’s degree and doctorate in the same subject from the City University of New York (CUNY). Elizabeth also has a master’s degree in library science from Rutgers University. An expert on Franz Kafka, she taught literature and library courses at City College and the Graduate College of CUNY. She retired as professor emerita from CUNY in 1996 and, in her retirement, has written several books and taken an interest in photography, staging exhibits in the United States and abroad.</p><p> </p><p>Shortly after arriving in the United States, Elizabeth met her husband, Herman Rajec, a Slovak who had immigrated to New York after WWII. The pair became active in the Czechoslovak community in New York, attending dances and events at the Bohemian National Hall. After receiving U.S. citizenship in 1962, Elizabeth returned to Bratislava and Budapest for the first time, and has returned to Europe often to visit family and friends. Today she lives in New York City.</p>
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
National Czech & Slovak Museum & Library
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
NCSML Archive
Czech language
Education
German language
gymnazium
Hungarian language
Molnar
school
Slovak Language
Teachers
World War II
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213ccfdb9ca5eee456fc0c1af3ebb600
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Recording Voices & Documenting Memories of Czech & Slovak Americans
Subject
The topic of the resource
Recording Voices & Documenting Memories of Czech & Slovak Americans was an oral history project launched by the National Czech & Slovak Museum & Library in 2009. The project captured and preserved the stories of Czechs and Slovaks who left their homeland during the Cold War and settled in New York City, Washington, D.C., Cleveland, Chicago and the San Francisco Bay Area. During the second phase of the project, the NCSML recorded the stories of immigrants who came to the United States after the fall of communism in 1989 as well. By the conclusion of the project in August 2013, the NCSML had collected more than 300 oral histories. <br /><br />Both phases of the project were made possible by grants from the Institute of Museum and Library Services. <br /><br />On the project’s website, you can read biographies of Czechs and Slovaks who began a new life in the United States, watch video clips from their interviews, and view photos and other archival materials they shared with us. <br /><br />Full length interviews are available for further research at the National Czech & Slovak Museum & Library. For more information, contact Dave Muhlena, Library Director, at dmuhlena@ncsml.org.
Oral History
A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
Transcription
Any written text transcribed from a sound
<h4>Arrested</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/DLtje_sYlMM?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0" id="undefined"></iframe><p>“My family had a very positive view of the Soviets. Number one, when I was born, my father was already in jail. He was jailed in 1942 – in the spring of 1942 – and he was in a labor/concentration camp called Krems an der Donau in Austria until 1945. And the camp, which was a mix between a labor camp and a concentration camp, was actually liberated by the Red Army. So my father had a very favorable view of the Soviets and the Russians because he was liberated by them, and he, quite frankly, escaped with his life. He was lucky to get home in 1945 and he saw me when I was three years old.”</p><h4>Industrial School</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/iop80fwrN_k?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0"></iframe><p>“I think that it was a very good system, because in this industrial school one day week you actually had to work in a factory. Prague in those days had a lot of industrial productions, basic factories, basic Class A factories manufacturing trucks and railroad cars and streetcars and airplanes. So one day a week we have to go to a factory and physically work with the workers. That, I think, was a great experience to learn what really happens in manufacturing, what really happens in a factory, and I think it was a great experience. Whether it was in a metal working shop or whether it was in a tool making shop, whatever it was, you all of the sudden had an experience with the real world.”</p><h4>Jazz Band</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/tz0cegQoR24?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0"></iframe><p>“If you had an orchestra or a club – any kind of a social gathering – you had to have, under the communist law, something called provozovatel in the Czech language, meaning like a sponsor. You couldn’t just simply have a knitting club, just people getting together and knit, you couldn’t do that. You could knit, but you had to have a sponsor. And it would have to be an organization approved by the system. So we found a couple places where the organization – a youth organization or municipal organization – would allow us to practice and play under their logo. So one of our logos was Youth Group of Fidel Castro. My orchestra was known as the Storyville Jazz Band – Storyville was a part of New Orleans, we studied New Orleans in detail, including the maps – but we were playing as the Storyville Jazz Band, part of the Youth Group of Fidel Castro. So I have a photograph here somewhere where we’re playing, and above us is a big picture of Fidel Castro.”