1 10 927 https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/24397/archive/files/ef2e4dee5afec8f0176e410e6b8cec4d.jpg?Expires=1789603200&Signature=UVH5eBWdxyB84cCM21-b2Y0rSRvcVKSTVyeEIoW5b0zs9PN9sNdDfJiOrarXGAadahVXSYGaQkgRy0K9u51Buk-gd1thrrgqLcwLT07bTIWMN18wEKN7%7EFHCwojmUuKD3Wd1KdN%7EzrbC0j0rjxnO2S3VRTygBmpaUqeDqmNOfn2oiP8cjRxxNIINNEfIgGLqmgghrzOU9cRgsVr0fjySVE9qla9rbDOuUpO4V2Vl0ypydnOaAosUfT3yd7hQ6EKtvIg4WkF93E4Jzw7R8XFFp2LNNOGL1zwC0UxW8Zy9b5QPtXILm8vphFJuXD2fIK8ahW4hrfkZSWoTyuUgvCUaCA__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM 331c330fdf4cbe0301c9d420e9d58030 https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/24397/archive/files/c1b5a34df24addaab3869bc2d0ae8245.jpg?Expires=1789603200&Signature=CAcGg-Py0aHcKchZGVZX9UbNjLmq334cY4WL%7EoGn67BVuc5qPIa3Q4-5Ivndrs00C4TXUsz-LNS7dJeL1Y97OpVZkgC53wCuo41vcRMcu-WEtyRd3Hi9I1DHuHoVD8hZmN9vYciFD2fAslCDoUJwT0YERCUTNG6CCUmI2fHz85LRxolRD98NTDyezMdG5P9w7n7wKTXLnYAiBEwtR0k0ZAIYJsZo42s20e1Mlp7w2UR5hjvTiKGG18zKij3iB%7EvPuiJuTAqO9XUVuLb3L%7ErQg%7Elmn8PI7lnh6rsJUpQ0kBw7AG1n5jbq32fy1izYsizGX7vxLEQZKnjVVzbelWN0aA__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM 6f501f3830f887acda774b629f13294e 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 &amp; Documenting Memories of Czech &amp; Slovak Americans was an oral history project launched by the National Czech &amp; Slovak Museum &amp; 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 &amp; Slovak Museum &amp; 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>Cartoons</h4> <iframe width="300" height="300" title="YouTube video player" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/ZCQDKGkeYPo?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0" id="undefined"></iframe> <p>“I was infected with all these kinds of things, of ways of creatively communicating; and seeing the cartoons every day, I got to be really big on Mickey Mouse and all the cartoons of the day. When I did get up into the high school level and was putting out this magazine, and the magazine, incidentally, was called The Hollywood Star News, and we made ourselves fake press cards. By this time we were teenagers and we were even able to borrow my partner’s car – he was the son of a doctor so they had money – and we would actually go to the cartoon studios, show our press cards – and it was a great joke, a great laugh – and they always let us in. And I met the real, great stars of the Disney studios in those days as a kid. Later I even found one guy, Ward Kimball, who remembered me. He was one of Disney’s Nine Old Men (the Disney studios had key animators they called the Nine Old Men). But when I first met them, I was a kid and they took me in to their work, they showed me their test animation on the movie auto machine, and I immediately became infected with that, and because I had this toy [movie] projector, all these things somehow came together and focused me on what I really wanted to do.”</p> <h4>Czech Impressions</h4> <iframe width="300" height="300" title="YouTube video player" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/rEdBjdW9Yx4?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0"></iframe> <p>“When this plane landed, of course the airport in Prague was extremely primitive then, and we landed at what looked like a shack, a wooden building that actually a neon hammer and sickle over the top, and it was really a foggy day in October. It was creepy; I was scared as hell coming in there. Out of the fog comes loping this woman right onto the tarmac – in spite of the fact that there was communism and everything, you could do things then you couldn’t possibly do today, just walk out on to the tarmac where the airplanes are landing, and there wasn’t any fancy way of getting off the plane; they just moved a ladder up to the plane, a metal ladder, and you walked down – and she comes to me with her had stuck out and said ‘Mr. Deitch, if you thought you were going to be taken directly from the airport to the jail, it’s not true. Welcome to Prague.’ Those were the first words I heard getting off the plane, because she knew that any American coming here was going to be frightened at the idea of coming to a communist country. And, of course, they took my passport away right away, and I began to wonder whether this whole thing was a trap, I was being set up, who knows what. I was absolutely in the dark, and I couldn’t understand a word anybody was saying, so that was my introduction.”</p> <h4>Unexpected Experience</h4> <iframe width="300" height="300" title="YouTube video player" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/qw26VYiflfw?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0"></iframe> <p>“Naturally, in my situation of being here officially with a contract and everything, making films for export to America, I was invited to different affairs and I did meet communist dignitaries. Nikita Khrushchev was supposed to have said, or he did say in the U.N., ‘We will defeat you, we will overcome you, we will prevail…’ Nobody ever said that to me here; that was the funny thing. I would meet ministers in the government who’d say ‘Oh Mr. Deitch, we’ve heard you were here, we hope that everything is ok. We know we don’t have everything that you’re used to, but we’re making great progress,’ and always apologizing. They never said ‘We will defeat you.’ They never said ‘Communism is going to prevail in the world.’ They were quite aware of how I was seeing it. That it was primitive and it was rundown and that you couldn’t buy anything in the store. There weren’t enough fruit and vegetables in the store. There wasn’t enough of anything; you couldn’t even buy toilet paper. So there was no point in them trying to tell me how great everything was. They just said ‘Of course we’re having certain difficulties because we’re isolated and there are trade embargoes against us and we are struggling. We know we don’t have the things we’re used to, but we hope that you’re comfortable. We try to make everything as good as we can.’ But they were really defensive. That was the amazing thing. Nobody tried to give me propaganda. Nobody. It was really amazing. First of all, even those people, even those high [ranking] people didn’t believe in any of it. It was just the way that it was and the way that it had to be.”</p> <h4>Don't Talk About It</h4> <iframe width="300" height="300" title="YouTube video player" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/jTgl-X1soKY?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0"></iframe> <p>“Just the fact that I was here was the message. I realized that I didn’t have to say how great capitalism was, and I mean, I had plenty of problems with capitalism. They saw that I had an American passport. That I could get in my car and drive in the morning and do shopping in West Germany and come back with all the things I needed in one day. They thought that was amazing. They said ‘Any of us who would be able to cross that barbed wire fence and get out of this country, we’d never come back!’ But that I got in my car in the morning and drove there and back the same night with all the stuff in my car – that was the message. What did I have to say? I didn’t have to say anything. It’s just the fact that I realized that all I needed to do was be here, stay out of trouble and I was the message without having to say one word in favor of capitalism.”</p> <h4>Friend of Seeger</h4> <iframe width="300" height="300" title="YouTube video player" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/fHf-fy97H9I?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0"></iframe> <p>“He came to Prague in 1964 and gave a series of concerts which I recorded. The local Communists, on the one hand, were happy to have him come, but on the other hand, were suspicious because they knew he was an American Communist, and that was not the kind of communist they were. They didn’t bother to record him. By that time, I had really good, professional equipment, and I did record his concerts, and they realized too late the importance of his visiting here. Supraphon, the recording company here, they never did record him, they had to buy my recordings, and they did put it out on an LP, and later it’s been put on CD of those original recordings of mine.”</p> <h4>Prague Spring</h4> <iframe width="300" height="300" title="YouTube video player" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/9ef4l4pxhJ0?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0"></iframe> <p>“Things were gradually… in the mid-’60s you started to see a few things in the newspapers that seemed to be really weird, little by little. There was even, in the late 1960’s, a picture suddenly of Masaryk was published in one of the literary newspapers. That was just a miracle, tiny little picture of Masaryk. His name was never mentioned; he didn’t even exist as far as the news here or in Rudé právo, a Communist newspaper, his name was never mentioned. So when things like that started to happen, you knew something was happening. And then plays by Václav Havel began to be performed at the Theatre on the Balustrade [Divadlo na zábradlí]. There was a certain softening up; we began to have a little hope. Better quality goods began appearing in the shops in the mid-’60s. But you couldn’t take it too seriously, but there was a certain kind of liberalization. There was obviously an internal pressure within the Communist Party and we didn’t know from whom. But January 1, 1968 suddenly we heard this guy – never heard of him – Alexander Dubček was named First Secretary of the Communist Party, and week by week, month by month, really strange things started happening.</p> <p>“We knew something was really happening, it was absolutely beyond understanding that this was going on. And suddenly newspapers started to print interesting stuff, magazine articles and even the news reels were all propaganda before. So then the highlight came in May. The May Day parade in 1968 was something unforgettable. This was the first time we all wanted to go there, even me, and I never wanted to go to Communist things like this, but we said we were all going to go to the parade this time. We all wanted to go past that stand and wave to Dubček, because he suddenly was a fantastic hero.”