</p><h4>Trouble</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/MYZ6fvEui3w?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0"></iframe><p>“One of the laws in Czechoslovakia was you couldn’t put up a poster, because the police immediately figured out ‘If he puts up a poster, he’s organizing something,’ and that was a no-no. Of course, how do you advertise something all of the dances and all of the stuff, you have to have posters. I was one of the guys who made posters, and in known places in Prague I would go and post the posters. And so twice they basically arrested me for the posters, twice they interrogated me, twice I was in jail because of this poster business. But it wasn’t just the poster, because they always suspected something much more sinister. We weren’t really all that sinister. We just wanted to play jazz and have a good time, but the police and the secret police, they thought ‘Hmm poster.’ So I was in jail. And then I was in jail because I had a gun, which I inherited from my grandfather, and in those days in Czechoslovakia you couldn’t have a gun. I showed it to somebody and he reported it and so they came and jailed me.”</p><p><em>How long were you kept in jail?</em></p><p>“With the gun I was there for two days. In interrogation if you will. You know ‘Where did you get the gun? Who gave you the gun? Is there somebody else who has a gun?’ and that kind of thing.”</p><h4>Computers</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Vk9FOLCLapY?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0"></iframe><p>“There were limits on exports and imports of technology. For example, we were not allowed to import Western technology. Czechoslovakia couldn’t do that. So we were relying on Russian computers, Minsk, which were manufactured in Minsk which is today Belarus. That was the main center of the Russian computer industry. So these computers were decimal computers, and we had access already to magazines from the West and literature from the West. We knew that we were ten years behind in technology. So we worked on them, we did our work, but we knew that this was ridiculous, ‘What are we doing here? We’re working with something which is…’ So absolutely it was stifling. You couldn’t really do much. You had to do what you were told, but you couldn’t really innovate. You couldn’t come up with a better idea. The best people who were in the technology business in those days left or emigrated way before me. It was a nice job, put it this way. I got the salary and I had a nice office and I did interesting things. In those days, we wore white coats. The computer guys and gals wore white coats; we looked like physicians. But it wasn’t really motivating.”</p><h4>Warsaw Pact</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Mm01EbluApA?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0"></iframe><p>“Most of the regiments came from Central Asia. Most of these guys couldn’t speak Czech or Russian. A lot of these guys were Asian folks. I don’t know what they told them, but I think they told them ‘You’re in Germany or some other Western country defending socialism.’ These guys were crazy. Well, they were not only crazy, they were kind of puzzled, they had a puzzled look on them, like ‘Where am I? What’s going on here?’ but many of them were crazy, shooting guns. All of the sudden in the middle of the city you had tanks and guys with the machine guns and bullets flying. It was terrible.”</p><p><em>Did you have any personal encounters with the soldiers?</em></p><p>“Many, many.”</p><p><em>Did you try to talk to them?</em></p><p>“Tried to talk to them. Well, that’s what we did for days and days. We would walk the city, we would sit there with flags and we would try to talk to them, because most of us spoke Russian. So we would approach them, and they were approachable. Not that they were not approachable, because they were village boys from Kazakhstan and they had no idea, so many of them were approachable, and many of them kind of talked. But they really didn’t know where they were. Well, I don’t think they had an idea. The officers did, but I think the staff, I don’t think so.”</p><h4>Next Step</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/WPQOeDs0eE0?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0"></iframe><p>“I was also applying for work at IBM in Austria, and it turns out that in the same building where the main headquarters of IBM in Austria was the Canadian Consulate. One day I was up with IBM, and I’m on the elevator from the IBM office and some people get on the elevator speaking Czech and they say that they just came from the Canadian Consulate and the Canadian Consulate said they can go to Canada. I’d tried, early on, to get to the United States, but the U.S. Embassy told us that it would be a year and a half in a refugee camp, and I thought ‘Well, what am I going to do in a refugee camp? I mean, I don’t want to be in a refugee camp,’ and Ota, my wife, thought the same thing. So we went to the Canadian Embassy the same day. She was sitting down in the café on the sidewalk and I said ‘Hey listen, let’s go back to the Canadian Consulate,’ filled out the form, and the rest is history. Ten days later we were on the plane.”</p>
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Frank Safertal
Description
An account of the resource
<p>Frank Safertal was born in the Holešovice district of Prague in 1942. His father, also named František, had been arrested shortly before Frank’s birth because of his participation in an underground resistance group. Frank’s father was sent to a labor camp in Krems an der Donau in Austria for the remainder of WWII and only saw his son for the first time after the War ended in 1945. During the War, Frank and his mother, Milena, lived with her parents in Holešovice. Upon returning home, František became a manager of a dental sales company, but when the business was nationalized in 1948, the family moved to Jablonec nad Nisou in northern Bohemia where he became the quality control manager of a factory. Four years later, the family returned to Prague. Frank says that his father was passionate about sports and passed the hobby on to him. From a young age, he skied and played tennis and soccer. Influenced by one of his teachers, Frank became interested in music and learned to play piano. After grade school, Frank attended an industrial school, and then enrolled at the University of Economics, Prague (VŠE) for industrial engineering. He says that his time at university was ‘eye-opening,’ both intellectually and politically, and that he began to realize ‘how bad the regime was.’ Frank started a jazz band at this time, and was jailed for advertising dances. He says he was also influenced by Western artists in Prague (such as Gene Deitch and Allen Ginsburg), from whom he heard about life in the United States. Frank graduated from university in 1966 and served one year in the military near the German border in Klatovy. In 1967, he began working as a computer engineer at ‘the nationalized IBM.’ The same year, he met and married his wife, <a href="/web/20170710095022/http://www.ncsml.org/exhibits/otakara-safertal/">Otakara Safertal</a>.</p><p> </p><p>Although Frank had been thinking about spending some time abroad, he says that, following the Warsaw Pact invasion in August 1968, the decision to emigrate was ‘very quick.’ He and Otakara received exit permits and, ten days after the invasion, took the train to Vienna. Frank was encouraged to stay in Austria and even interviewed for a job at IBM, but ultimately, he and Otakara decided to move to Canada. They arrived in Toronto in October 1968, where Frank began taking English classes and became in involved in the Czech theatre group Nové Divadlo with his wife. While working for Hughes Network Systems, Frank lived in Saudi Arabia for four years and Prague for three years (following the Velvet Revolution). In 1998, his employer transferred him to Maryland. While living in the Washington, D.C. area, Frank has been active in the Czech community. He served as the secretary-general of Czechoslovak Society of Arts & Sciences (SVU) for six years and helped organize numerous congresses. Today, he is a consultant for the U.S. Trade and Development Agency and lives in Bethesda, Maryland, with his wife.</p>
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
National Czech & Slovak Museum & Library
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
NCSML Archive
1968
1968 emigrant/refugee
Arrest
Community Life
Czechoslovak resistance during WWII
Engineers
Holesovice
Nove Divadlo
school
Sports
Warsaw Pact invasion
Western/Pop culture
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de50756f63767f4410dc6ccbad260f63
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Recording Voices & Documenting Memories of Czech & Slovak Americans
Subject
The topic of the resource
Recording Voices & Documenting Memories of Czech & Slovak Americans was an oral history project launched by the National Czech & Slovak Museum & Library in 2009. The project captured and preserved the stories of Czechs and Slovaks who left their homeland during the Cold War and settled in New York City, Washington, D.C., Cleveland, Chicago and the San Francisco Bay Area. During the second phase of the project, the NCSML recorded the stories of immigrants who came to the United States after the fall of communism in 1989 as well. By the conclusion of the project in August 2013, the NCSML had collected more than 300 oral histories. <br /><br />Both phases of the project were made possible by grants from the Institute of Museum and Library Services. <br /><br />On the project’s website, you can read biographies of Czechs and Slovaks who began a new life in the United States, watch video clips from their interviews, and view photos and other archival materials they shared with us. <br /><br />Full length interviews are available for further research at the National Czech & Slovak Museum & Library. For more information, contact Dave Muhlena, Library Director, at dmuhlena@ncsml.org.