</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 Gene Deitch Description An account of the resource <p>Gene Deitch was born in Chicago in 1924 to Ruth Delson Deitch and Joseph Deitch, a salesman. The Deitch family moved to California after the stock market crash in 1929 and Gene started school in Hollywood. Gene enjoyed creating classroom and neighborhood newspapers, and the different printing techniques he used over the years speak to his lifelong love of technology. He was also fascinated by the movie industry and especially enjoyed watching cartoon shorts. After graduating from Los Angeles High School in 1942, Gene joined the war effort and drew aircraft blueprints for North American Aviation. It was there he met his first wife, Marie. They married in 1943 and had three sons together. That same year, Gene was drafted and, although he trained to become a pilot, he fell ill with pneumonia and was honorably discharged in May 1944.</p> <p> </p> <p>Gene embarked on a career as a cartoonist and animator. He drew covers and cartoons for the jazz magazine The Record Changer and joined the animation studio UPA (United Productions of America). He later became the creative director of CBS Terrytoons. In 1959, Gene had started his own studio, Gene Deitch Associates, Inc, which was primarily producing commercials. He was asked to travel to Prague by a client who wanted him to direct a film there. As Gene was reluctant, this client promised to fund a project particularly close to Gene’s heart (the pet project was a film called Munro – which later won an Oscar). In October 1959, Gene arrived in Prague, and he recalls his first impression of the city as ‘creepy.’ However, he soon met Zdenka Najmanová, the studio’s production manager, and fell in love with both her and the city. Gene says that as soon as he returned to the States, he was ‘looking for ways to get back’ to Prague. He returned shortly thereafter and married Zdenka in 1964. Gene’s career flourished in Prague; he produced many films, including several installments of the popular series Tom and Jerry.</p> <p> </p> <p>Gene says that he was received with some suspicion in communist Czechoslovakia; his reasons for being there – love and work – were too simple for people to believe. Following the Warsaw Pact invasion in August 1968, Gene and Zdenka traveled to Vienna to contact his family back in the United States. When they attempted to return, Gene says they were not allowed back in, as the country had closed its borders. The two went to Norway to work on a project while the studio convinced the government that Gene’s work was beneficial to the country and that he should be allowed to return. He says that in the mid-1980s, the two considered moving to the United States, and even went so far as to buy a house in San Francisco; however, the event of the Velvet Revolution led them to stay in Prague. Gene remains an American citizen and over the years he has frequently traveled back to the United States. Today, he lives in Prague with Zdenka.</p> <p><a id="ucRelatedViewer_dlRelated_ctl00_lnkView" class="lnkRelatedItem" href="http://web.archive.org/web/20170609114816/http://genedeitch.com/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Gene’s web site</a></p> <p><a id="ucRelatedViewer_dlRelated_ctl01_lnkView" class="lnkRelatedItem" href="http://web.archive.org/web/20170609114816/http://genedeitchcredits.com/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Gene’s newest project, an online book about people who have influenced him</a></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 Arts marriage Prague Spring https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/24397/archive/files/b8cadd08a4bdc8c1066d81ccffa94908.jpg?Expires=1789603200&Signature=U%7EyK6nTIkYy5Op0B-Ox2DKaliwD8h4h7nUnLzfbOKsD2qoQJZeg2oUgsEwSP7rpOPMA8jqmJCzSzIkfI3uEHR1a6kEewnjDzx4hG6cTPhiVSmmZsGpgwdjypVVaAGegK6koMo6bEesRgyaJsLNmVEoQXiy6-4clcrmHsLXYbOcsQLKQvImCM2wPKZZCGKV-pZgO%7EHAyx43X9R9kb3%7E5z1wpZQBo1NWSFa7yo2FsRy6%7E6ZOEKcRYYutAmdADkgEzPRIlOkxN855U%7EoAdehaf7Zw8Eh8DaVgPOOHMEqWXHLwSxKjnDuOfc3L35mMjHWbiiR0FwPPRAEM8G1v%7E0PnLmdg__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM b473f434fd4abfc87504cdbc80450d12 https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/24397/archive/files/398ccc01fa97a14a87cb6ec5fecc3200.jpg?Expires=1789603200&Signature=aEoW7m%7EoN9s%7E%7E0g0pqfUuGFquWu16AwWHb3RGQ5jozeuNFKwx%7EavqOmoyL3qoQG0RkUWKbGcll1UudNzLhxTy5mb1KzDi0WAVus27ZwP5zZwNAmN0wxumgQtbxJCIUp4v9aqLI6S8EyH3d4tVQ2XoI5grIhmpkCCzGd51Ju8-zIMhkCBRg-Lirur33maIyW3JSMzVuE9TJz0SIkIbte0ixBXbW1dNADicQn7TsblLAFRYyVtV7F-CN7krV2Vv%7E9IskviDBUuIgiswnWjVPJh--4GkPAr2uADnOH3BlkpbEY3tenlV%7ETisc8I26i0KbD9qdy9Mm2hCgzdaULO9OzPtw__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM c46ec42d5142c84fb47761a1ba1e1d06 https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/24397/archive/files/53eff83c3574a773b78095495a92f701.jpg?Expires=1789603200&Signature=FzgXbqQ-REiEpCzN97e8sNWiqCs6ePUxdZKs0dDxT7KXonz%7EY05zP7FMXxUHjuUHK5EQA9c2uWKStcl0Vq2KvEtqfK0W70mYwEPSDJfTbhWH-5h2ObDlr08sGfN%7Eo9VfsrtUYUGzcQUy5VrijluzXHbimx92lSArH3YaW9%7EIQBEgKyCdgvftDruIiFlGmpvxH2slrtzy24q6u4eqmPD%7EDMjrMrpIenfa9AxReWPMF6SDjFEoe9xHkAaB51gTw742UAeUtC55G8ieEqIIjkYhbwBQxK8IocpdYk0tEb9H1LInkFh2kqC6ervzKQtyBBxMwgSQq%7E3KwJ-ciN4YEwx%7Eww__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM e62e67ca748e9ba589cb0756d73b52a0 https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/24397/archive/files/bea60f2bb36eb982aa5a17eb51e3799a.jpg?Expires=1789603200&Signature=POLpcp4kbOnhHh%7EyRoR88JYBVSInLkCRTbi0odhBs9gszIOGpZp04wRmue7P%7EkgREr81kaJd6GGWIoQaBQCy-mWVw-9adLtZ5x3di4JcsAy7Wg89TQCXaftD-DJnBdcqdKPg4bh1rU7F7-gSpZS0XOCJVASNBl2l87tYmdADc7cDwCzBl47RoRO-tXNq3rsnumOsYWq9d2pWBMOHDghOMK6tMKKsLDSNvcyyVDv54wAwTeeQdbXSVmCYAWnYeorHH4zdASlHy%7EPJYRDi0H74Bwll4tTY1pprs6I3hByhgvEDVoXREckJccXoCw3pDwRIegGgL%7EtoiJ7o4gNo7vqb4g__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM cf026f5d7853ad3d56274907036f69cc https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/24397/archive/files/a433f0fd7e46f5776041cc4a2003e480.jpg?Expires=1789603200&Signature=tXSh%7ER%7EYjA9hjbQbIZEKdKv1dCbHVpyhqDwGX5j8NhV7kdj9hW%7EiS24iiiSTpTjhAq71PPp5qtoNYuWz4Uona-Q5dHTYP5jOIOlpuDk3VlSvQIMqcDA6V%7E4LCTYiY2uydvYLZe%7EVgdHkZBiqxZZ4YY04ZXulT5dlCL4Tex3BzPGyxNDkeadOi7dtmQOFgYLVHeUBzcLMMKAuE4irBLraKHe2vbl%7EDJODSb-k8TfiZLMCPJteqMuDXKlPeLkMsR1EmmxJTlfquOBMFvErfdyueCS22J5GVmaOFU3elG2B6Xuh18iudLK%7EGmCz11r9sLRea3v7YLDRCB0YPGyNkj4rsQ__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM 0868cdb8498b1e3a327ac71e966c98c1 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 &amp; Documenting Memories of Czech &amp; Slovak Americans was an oral history project launched by the National Czech &amp; Slovak Museum &amp; 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 &amp; Slovak Museum &amp; 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>Higher Education</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/jo3ve1tlXIU?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0" id="undefined"></iframe><p>“It wasn’t a difficult life economically, but it was really very much supervised by the totalitarian regime, so if you weren’t politically recognized as approving of the system, all kind of difficulties would arise. I remember when I was graduating from gymnázium, there was some case as two of my classmates were accused of stealing some money from the Pioneer organization but I knew they were not guilty, that somebody from the faculty was putting it on them. There was an election [to determine] if they should be expelled from school or whatever. In our class, we had a vote and I was one of three – nobody voted against it – we were looking for proof and proof didn’t come, so I abstained. The director of the school took it so seriously that she made a personal phone call to make sure that we couldn’t continue higher education.”</p><h4>Communist Effect</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/-PKfoi0OOCc?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0"></iframe><p>“We never collaborated with the system, but I think the system kind of subconsciously wrote off a certain percentage of the population as ‘We will not bother them much. We will not let them study, but besides that, they won’t do anything subversive.’ So we were not really under terrific scrutiny. There was a lady across the street who made sure we didn’t…She reported anything on us but, still, it wasn’t awful. It wasn’t life threatening. So we could kind of adjust our lives, and we were church-goers. We were known for that and it was probably held against us, but we just wouldn’t change our lifestyles.”</p><h4>Small Things Help</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/xZiqvJQ-x7k?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0"></iframe><p>“For example, if you were newlyweds, where do you live? To get an apartment was difficult. You waited years for an apartment. To have money to build a house, you had to be really cooperating with the system or stealing left and right. There were many people like that. But my wife, she was already working at the time for six years and she was saving money and she was a member of the cooperative where eventually you were entitled to a certain apartment in a certain area. So she had already saved enough money; she was on the list that year to get an apartment and everybody knew about it: ‘Oh the Biseks are getting an apartment. They are lucky. They are getting a two plus one apartment in the new apartment house in Podolí’ – which was a very nice area. So nobody thought that we would be leaving, having this opportunity. She had the money saved in a savings account, so that was one thing that worked for us. No suspicion. Second thing, every place of work, if it’s a factory or a publishing house, has it’s workers’ committee that’s supposed to be ruled by the Communist branch in that place, which decides what’s done and wasn’t done. So it was a kind of fake, self-governing body, and in that printing plant where I worked, I represented youth on that committee, even though I wasn’t a Communist member – not all were members of the Communist Party. So again, everybody thought ‘Hey he’s going up; he’s starting his career.’ There was no suspicion that I was going to leave. And also, I played basketball and I broke my pinkie finger playing basketball, so I was on medical leave. So for about two weeks, I wasn’t going to work so I couldn’t even hint at it. They had no clue.”</p><h4>Sailing to NYC</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/kFOjLDb1DeU?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0"></iframe><p>“We bought a one-way ticket by cargo ship and we were one of the last ones who came on a ship and landed on a dock in Brooklyn. Docks were still functioning docks at the time, so I remember after we got off the ship early in the morning, we are standing in the middle of the [docks], longshoremen all around. Standing there with two bags, $180 in our pockets and [thinking] ‘What are we supposed to do?’ We had a sponsor who we never met. The sponsor went bankrupt before we arrived, so we were standing there: ‘What am I supposed to do? Should we take the same boat going back?’ But there was another passenger on the ship. She was a young American lady who just graduated from architecture design in Rhode Island [Rhode Island Institute of Design] – I remember quite a bit – and when she saw us she took us in, and it was quite a shock because she lived on Fifth Avenue. She had a limousine with a chauffeur waiting for her. So the first week we spent on Fifth Avenue, just across the street from the Metropolitan Museum [of Art].”</p><h4>Czech Newspaper</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/fyHJg2q7HfI?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0"></iframe><p>“We wanted to, first of all, inform, because information was, at that time, was most important. Phone calls and faxes just wouldn’t do it and the internet was only beginning. So information, and then slowly we grew from eight to twelve pages, and then sixteen pages, and we filled those extra pages with more than just information. Once in a while we would publish a new book, something that wasn’t on the market yet. At first we had a contributor who was writing a children’s book, so each issue we would have a terrific short story for children. We had one page devoted to children. We had a page that grew professionally and became first rate in sports, because we were very close friends with a professional sports journalist. Very educated and broad-minded; he traveled around the world. We had several pages devoted to the history of Czechoslovakia. We had sections which were strictly Slovak and we had sections for jokes and cooking. Every issue. And crossword puzzles. We had a commentary of course. We had a lady who was a founder, in 1968 in Prague, of the independent party and was even running for Czech parliament at the time. They left in 1968, they stayed here until 1993 and then they went back and she would write to us a letter from Prague. It was very beautiful and short. So they became the basics of our paper. Sixteen pages filled in very nicely.”</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 Peter Bisek Description An account of the resource <p>Peter Bisek was born in Prague in 1941 and grew up in the Braník district of the city. His father was a civil engineer and his mother, who had studied philosophy and philology at Charles University, stayed home to raise Peter and his sister and two brothers. Peter enjoyed sports and was an avid basketball player. He recalls spending summers at a camp run by his Evangelical Church of the Czech Brethren.</p><p> </p><p>Peter attended gymnázium but says that he was denied the opportunity to continue his education after abstaining from a vote to expel two of his classmates wrongfully accused of cheating. He found employment at a print shop in Prague and worked several manual jobs there before entering into an apprenticeship in typography. Peter was told that he would be sent to study graphic arts at Leipzig University, but four years later, he was denied the opportunity and instead offered membership in the Communist Party. He says that these events led him to make plans for leaving the country. In 1963, Peter married his wife, Vera, who worked in a publishing house. In May 1965, Peter and Vera took a bus tour to East Germany. They then changed their destination on their paperwork and traveled to Sweden, where they stayed for six months on a work visa. Peter says that although they could have easily stayed in Sweden, they both wanted to leave Europe, and he hoped to continue his education in the United States. In November 1965, Peter and Vera sailed to Brooklyn, New York, and settled in Astoria.</p><p> </p><p>Peter’s first job in the United States was as a linotype operator for Americké Listy, a Czechoslovak newspaper printed in Manhattan. He took English classes at NYU and, after joining the typographical union, decided not to return to school. In 1971, Peter and Vera moved to Long Island. There they had two children, Veronica and Jonathan. In 1986, after working for The New York Times and Newsday, Peter and Vera started their own typography studio called Typrints. The original Americké Listy folded in 1989 during the Velvet Revolution and, after a few months, Peter decided to revive the publication. The first issue of their Československý Týdeník (in 1997 renamed Americké Listy) came out in April 1990 and, for the next 20 years, Peter and Vera published each issue, until June 2010 when they retired.</p><p> </p><p>Peter has been active in the local and national Czech community. He is a member of the Czechoslovak Society of Arts and Sciences (SVU) and on the board of directors of the American Friends of the Czech Republic (AFoCR). For six years, Peter served as president of the Bohemian Citizens’ Benevolent Society of Astoria, which runs the Bohemian Hall and Beer Garden. During Peter’s term, the organization increased its visibility and membership, and added new students to its Czech and Slovak language school. In 1997, Peter received the Presidential Medal of Merit First Class from then-president of the Czech Republic, Václav Havel, for the role his paper played in the Czech Republic’s early acceptance into NATO. In 2005, Peter and Vera also received the Gratias Agit award from the Czech Ministry of Foreign Affairs for “spreading the good word of the Czech Republic abroad.”</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>In addition to his activities in the Czech-American community, Peter is an avid, internationally-recognized rowing coach and veteran oarsman. He has coached three U.S. junior national champions and is considering returning to his old rowing club in Prague to take a coaching position which, he says, would bring him closer to his son Jonathan’s family, now based in Plzeň. Today, Peter lives in Glen Cove, New York, with Vera, who is enjoying her new role as a grandmother.</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 Americke listy Branik Ceskoslovenske tydenik Community Life Education gymnazium Journalism Religion Sports https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/24397/archive/files/43f2125ab80ca57b6bf9eb2cc6655804.jpg?Expires=1789603200&Signature=tsF9zktmkuKhzGFWYOTofe51mNGcHHVSVcDta134SJrXTkROViiPVuQGfp-VJBrhDW6eolknaaqYjRKW8peLbgbG4wczcxrX2P739K%7E8YNnuuaubD5QXhUIuAIvJ-D3BLr-DbiIMxY%7E24pFFGghEZ5ygjSh13bO4pyv8Y0rZM95OOJuuccFNoY5lDNdo1TNCUfWEvt7qd3XaRwOsUrV7aPsopS-RywuhDbmW2Bi6pqpzM-22pT0YHoKxS2teWQsTAN3OYf8Aii3JptGce9SOMTbs7hZCdSobgB39CWJG8nK9TfmSetM8PEae8prm6rKZxr1RFHMbbCfMM0U4jWepsA__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM fa70793e367eab88053fc87c0908f362 https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/24397/archive/files/75ec0c463650f1959afc7721a4cffb23.jpg?Expires=1789603200&Signature=PHAX5jmRMg3cUFZMdTuzM5aDSh8blRF4aury-0bRIh9osxLuG%7EOqjU5RIBGpR1tPyAN3gaO5UsAyeNoUQ%7EL1ADDkexDucKcUG%7Ez8K16A6eP3BEf-FCd%7Ekj5LGj5JbxQ-H2iNAYjuQZHLT08bhu6d-ZapgKimpj7MAMvgk0OGLrFTVBY5-XONtuhQ7Yel7cMQA0t2LG5caE6ORtjZf32wF7SLCDhj7EMwg9s7MPOS1wrXf8qKsZFMPgIXaCJ4pwfUr-J5emEmYVl0X0i8E63Pu-QgkH5rIXzUQgeP2E%7ETBWfWg1ZaMGN4zuQzB58%7ECPgraiGfMq7mfjnBs98f4jepGg__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM ee0f1f4e8748ddf0bda4522fe3dd759f 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 &amp; Documenting Memories of Czech &amp; Slovak Americans was an oral history project launched by the National Czech &amp; Slovak Museum &amp; 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 &amp; Slovak Museum &amp; 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 width="300" height="300" title="YouTube video player" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/T0YytGseJ6M?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0" id="undefined"></iframe> <p>“Compared to the kids here – my daughter – I think we were so happy. We didn’t have any computers, no TV, no games. We were just happy to go outside and play soccer and badminton and make bunker and just be outdoors. And we were safe; our parents didn’t worry about us. So I think it was a lot easier than kids have right now these days here.”</p> <p><em>Do you think it was better to grow up without internet and computers?</em></p> <p>“Oh yeah, totally. Big time. I’m so anti-computer, anti-TV. No, no, no. I mean, we had so many adventures. We made up games and we didn’t kill our brain cells with watching TV and passive time. We had wooden blocks and games that we’d play without TV. They just come home from school, sit down, watch TV, [use] the internet. I don’t think they use their brain as much. I’m so glad that I grew up in Slovakia and I had that childhood. I would wish for my daughter to have the same experience, because it was a lot more fun, I think.”</p> <h4>Uncle</h4> <iframe width="300" height="300" title="YouTube video player" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/y0IobscMch0?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0"></iframe> <p>“I remember we were seven years old and my uncle came and it was at Christmas. At that time, it was my uncle, my mom and her sister… So there was like 12 of us and we had 105 Christmas presents. I remember that because we were counting them, and during communism that was like ‘Wow.’ You would have like 30 presents. I remember that after we came from midnight mass, my mom and my uncle and we stayed up and he was telling us about America, how great it is and this and that. As a kid you are like, ‘Oh my gosh, you have bananas every day? You can have oranges? You can have this?’ It was euphoria.”</p> <h4>Family Emigration</h4> <iframe width="300" height="300" title="YouTube video player" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/mU5JWHfMVWU?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0"></iframe> <p>“My uncle immigrated in 1968 and my mom came to visit him when we were ten, stayed for a year and a half, and she really liked it and she came back home and told us ‘This is the place where I want to raise you up and it’s going to be a better life for you.’ And she was making plans how she was going to come back here again, so then when we were 16 she finally succeeded and she came here. She got married to a Czech with American citizenship, and that was the way she brought us here.”</p> <h4>Language Skills</h4> <iframe width="300" height="300" title="YouTube video player" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Tee2MMURgUI?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0"></iframe> <p>“I remember when I came and when the other immigrants came it was like a monopoly. If you want to work here – do construction, be a cleaning lady – you always have to go through Polish people. And Polish people, except two that I know, they are firm on speaking only Polish. They would not every learn Slovak or Czech. So we had no other choice but to speak their language.”</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 Zuzana Lanc Description An account of the resource <p>Zuzana Lanc was was born in Liptovský Mikuláš in central Slovakia and grew up in the nearby village of Liptovské Sliače. She and her twin sister, Brona, lived with their mother, Anna Vesela, and their grandparents. Zuzana speaks fondly of her childhood in Slovakia and says that she was ‘so happy,’ especially compared to children growing up in the United States today. She enjoyed Russian and Slovak classes in school and excelled at recitation and speaking competitions. In 1987, Brona’s mother moved to the United States and married Zdenek Vesely, an American citizen. Although the plan was for the girls to follow shortly after, it took well over one year for Brona and Zuzana to be allowed to leave the country. They arrived in the United States in October 1988 and settled in with their mother and stepfather, who now had their younger sister, Margret, in Aurora, Illinois.</p> <p> </p> <p>Zuzana and Brona received English lessons from a tutor who also helped them enroll in the local high school. In January 1989, they started as juniors in the ESL program, and the following year took regular classes as seniors and graduated. While in school, Zuzana worked at the deli at Kmart, a job which she says helped improve her English. Upon graduating, Zuzana worked a number of customer service jobs. She then moved into the IT field, working at Motorola and HP. She received a two-year degree from the College of DuPage.</p> <p> </p> <p>Today Zuzana lives in Downers Grove, Illinois, with her daughter, Emilka. She speaks Slovak to her daughter and the two of them return each year to Slovakia to visit family. Zuzana, along with her extended family, keeps Slovak holiday traditions and loves to cook Slovak food. While she says that she is ‘so glad’ to have grown up in Slovakia, today she calls the United States home and is thankful for her mother to have made the decision to give her daughters a better life.</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 Child emigre Cultural Traditions Family life Grelova Liptovske Sliace Liptovsky Mikulas Western/Pop culture https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/24397/archive/files/bd2e8e35b67e85e4a8975d0372ee6225.jpg?Expires=1789603200&Signature=qwDTrCZFeTkXHZ4Uq6qXmFMzthRqJ-1c79G6xpNmT8QhZX0uFgccxxdpKSytQcDnWqWjzaQMTAeb8rLZQonpNVGHBAxiTz6iFC9H1JE9Fn8lqZbnPnTa51NGeaFChBpJO4lgYUy92rDSlweyE7NkKS0OjFw%7E2cCKzP%7EKf3-vlY-Ei1MMXv3%7EJfoidXHpX7OCkHoHJ1ItBziGS7m6pfrTbsjh6AWHPCxEtjM0YXO31bKHCCL6hBaiYFR2Lp8BgrnG0N9e8ykXmZHJ9MTh46XNJIVpTvHW0%7ED2xZJ4CMPqemHFQmDTHbYr-O3z-YVKL3819%7EyZN0O0%7E48Ui60fYLy4Ew__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM 6140d1c24d7065c5b16396bfe074e651 https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/24397/archive/files/5939d5e74a1075f2faea00b48ef7420b.jpg?Expires=1789603200&Signature=Hmm7uPbxXBsRws%7ETA4RFM9-XUyLIh4HwR6ZY0qf00QMMqDuXm26Qc%7EoCdOzECAgLKfJEBr2-tUS9OpOToiO5Qtkd6J8ZDWonbVtdViKSN63A3iagwA6vEQy897OBb%7E%7E%7EHbfr5fUaGx8W3rMneGrSG5iUjeoOhkAY0SK49ZaRI06WAXiKU8%7EtFJox%7EQz4Fvaj1bk6ObQ-bZogLpu7JA0-HZwiNAIMsUPY0oztsfvVklOkUbLn1w%7EErFnjjfZIwoGwDdo496Xowg8rmJyRZFsB0z2kpw9cY1U6gD0grhEox5b9ZqK5EisiSkWkXFd0LEMlJrk7bEtYVPvuif6E3XvuMw__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM e0b4bf3c01cc23d8553706f0c12a8679 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 &amp; Documenting Memories of Czech &amp; Slovak Americans was an oral history project launched by the National Czech &amp; Slovak Museum &amp; 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 &amp; Slovak Museum &amp; 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>Born to Leave</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/WoV6DuhoCGg?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0" id="undefined"></iframe><p>“When I was one year old and Hitler got the Sudetenland, my parents had to move. Today you would say they were refugees, and they were. My mom was 24, 25, and suddenly there she was with my sister who was three years old and I was one year old, and she had to leave that town within 24 hours, with two kids and whatever she could carry, because my father was still in the Army; they didn’t release them yet. So she did. She didn’t have any place to go being from Slovakia and her husband’s parents were relatively – from the Czech point of view – far away. But there were more people who had to leave, so they said ‘There is a parish there the small town of Městečko and we know that that monsignor is ready to accept refugees.’ So this is where she landed with us, and they had to move three or four times within six months. Then finally my dad got another position as a teacher in small town or large village – a rich town, a lot of hops – which was called Kněževes , close to the town of Rakovník, and this is where we spent the War.”</p><h4>WWII Memories</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/iNezdE4Z6YU?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0"></iframe><p>“One of my first remembrances is the middle of the night and we were awake because there was that very deep sound, and there was a pinkish or yellowish shine all over the sky and my father was standing close to the window and said ‘Has to be Leipzig or Dresden. This is where they are bombarding tonight, but it’s terrible; it’s very, very intense.’ So it was the night that Dresden got bombarded.”</p><h4>Joining the Communist Party</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/WGjvsxP_0hc?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0"></iframe><p>“I was joined to the Communist Party when I was two months at the university. No, actually, the first semester. After the first semester, Jiří Dienstbier and myself had the best results, and the professor who was in charge of the department called us both and told us ‘Congratulations, you are good students, you will be good journalists, and let me tell you that I am ready and I am supporting you’ – you had to have a grantor – ‘I am your grantor so you can join the Communist Party.’ And then he left, and we were sitting there in the lobby. Both of us were from sort of old democratic families. His parents were treating poor people during the depression and so on, so they were socially oriented. So we were sitting there because we didn’t expect it, and you could say ‘thank you, no’ and you wouldn’t get a job in a factory, and then Jirka said ‘Maybe it will be good for something. We will at least be part of the people who make decisions.’ So this is what happened, but nobody ever asked us to sign anything, any petition or whatever. We were just… this was it. It might be part of why Jiří was later on sent to that internship to Czech Radio and why I was accepted there. And in the foreign broadcast the Communist Party wasn’t the main point there, and when ’68 came I said ‘I’m so sorry; I cannot take it anymore.’”</p><h4>Happy in U.S.</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/WvCgFOog5Sc?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0"></iframe><p>“We got Americanized quite quickly I have to say. Maybe next generation. But we are very happy to live here. There are plenty of things we like about America. Nobody whines; people understand that they come somewhere and they have to take care of themselves. That’s your business; that’s your problem. Which is not that much… The Communists were telling you ‘The state will do it. The country will do it. You don’t do it.’ People got used to it. We never liked it and we are happy that mood is not in the air. And our children are happy here, so we would never left. Of course, if we never left we would be living in Prague and being happy there, but we prefer to be here. We prefer to be Americans.”</p><h4>Return Home?</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/YBLFPn5_A00?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0"></iframe><p>“Nobody will take Prague out of our hearts and heads. We know it and we’ll always feel it. And it’s nice to see that it’s changing and so on. But also, the country has changed a lot and we would have to start again. For the third time? No. I really like the spirit of America, I have to say.”</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 Zelmira Zivny Description An account of the resource <p>Zelmira Zivny was born in the village of Blšany in 1937. Zelmira’s mother grew up in Komárno on the Slovak-Hungarian border and had met Zelmira’s father while he was stationed here with the Czechoslovak Army. He then took a post teaching at a Czech school in Blšany, which was in the Sudetenland. When this area was annexed by Adolf Hitler as part of the Munich Agreement in September 1938, Zelmira’s family was forced to leave. After moving several times in six months, Zelmira’s father found a teaching job in Kněževes, a town near Rakovník. Following WWII, Zelmira’s family moved to the nearby town of Jesenice where she attended school.</p><p> </p><p>Zelmira went to high school in Rakovník and then studied journalism at Charles University in Prague. Zelmira was an excellent student and, along with Jiří Dientsbier (who became a close friend), was offered membership in the Communist Party after her first semester. Zelmira had several summer jobs, including at a county newspaper in Podbořany, very close to where she had been born. During her last year in university, Zelmira worked at Czech radio (Český rozhlas). She and her husband, Milos Zivny, married during this last year as well and the pair stayed in Prague.