Oral History
A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
Transcription
Any written text transcribed from a sound
<h4>Family Farm</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/9Vw-D89vpbY?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0" id="undefined"></iframe><p>“As boys we went to school, we came home, we had food on a plate in the kitchen, and then already it was time to line up and we went out and we were working. Even though sometimes we were rebelling, it was good. We learned. Every one of us had a certain job we had to do. Me, as a young boy – I am talking about when I was 12, 13, 14 – we had about five or six cows that I had to take to the pasture. That was my job. Oh, I didn’t like that; I’d say ‘Daddy, today’s Saturday, I want to go running around with the boys,’ and so on. But that was my responsibility. And at home, of course, we had to take care of the chicken and geese and all that stuff we had back at home. But it was a good education. It gave us a certain accomplishment and certain responsibility, and that goes with you for the rest of your life.</p><p>“We were very self-sufficient because we had all the meat; I remember on Sundays, we usually had a rabbit or goose or duck. We were self-sufficient. It was good. Looking back of course, we would say it was all good times; well it was difficult and hard work, without any question, but it was peaceful living in the countryside day after day, and it was a nice way of living.”</p><h4>WWII Education</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/yZ_5PUKE31w?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0"></iframe><p>“If I want to be honest, I had a bad education because those three or four years when I was in high school, we were learning about the Germans, and what was actually produced in Germany and history in Germany, every city in Germany, and we were actually neglecting quite of bit of education that we should have. Except maybe mathematics, but the rest of them – it was really poor education at that time.”</p><h4>Liberation</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/LD6D7cMIMUI?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0"></iframe><p>“I was with a couple of my friends in the fields behind my home, and we were watching what we called – American pilots, they used to fly two of them, we called them – hloubkáři, they used to go down and shoot everything that moved. And we were watching that from the top and we had to be careful because they could even start shooting at us, and if any German transports were moving on the highways, they’d shoot everything down. We were watching them maybe for a couple hours and it was a beautiful show for us boys, 15 years old. And then suddenly, we were standing next to a road coming from another village, Kramolín, to Maňovice, and then suddenly, two Jeeps and a truck with machine gun came in. And that was the first time I saw an American soldier.</p><p>“They came to us and they asked us if there are any Nazis, because there were wooded hills. They were interested if in our village there were any Nazis. We told them ‘No, there are not any Nazis here, we are okay.’ ‘Then you are okay?’ They saluted to us and they left. And I was standing with my friends, and I didn’t mention it to them, but I said to myself, ‘Boy, that would be really something to be an American soldier.’ And that was it, because they had a Jeep and they were dressed up nicely, and I mean, we were all excited because we were free. And I said ‘I would like to be an American soldier.’ And in my wildest dreams, I did not realize in six years, I would be an American soldier. Me, a 15 year old boy, in a village in Czech Republic in Bohemia, it’s impossible. Completely impossible! And it happened.”</p><h4>Boy Scouts</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/2aqNM8gwsf4?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0"></iframe><p>“In 1945 we established [the group]. We had three villages and we had about maybe 45 boys. In 1946 the government gave us actually, after Germans on the border left, a nice cottage in Šumava under Boubín – Boubín is a big hill, forest, it’s a beautiful countryside – and we used to spend summers there. And later on when I was 16, 17, I became an assistant leader of our district group, and I was especially taking care of Cubs. I had about 15 young boys, and that was my life. It was my life, and I used to take my boys to that summer camp for a couple weeks, and that cottage was in a beautiful meadow and there was a little creek next to us, and it was an ideal situation.”</p><p><em>And why did you like Boy Scouts so much? Why did it become so big a part of your life?