</p><p> </p><p><img class="alignright wp-image-2564" src="http://web.archive.org/web/20170609102642im_/http://ncsml.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/e-IMG_3268_WinCE.jpg" alt="e-IMG_3268_(WinCE)" width="400" height="299" /></p><p>Zelmira worked as a journalist for the magazine Svět v obrazech for many years and traveled throughout the Eastern Bloc, including to Uzbekistan. Zelmira says that things began to change after the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968. She gave up her Party membership and helped Jiri Dientsbier publish a book. Coupled with her connections in the West (professional contacts as well as distant family members ), Zelmira began to feel a lot of ‘pressure,’ and she was taken in for questioning several times. When her daughter did not get into the high school she had hoped to attend, Zelmira and Milos began to think seriously about leaving the country. In 1984, they received passports and permission to take a vacation in Yugoslavia. Zelmira, Milos and their two children crossed the border into Austria and spent several months at Bad Kruezen refugee camp. With the help of the American Fund for Czechoslovak Refugees, the Zivnys moved to the United States and settled in Oakland, California, in February 1985.</p><p> </p><p>In September 1985, Zelmira was offered a job with the International Rescue Committee as a refugee resettlement worker. She later joined her husband who had started his own cabinetry business. Zelmira and Milos have been heavily involved in the local Sokol organization since their retirement. Although she says that Prague will always be in her ‘heart and head,’ she is very happy in the United States. Today she continues to live with Milos in the house they bought shortly after arriving in Oakland.</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 Americanization Blsany Communist Party members Education Jiri Dienstbier Journalism Knezeves Komarno Munich Crisis Prchalova Rakovnik Sense of identity Svet v obrazech WWII https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/24397/archive/files/abcb945bd83c12a6dd2965da061a84cb.jpg?Expires=1789603200&Signature=KJwRAsI7Q2pxQspjpZo0bB%7EyKv3d-GrcRkdAwI8u-MsTqd%7EoKfV1jsfxDPBlUAVV-iYWDDYsYizGHIRqW%7EYue6n7QpdmLxgSVBvkb9RB3HfX%7ELT39Vy4RTWznFjlNcUQUoC3w3dPeC%7EekcV5kPA0X23vEHpEk7LriEtiZhSKTKYjAzdwqgohUnGdoyEsPfM4L15iex-JpXbJSDVtoawgd9TnKFsaD6oia6Jwgpb4Lg74FVfZ1AItRuLeSfR-0zdQiYxKktTQZFg5IcdPlSN9g6-5TFx-GjW2-aRd9csC2iIeq%7E1dtLSG3pc5AJDVo6KR26Zbtf4XC6RGRSoo8gJndA__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM 7d26b4cfce2e17f1aea3e36a286a0699 https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/24397/archive/files/5c9473a90ef88acb7d5edb4f0548a298.jpg?Expires=1789603200&Signature=fWeSqIOLfkT%7EF1cpEwtVK0DVUQ%7Ep0%7Eh6XCHaDcgN98ou62R%7ER%7EFJ7qP1CWFvzJxun1Zf3hdCZlJybvZ14hLsRXeK05davw-jgxzYRvRjPc6C2v2iVjktJkc3EUz-J2w4x8PyfPq0O0M%7E2EVLahGJhkWRadpsuR2RLNkHwRMTpvdZliXoG-Bg%7Elzkr25TpM%7Ey5sgzhKYjupSvnO6%7ERvG889C283iNlVmRg%7EFXP9phkyS8eB2aKvRneHFsimPGHxYmUJiQ8cesbEojW0FdsGV2YJr5Q1YB1eWshtRDY5zIbknn9VcDiZizGOOZHgYWx8Cx4jZJz%7ERofG60E0%7E6H4ZFIQ__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM 682389e5db337ee4b49795e1cc6d4e0c 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 &amp; Documenting Memories of Czech &amp; Slovak Americans was an oral history project launched by the National Czech &amp; Slovak Museum &amp; 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 &amp; Slovak Museum &amp; 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>Ban On Dancing</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/x6sflmN1ivU?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0" id="undefined"></iframe><p>“No dancing. It wasn’t allowed. I know that we had at one family’s house, they knew somebody who was before a dance instructor, so he would come there occasionally and we gathered and we danced, but that was… if we were caught, we would be in trouble. So that was one of those things, and a lot of things were… you know, we were young girls; we would like to have nylon stockings, we couldn’t get them, you know. With a lot of things you had to be very inventive – to make things interesting and fashionable. You know, from old to new.</p><p>“But I think otherwise we were happy. Maybe we were even happier young people than they are nowadays. You know, we didn’t have any expectations. We were taught that we have to work, either physically or mentally, to accomplish things – that nothing comes free in life, and that you should deserve it and be proud of anything, whatever you do. It doesn’t matter how important or unimportant the job is, but you should be always proud of the things you are doing and do it at your best.”</p><h4>Tradition</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/bp9quwp5zi8?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0"></iframe><p>“You know, more or less, I think it was a tradition. You know, nobody talked about it, nobody was so aware of what you are or not. You were a neighbor, you were a friend, you were an ‘Oh, terrible! I wouldn’t talk to him or to her!’ And the kids, we didn’t have any way to get in trouble if we went to Sokol, you know, we didn’t get in any trouble. We got [rid of] our energy, you know, that way.”</p><h4>Life After WWII</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/OIJ6KIN9pe4?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0"></iframe><p>“Oh, everything was more open and free. There were more goods to buy and you could plan. You know, I think you do not know what freedom means unless you lose it. You know, we are talking about freedom, but nobody knows what it is, really, until you lose it. You don’t have it, you cannot decide things for yourself, you know. There are so many things which you don’t think about if you live in a free world. And so we were enjoying all those things, and I think we were happy, but it didn’t last too long and then the Communists took over.”</p><h4>Prison</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/oudr5OeHy20?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0"></iframe><p>“That was a horrible thing, because you were in a tiny little cell and even when I went to the bathroom I had to leave the doors open. I don’t know what they thought that I will do. It was terrible. Then they interrogated me there, of course, and in Čtyrka too. And I think at Čtyrka they were very rude, very rude. Actually, that was when I learned how to smoke. They brought me from the interrogation and I was completely out, and the girls in the cell gave me a cigarette so, that’s how… Then I had to undo that habit.”</p><h4>Toilet As Telephone</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/WPNGQmKJlKQ?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0"></iframe><p>“We had a good time in the bad times too. We used the toilet as a telephone, because we found out that if we empty it, then we can talk to the people downstairs. And we were sending letters through the windows on a thread. So we had all kinds of excitement. But you know every day somebody had to go through the interrogation, and that was tough. So you had to make it nice.”</p><h4>Perspective</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/ESyFco5YGSA?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0"></iframe><p>“Once you take that step, you are in the middle, because you miss certain things from the country you came from, and if you are there, you miss the things from where you are: you have comparison. If you live and stay in the same country, you don’t have any comparison. You know, you can see it on TV or whatever, but you have to live it. It’s like if you go for vacation some place, it’s not to live there. It’s different.”</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 Zdenka Novak Description An account of the resource <p> </p><p>Zdenka Novak was born in Prague in July, 1931. She lived there until the outbreak of WWII when her parents (who owned a delicatessen in the capital) decided to return to their native Kokšín in western Bohemia. In Kokšín, Zdenka’s father Václav set up a feather processing business with a Jewish partner, Emil Goldscheider. Zdenka says her family came under scrutiny because of this partnership and that she remembers the day the Goldscheiders were taken away (none of them returned from the concentration camps they were sent to). During the War, Zdenka remembers attending secret dancing lessons, as dancing was outlawed in the Protectorate in 1941. She says young people had to be ‘inventive’ due to shortages in goods, but that on the other hand they had ‘less expectations.’ At the end of the War, Zdenka’s family moved to Tašovice, near the West Bohemian spa town of Karlovy Vary, where Zdenka started attending ceramic school. She says one of her proudest moments was being selected to paint a vase for President Edvard Beneš on an official visit to the academy. She studied there until one year after the Communist coup in 1949, when she was arrested on charges of helping smuggle secret documents across the border to the CIC in West Germany. She was interrogated and found guilty without a trial. Zdenka spent 18 months in Prague prisons such as Pankrác and Čtyrka (the StB headquarters on Bartolomějská Street). She escaped through a bathroom window en route from one prison to another in 1951 and went on the run – making her way to territory she was familiar with near Karlovy Vary by train and then walking across the border into Bavaria through the woods.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Zdenka reported at a police station in Mehring, Germany, and was sent to Valka Lager refugee camp. She says she was not there long before she was approached by the American government with a job offer. She moved to Oberursel near Frankfurt to work and it was there, in 1953, that she married her husband Frank (a Czech émigré whom she had met at Valka Lager). At the end of 1953, the couple moved to the United States. They settled in New York City. Zdenka first worked as an office hand at an import/export company but soon became a clerk at an insurance firm. She says that she had many Czech friends in the city and that she enjoyed socializing at Sokol New York in particular. In 1956, she moved to Beloit, Wisconsin, when her husband gained a job as a mechanical designer at Beloit Corporation – a factory producing papermaking machines. There, Zdenka and Frank started raising their two children before moving to neighboring Rockton, Illinois. While her children were growing up, Zdenka ran a landscaping business. Today, she continues to live in Rockton. She has traveled to the Czech Republic with her children and grandchildren and says she tries to impress the value of her Czech heritage upon them.</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 Arrest Benes Community Life Ctyrka prison German Jews Koksin Nazis Occupation Pankrac Political prisoner Prison Refugee camp Smrcinova Tasovice Underground Women workers World War II https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/24397/archive/files/229be0fd658f09ddaf64f17c41e079c7.jpg?Expires=1789603200&Signature=dvFY6AWZ4yVY9M9RZITWtlHMQ%7ENVcv%7Ekpykl8HIsPYgucPrgeJ19lJT26sknEekZd4PMVxPihmPWUmxY1uLlfo4eDXJ%7EqWzhC93gQr8KAJ0%7EFJVsHCeLJ3Vf6PTgre76X-b8A%7EOUPvqlux5lL24xbmAIrhP4bRmb6qwruUgPSyH46T3vnNiMQOYbJvib1kR3kPQs%7EQdcVRmG7fYgMGxAvvkiyDwtMaxbzVlSEZS8XWhHRbWsRhun1KzWII8mn3PIEmyBW7oc0wCCIIpxejE8bFYV0YDOH48wTMcNgnszXtGO-mcwUjwz2nB7UI%7EYpfQ%7E0Y-u5QFIFk-UDGPIH7tS6g__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM 484ea0b867a083dcf40c9a721dc5aaaa https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/24397/archive/files/6ea4368d1ffcdcdb3150164a1310bc37.jpg?Expires=1789603200&Signature=GoaZ6yuhoLJnzn5ze7sLCcaGSVN-w87EJQTuKI68wx5EP8rpX7ycSbVaPOdEpKsA5v7oUrLi-zJVn-eE17oWrJCn%7ERqVfXleIz5os9KpoE2m6Rxs8GLpQ2FhlU9hwU%7E-dhO-1Vfxt5kc1udkamhLaC%7EDgu0xAoSvsJgPXEcoGpgHnVMR%7EGke4OpkqB2e51SHbizeyz4l91HWdQwZ%7Epm8sCzk8hkWWQj4bE51pth3x4A2OJa26oADQw8qsmNF98LUNSzOgJNhLFuRSpHkrDFawjARrdOHwSFJ3o1tOixdGfnfOUC-aO-WCPcELO-5o8CFTTtQibEM9Gm8Fppz5Q46YQ__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM a0671328ae04f3f0d1d0fd0c0a54d821 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 &amp; Documenting Memories of Czech &amp; Slovak Americans was an oral history project launched by the National Czech &amp; Slovak Museum &amp; 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 &amp; Slovak Museum &amp; 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>Helping Out</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/jHMuHFabA40?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0" id="undefined"></iframe><p>“After hunting, they came hunting Sunday morning, they came by train at 5:00 in the morning, they stopped in our restaurant because my mother was cooking tripe soup with <em>rohlíky</em>, it was like warm stuff in their body and around 7, 8:00 – maybe 8:00 – they came to the woods. And they were coming back with all the animals and birds around 3, 4:00, it depended how far they went, and there was <em>svíčková, srnčí guláš</em> [venison goulash], just the best, best stuff! And I remember from… I don’t know… there was something in me for decorating – a sense of decorating – and I always made table decorations with branches, with pine branches and really decorated it very nicely for them and set the places. I remember my mom, she was saying ‘That’s your job! Do it, do it! They’re coming, they are coming!’”</p><h4>Marriage</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/cqdYJlQ6Whw?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0"></iframe><p>“They didn’t let him in and they didn’t let me out. And it took me four years before I was able to travel out to the United States. Because he said, you know, ‘How can we meet?’ And I said ‘It’s the Czechoslovak Constitution, I can marry whoever I want.’ But the reality was different, because my mother was telling me a story; our mayor in our village – she was a member of the Communist Party, she had to be – she was at a meeting in the regional city, Semily, and it was going into the second, third year already, you know, yes, no, papers… And she was telling them ‘Let her go already, Bruno is not a killer or whatever, he just left [Czechoslovakia, in 1951]. And they are waiting and all of these papers have no end. Just let them go!’ Because there were people who were telling us… I had to be very carefully about whom I was talking to about what was going on. Because they saw me, we were calling each other, we were writing – oh, the correspondence! We have boxes of letters which we were writing and we couldn’t meet, it was ridiculous!</p><p>“I was going to Prague to the Ministerstvo vnitra [Interior Ministry] and there I said ‘<em>Prosím vás [I beg you]</em>, can I talk to somebody about my situation?’ And they said ‘Oh, okay, that lady over there, go to that door and blah, blah, blah. I went there and I was telling her the situation and she said ‘Is he a relative?’ And I said ‘No!’ And she said ‘Oh, then you cannot know…’ The question was why is he not allowed to come to Czechoslovakia, and she said ‘If you are not a relative, you cannot get that answer!’ I said ‘No! He cannot be my relative, I want to marry him!’ And she didn’t have answers, she just threw me out like dirty laundry. And I was in a few more offices where they recommended where I should go and ask. And I didn’t get an answer anywhere, and I went to the American Embassy and they said ‘You know what?’ Just like Bruno said, ‘marriage by proxy’ – <em>na dálku</em>, and I said ‘Oh my god! I don’t know anybody, I don’t know these lawyers, what do I do?’ Just, we were lost.”</p><h4>American Embassy</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/oRV9AReIX90?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0"></iframe><p>“When I went to the American Embassy I said ‘What are my chances,’ you know? And they said ‘You are like a seed in a strainer, stick to it – if you love him, stick to it and you will make it.’ But she said, there are many girls, they are just flocking here to get out of Czechoslovakia, just to marry foreigners and get out, and they don’t make it. They are not persistent, they don’t have it.”</p><h4>New York to Cleveland</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/zR4Wf2Ut5Ec?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0"></iframe><p>“Even from New York to Cleveland they turned us back. We had to go back to New York and I didn’t speak English. I said ‘What’s going on?’ And the lady next to me was Italian, she says ‘Motor kaput, motor kaput!’ I say ‘Oh my god! I will <em>never</em> make it to that city Cleveland!’ And he was waiting for me at the airport and I came out at midnight, all gates were already closed and there were a few of us coming from the airplane and we were so happy to be together, yeah it was nice.”</p><h4>Letters Home</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/YzeNErkpKRg?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0"></iframe><p>“There was always something missing in Czechoslovakia. One time it was garlic, the next time there were no oranges then, I don’t know, red wine. There was always something missing, and we had to learn in that system where to find the stuff. There were truckers going to Slovakia; they brought garlic and they were selling it among us like on the black market. And he made some money but we got our garlic or whatever we needed. There was no toilet paper. If we got toilet paper it was like sandpaper, and we said ‘no, oh!’ you know… And here it was such a contrast. I just couldn’t get over it. I was writing home letters after letters after letters explaining to my friends what I am experiencing. It was just unbelievable!”</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 Zdenka Necasek Description An account of the resource <p>Zdenka Necasek was born in February 1948 in Košt’álov, a village in the Semily region of northeastern Bohemia. Her parents ran a restaurant and butcher’s shop which the family lived above. The restaurant was called U Matoušů (meaning At the Matoušes) and had been owned by Zdenka’s parents until it was nationalized under communism, following which Zdenka’s family stayed on as restaurant employees. Zdenka says her father in particular was very bitter about the seizure of his business. An excellent discus and shot-put thrower, Zdenka considered studying at the sports faculty in Prague upon graduation, but was dissuaded from doing so by a friend and so went to work at a textile factory in Semily called Kolora instead. Zdenka worked in the computer center at the factory – a job she says she greatly enjoyed.</p><p> </p><p>It was one of her colleagues from Kolora who introduced her to her future husband, <a href="/web/20170808010859/http://www.ncsml.org/exhibits/bruno-necasek/">Bretislav (Bruno) Necasek</a>, in 1972. Bretislav was born in Semily but had emigrated to Cleveland in 1951. It was on a visit back to his hometown that he and Zdenka first met. The pair spent a couple of weeks together and decided to get married. Complications arose, however, when Zdenka was repeatedly refused a visa out of the country and Bretislav was no longer granted visas to visit Czechoslovakia. After three years of legal wrangling and red tape, Zdenka and Bretislav were married by proxy – Zdenka’s lawyer was present at her wedding ceremony in lieu of her husband. Following the wedding in 1975, it took Zdenka one more year to complete the paperwork allowing her to travel to America to live with her husband. She arrived in Cleveland on May 21, 1976.</p><p> </p><p>Zdenka and Bretislav have two children, Tina and Thomas. The couple live together in Seven Hills, Ohio. Nowadays, Zdenka works as a coding and billing representative in a Cleveland hospital and is active in a number of local Czech societies, Sokol in particular. She travels back to the Czech Republic on almost a yearly basis.</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 Community Life Family business Kostalov marriage Matousova Restaurant/hotel industry Sports U Matousu Women workers https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/24397/archive/files/a9964356554ee6ba655325a4c2597e97.jpg?Expires=1789603200&Signature=g2mik563C%7EodKvLb8yjh06dy1188pdwL3KLijHh0vghXdjMQxb9YzY7KdtVkhcuk15fPp4Fu8-bHuYsbK5zbQ7E18xfhH6aTVemE9hXSbTKf89jZlyTJfCy44P3S2vHVATLaJmHAgQtYFv8Cb5uc-w2UskZ7J2eoxH-9HoeAwDz5RY9EeVu7AYdzH7n29Pq55MTyEkTnLOgTRTP5oCB5xpPa5I1CsP2LUkU7uRI21XoPMFPGbe4TiR6I8QfS3eUa58RA1mvdlJtbteodQqmqwtWthhS99f17sj5jUy00dnkTrhi-2Han3W78kBqy1vKq%7Eszq%7EdP8HmPexi9CTif55w__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM 1aad6b3dc654f35eee5d05d6ce3269f0 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 &amp; Documenting Memories of Czech &amp; Slovak Americans was an oral history project launched by the National Czech &amp; Slovak Museum &amp; 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 &amp; Slovak Museum &amp; 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>Growing Up</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/mmlnHDGvuU4?list=UU73FafpPhR24KAnxrQrjdvQ?