</em></p><p>“During the second World War, we cannot have anything like that, and we were receiving, or you could buy a magazine about Boy Scouting – it was Mladý Hlasatel – and any young boy has ideals and dreams and so on, and we were [in to] Winnetou, Indians and all this stuff and we want to express ourselves. But like I said, the Germans were very strict and you cannot participate and we never had anything and everything, universities and schools closed down, and when the second World War was over, of course that desire of the youth came up. And here we were.”</p><h4>Reasons</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/GV6OUlIbfpo?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0"></iframe><p>“The reason for my flight abroad: I always had an anti-communist attitude. After the Communist coup in February 1948 in Czechoslovakia, I was deputy chief of the Boy Scout section Chlumy-Maňovice. It was announced to me by the local communist youth organization ČSM – that was Československý svaz mládeže, it was a communist organization – that the Scout organization were to become a branch of ČSM, which was under communist indoctrination. I opposed this strongly, declaring that the Scout organization had been, and always should be, an international and non-political organization. Though I had been threatened, I did not submit to their demands. Therefore, I was declared as a member of the reaction, enemy of the people’s democracy, and unreliable person. Later, information against me was sent to the court, and this was the first step to my arrest – as I was more or less expecting. Therefore, I decided to escape abroad, and I escaped from my country on July 30, 1948.”</p>
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Frank Schultz
Description
An account of the resource
<p><img class="wp-image-4022 alignright" src="http://web.archive.org/web/20170808051333im_/http://ncsml.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/Handler-252.jpg" alt="Handler-2" width="400" height="317" />Frank Schultz was born in Maňovice, southwestern Bohemia, in 1930. One of five sons, Frank grew up on a farm run by his father, Vojtěch, and mother, Marie. He attended elementary school in nearby Mileč and went to high school in the larger town of Nepomuk. Frank says that his education during WWII was ‘poor,’ as the German-centered curriculum was not comprehensive. He spent much of his time helping on the farm. After completing high school in 1944, Frank became an apprentice for his uncle who was a cabinet maker. He traveled by train to Plzeň daily, and recalls his trip being interrupted in the waning days of the War due to bombings of the city. After WWII, Frank became involved in Boy Scouts, which had been banned by the Nazi authorities. He spent a few summers at a scout camp in Šumava as an assistant leader. Frank says that when the Communists came to power in 1948, the Boy Scouts were going to be absorbed by the Československý svaz mládeže (ČSM), a communist youth organization. He says that his opposition to this move branded him an ‘unreliable person’ and, fearing arrest, he made plans to leave the country. While at scout camp in July 1948, Frank crossed the border into Germany.</p><p> </p><p>Frank spent two and a half years in refugee camps in Germany while waiting for a visa to the United States. The majority of that time was spent in Schwäbisch Gmünd, where he established a Boy Scout troop, and in Ludwigsburg. Frank says that he was not given refugee status straight away because he lacked the proper documentation, and that his visa was delayed because of this. In March 1950, Frank received refugee status and a sponsor, and began the process of emigrating. He arrived in New York on December 21, 1950. Sponsored by the National Catholic Welfare Conference, Frank helped on a farm and worked in the carpentry shop at St. Procopius Abbey in Lisle, Illinois. In 1951, Frank joined the U.S. Army and served in Korea for one year. As a result of his service, Frank became an American citizen in 1954 and attended St. Procopius College (now Benedictine University) on the G.I. Bill. He studied political science and economics and began his career as a public health advisor. In 1959, Frank married Pavla Bouzová, whom he had first met ten years earlier at Ludwigsburg; they raised their six children speaking Czech. In 1967, Frank returned to Czechoslovakia for the first time. He says he had an emotional reunion with his four brothers who were at the airport to greet him. Today, Frank lives in Woodridge, Illinois.</p>
Creator
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National Czech & Slovak Museum & Library
Source
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NCSML Archive
1948 emigrant/refugee
Boy Scouts
Ceskoslovensky svaz mladeze
Child emigre
Manovice
Military service
Rural life
school