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0" id="undefined"></iframe><p>“It was great. There were no cars, as I remember, in 1960. There were no cars in the streets. We played ball games; we divided the street into two halves, and there were no cars coming. There was one car parked down the street. I remember postal wagons drawn by horses and the horse had the little package of hay in front of him and he was eating, and then they brought – Polska was a pub – so the horses brought the ice to the pub and hauled it down to the cellar to keep the beer nice and cold. Kids were sent with the little pitchers to get beer for the fathers. It was, as I remember, 1959, 1960, when I was five, six. It was a very quaint world at Vinohrady.”</p><h4>Radio Free Europe</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/j6VOYcTh35M?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0"></iframe><p>“We listened every Sunday at 6:00.”</p><p><em>No fear of that?</em></p><p>“No. That was the only source of information really, at that point, because the newspaper, the censorship, was such. There was no other info. I got used to it. I didn’t realize until I actually left on my own to go to Paris during medical school that things are very different. I knew that, but I didn’t really know that. It was like, unless you are out from the golden cage, you don’t know. You don’t know how isolated we were. I didn’t know how – information isolation, of course, we knew that – how culturally isolated we were. I mean, I knew that too, but I didn’t know how much of the desolation it was, and how people were cheated of the info. It didn’t have to be political info; it was the cultural. We didn’t know that there was the Summer of Love, that there were, in ’68, student upheavals in Paris. We just had a glimpse. It was very interesting that, basically, in ’68, people all over the world were sort of trying to do something else than before. And that, spiritually, would be very interesting to know, that the country was not the only one that was restless in the world during that time.”</p><h4>Decision to Leave</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/4n3Z7tf24HY?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0"></iframe><p>“Our main concern was that in our professions, since I was already a dentist for two years and he was an architect for five years, we started to see how our professions were so technically oriented – he was building panel houses,<em>pánelaky</em>, and I was doing amalgam fillings – and I could read in German and English, I could go to the medical library and I could read, and I realized how behind we were, technologically and how absolutely impossible it was to overcome that. Since I always wanted to be a medical professional – I decided on dentistry later – I realized how minimized our potential was. He would build <em>pánelaky</em> forever. We couldn’t see that there would actually be an end. It was like a status quo which we felt would never change.</p><p>“So we decided for our professions as well as for our mental health not to live in a country where you have to have a double face: one for your work, to comply, and one for your friends and your family; and we believed that people felt ‘Oh, I can handle both. I can lie in work or not work.’ People went to work one hour late and left one hour early. Everybody took a two-hour lunch and it was so unproductive. It was pathetic. So we felt that it’s a waste of life, and since we were just starting and we were the lucky ones who didn’t have children, who were old enough to know what we were doing and we had the potential to do that, we decided to go with it.”</p><h4>Leaving Czechoslovakia</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/QIZgkUXsieo?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0"></iframe><p>“George’s sister came for Christmas that year and brought her son, Michi, and we told her that we were going to leave and we asked her to take our paperwork, like my diploma, George’s diploma, our university books – the study books, where there were all the subjects we had [taken], because we knew we would need it. We sent our<em>rodný list</em>, birth certificates. We put it into a package and, one night, Michi had a little coat, so I pulled off the lining and I put the package there, sewed back the [lining] – since I am the surgeon, right? I still remember, I was sitting in this chair, we had a red lamp, and my hands were like this [shaking], and I was sewing my paperwork into the kid’s coat. And then she tossed it on the window in the car, because we were afraid they might [search] her car or something, but she was going back and forth during that time all the time. So that’s how it went. It went ahead of us, so we didn’t have a problem with that.”</p><h4>Family</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/RKFfVcc2imY?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0"></iframe><p>“The only one who knew that we were leaving was my mother and George’s sister, who lived at that time in Vienna; she was married to somebody in Austria.”</p><p><em>Your father didn’t know?</em></p><p>“No. I decided that my father would be boisterous and tell somebody. At that point, I didn’t trust anybody. It was hard not to tell him, but I felt that little anybody knows, they will be better off when I leave, and when the police come, they will say ‘I don’t know,’ because they really didn’t know. At that point, it was better for father not to know. I said goodbye to my mom. She went to the airport, but we said we wouldn’t talk because we would cry and we might lose our nerve. And so she was there; we exchanged… I could see her, from the plane, standing at Ruzyně Airport where you could see the planes; she couldn’t see me, but I could see her. She was there. “She said – she always called me <em>holčička</em> – ‘<em>Moje holčička</em>, it’s okay. I probably will never see you again,’ and I said ‘Mom! Of course you will see me. Of course you will see me.’ And she said ‘But it’s okay because this country is not in good shape for you and I fully understand.’ And I said ‘ Mom, I am going to be somewhere in a year, and we will see each other in a year,’ and she said ‘That’s fine,’ and she let me go. She loved me. My mom understood me. And, of course, a year and a half later, she arrived at JFK.”</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 Zdenka Hauner-Manley Description An account of the resource <p>Zdenka Hauner-Manley was born in Prague in 1954. She lived in the neighborhoods of Vinohrady and Zizkov with her parents and older brother. Zdenka’s mother, a Prague native, worked as an accountant while her father, who had been born in Prague and grew up in Hradec Kralove, was an economist for the Ministry of Agriculture. Although it hampered his professional ambitions, Zdenka’s father refused to join the Communist Party. Zdenka says that she ‘led an interesting cultural life’ with her family in Prague as they often went to the theatre, the opera, and historic sites. She also fondly recalls traveling abroad with her family to nearby countries like Bulgaria, East Germany and Yugoslavia.</p><p> </p><p>Zdenka attended <em>gymnázium</em> and says that her high school experience was ‘great’ as she met a group of friends who were politically like-minded and enjoyed similar activities. She took private German and English language lessons as well. Following high school, Zdenka studied dentistry at medical school of Charles University. In 1976, she traveled throughout western Europe, an experience which led her to realize how isolated she and her country mates were from the rest of the world. On a subsequent trip to Switzerland, Zdenka considered not returning to Czechoslovakia; however, she decided return in order to finish medical school. She graduated and began working as a dentist.</p><p> </p><p>In 1980, Zdenka met George Hauner, and the pair decided to marry and leave the country. Zdenka says that George shared her viewpoint that the communist system was ‘insane,’ and they both had career aspirations that could not be realized in Czechoslovakia. They married in January 1981 and, as they both had visas for a short trip to Austria, left the country the following month. After three months in a refugee boarding house, Zdenka and George arrived in New York City, assisted by the American Fund for Czechoslovak Refugees and their sponsor, a friend of George’s.</p><p> </p><p>While at the Social Security office during her first days in the U.S., Zdenka met someone who helped her find a job as a dental assistant. She worked in that capacity while completing a post-graduate program at NYU and becoming a licensed dentist. Zdenka’s parents were able to visit her several times in New York, including a six-month stay after her son was born in 1987 (her daughter was born in 1996). She first returned to Czechoslovakia in 1989, two months before the Velvet Revolution and today, travels back to Prague each year where her father and brother still live. Today, Zdenka lives in Manhattan with her husband, Jim, and practices as a dentist.</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 Education Family life gymnazium Health care professionals Juzova https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/24397/archive/files/f6509ef247a6ec8bafa4b9ba7e7c4a86.jpg?Expires=1789603200&Signature=T8ZAntyy17u5VJLjF0-6mob5pfhkjkKNEHdPKbsf4uT86who18r2ReJ4IWcwVXppJzBYrFlm9rMwqfx5UMVh1NEKG0-v8WFpaOTixYbW4dB5LXIGdk8GMN120NROex%7EmNmmDt2Nfyxyv8ReRQiL4Ms0lN5tPsK946kiDu5FnrBwLOhUoocrptsU0X-szdL8F4ukvcF3xTamCfjY1e%7E-i5kKoS9of98YoxTfcWk1-CY3ZLgubI88C9FfeWK-YsMDyzKPZTCaKOa7bfLaEIYGVwhRxLP7AUcKUe92dFNRF-Xgs4n-T--6jBxM1N9AAsezeBO4Xelzh4RLTeJPcaxPfpQ__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM 2446ecea6adc2f3b033089120e7e3b69 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 &amp; Documenting Memories of Czech &amp; Slovak Americans was an oral history project launched by the National Czech &amp; Slovak Museum &amp; 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 &amp; Slovak Museum &amp; 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>Crossing the Boarder</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/pu6iupj8-PQ?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0" id="undefined"></iframe><p>“In ’48 when the Sokol Slet was having a Prague exhibition, I crossed the border – it was easier to cross, illegally. My sister was already in Germany because her husband was the secretary of the American Institute in Prague, so he was told as soon as the prisons were empty, he would be arrested. So I thought that the best thing would be to go before they are after my family.</p><p>“I had a rucksack with dried salami and an English dictionary. I had contacted my sister who lived in Germany and she sent a guide who took me across the border. He was a very brave man, [he had] no sense of danger. We crossed at night, it was several hours walk.”</p><h4>Archives of Czechs and Slovaks</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/BQLL3r5qryM?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0"></iframe><p>“There were two people who collected newspapers in Chicago and they were Karel Prchal, head of the Sokol, and Josef Cada, the Roman Catholic professor at the college [Saint Procopius in Lisle], and when I spoke with the Czech librarian here at the University of Chicago, Vaclav Laska, he gave me three shelves where I could store the newspapers. Well, it grew into a much bigger collection. It took some kind of active participation to get newspapers from other places outside of Chicago. I remember my friend Mr. Marek (whose picture is on the wall), he took me in the car – because I don’t drive – he took me in the car to Michigan and we collected some newspapers there.”</p><p><strong>Is there one thing in the collection that you love the most?</strong></p><p>“We have a handkerchief which Tomas Garrigue Masaryk used!”</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 Zdenek Hruban Description An account of the resource <p>Zdenek Hruban was born in 1921 in Přerov, Moravia. His father was a mathematics professor who had studied in Austria while Czechs were still subject to Austro-Hungarian rule. By the time Zdenek himself was old enough to attend university, WWII had broken out, and all the universities in what was then the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia were closed by the Nazis. During this time, Zdenek went to the University of Rostock in Germany to study medicine.  After the War, he returned to study in Hradec Králové, northern Bohemia, where he says there was standing room only in lectures, since there was such a demand for higher education.</p><p> </p><p>Zdenek left Czechoslovakia in June 1948, after his family received threats from the Communist police. He crossed the border into Germany near Mariánské Lázně with the help of a guide sent by his sister, who had escaped ahead of him. Zdenek spent one year as a trainee nurse in Horton Road Mental Hospital in England before returning to the refugee camps in Germany and working for the International Refugee Organization pending an American visa. Zdenek was sponsored to come to the United States by an acquaintance of his sister, who had already settled with her husband in Milwaukee. He himself arrived in Wisconsin in 1951. In 1952, Zdenek gained a scholarship to the University of Chicago, where he proved a brilliant student. He became a professor of pathology at the University of Chicago in 1973. One of the achievements that Zdenek is best known for is the foundation of the Archives of the Czechs and Slovaks Abroad (ACASA), a collection of more than 10,000 books, periodicals and other materials housed at the University of Chicago’s Regenstein Library. Zdenek lived in Hyde Park, Chicago, with his wife <a href="/web/20170609145451/http://www.ncsml.org/exhibits/jarmila-hruban/">Jarmila Hruban</a> until his death in September 2011.</p><p><a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20170609145451/http://www.lib.uchicago.edu/e/su/slavic/acasa.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">A link to ACASA – the collection which Zdenek founded</a></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 Communist coup Community leadership emigrant German language Hradec Kralove marriage Prerov refugee Unitarians https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/24397/archive/files/02ec78f459de958785b344b981d09638.png?Expires=1789603200&Signature=BOP3EnH5fQCcDyrnX7MBI1vqHyhvJvigbH2BV5HhppFO%7EvhnbZbFzK1J7Xme9k7CHQQWKaT%7EvjowS3VB%7EYPG-h3gvQS766DjcfFImjCbmcESkDnkrSnsbABPEjErkIN7Zu6lCcdT2GItAF9DuoE3-4FvjCw%7EIc33xgIaJIiOM0zz9V8-2oSlp5BXvDFBmV6fQzla1aaeAUfaEd53FXofwCgSk5-oFwt6KvSCs2jYn9qFrz0e-X5302GBvsFvAX7wnTzZez2Ts3tygPuHZFbQOisI2pNQlcWf-0MzXXn6S8ldxrI39j9JqDMiLQPuBax3AdzIyzpfOgFlMMY13t1BxQ__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM c5876a0e64d5cfc100b1a456cd1c3293 https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/24397/archive/files/1585a2c0fe88bf708f68e3677b3d2d3f.jpg?Expires=1789603200&Signature=Gu7KTIthtboBZxzTxzY8rOKjOd7%7EKsC60WOc99CXqHP0%7EMjePOuP%7EugOE1zlfcSHhE70qbKk-bH-5HmXlO7ja2sSQeZgorIb4Dgu4Iro5GKAtfoLtZc6Pi3iL8prE%7E7buvpaFovCMwF-jsMR3aBogS8OzfKqZ6UFz5ZaTlypuUQ5YwURHPGPDaHws-3qFLU4iS5gZNvkE4TKI109je6b0hGl-XxlDfF1cl0EHxGnDWHpaInqTHJlJDZ6Ir-7U%7E70Ara5-0wi4qIVZK3xcL-Wm%7EBQCqd0P1F69gTFNSUQyCkIhRW8c1PCtZsSXj3LkHd8Pd0H-pJxLGiTGrWIy6oSWw__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM 127eb5db112705709477f28a7dd9aed9 https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/24397/archive/files/0950cc78b5043cbab2625844b8598c55.jpg?Expires=1789603200&Signature=B0d87zSGwT1BI%7E3jthMFV2mssYLkSOAMZFbSGou0a4qqAqNSaC2EOH2upPry1hWJWDohkKfzDwdv-a0dn4cogRHk6-Ym0EfLL6BAWrvznStZHHFfTBEJQbH4GSj%7EbuE9EjFL2-WBVOPehYt1dEpt6uibphon7gvnegiR9A3-Yyd1ipTba5ODK8IaYddm6jrXHzq1hul5tXorTGmhFU6EJfEpQXTdnG4RXUuYkwfSSnSaae1HoQWWp6BZGL0dMTID55zhZC0jTTB3X849oYnbFZdrtpUu3gGBeGKddBdqTVMS3-NZuuO60Moev2W2iCW1zpMev4ekEl1KtyA-gBcC0g__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM 1bedfa3fada0c91ea5b1e6300546d5a3 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 &amp; Documenting Memories of Czech &amp; Slovak Americans was an oral history project launched by the National Czech &amp; Slovak Museum &amp; 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 &amp; Slovak Museum &amp; 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 &amp; WWII</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/E2Y5HJ3gCr8?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0" id="undefined"></iframe><p>“We could sort of tell that something very unusual and very unlucky was happening to us. At the beginning of the next school year in 1939, we were asked to cut out the pictures of Presidents Masaryk and Beneš from our textbooks, and we got new students coming in, especially those who were expelled from Slovakia, or [who] left Slovakia in a very difficult position. Among them was a young man who became my good friend, whose father was a dentist in Bratislava and also had to leave.”</p><h4>Trouble with Nazis</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/zI063PTqETg?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0"></iframe><p>“There was that one unfortunate, well, peculiar incident just one year before I went to gymnázium when I was on the street with a couple of my friends and one of them was eating, I think it was plums, and was spitting the pits out into the street. And suddenly a German who had a swastika attached to the fender of his car stopped and seized us, claiming that we were desecrating the German flag. And he called a policeman who then went and took us to the police station. And our parents had to come and take us out. It seems as if the matter was somehow settled without any further consequences, but needless to say we were very scared by the whole event.”</p><h4>Shocking Vengeance</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/fUx0ljKO9-A?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0"></iframe><p>“One of them happened right under our windows where, in 1939, I saw the coming of the German tanks. This time, a large procession of German prisoners was being taken up the street, and occasionally one of the guards would shoot one of these Germans, about four or five during the time we watched, and I remember my mother got very upset about it and thought this was really bestial behavior. And the other one, even more gruesome, event which I witnessed, was the burning of two presumably Germans on Wenceslas Square, about two or three days after the Russians came in. And these two victims were hanging by their feet, with their heads down, in an arch which I think was used for advertising where Vodičkova ulice comes into Václavské náměstí [Wenceslas Square]. There were Soviet tanks close and it looked like both Soviet soldiers and members of these Revolutionary Guards were pouring gasoline over these bodies, which were still squirming and alive, and setting them on fire. So that was very shocking, but it was kind of in a way overshadowed by the rejoicing over liberation.”</p><h4>Fashion Mom</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/xdRoO2LjcB0?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0"></iframe><p>“My mother actually did take on employment after essentially working at home after the Communist seizure of power. Women were supposed to, everyone was supposed to, work. And she found an interesting job for herself with a fashion magazine which also was designing knitting patterns, and that was one of her great hobbies. That was something she got some training in when she was going to the art school. So she continued there, and she enjoyed the people she worked with.”</p><h4>Wilson Center</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/7QU1IEJDW8M?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0"></iframe><p>“My mentor James Billington became the director of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in 1973, and a year later he brought me to the center to be on the staff. And it seemed particularly fitting that it should be an institution honoring Woodrow Wilson since Woodrow Wilson was so intimately involved in the creation, independence of Czechoslovakia and therefore also the Czech Republic. So I started working at the center, involved again in building up the library resources and, more importantly, surveying resources for the study of certain foreign areas available in Washington, D.C. And that resulted in a series of some 14 volumes discussing the resources in Washington for the study of various major areas of the world, such as the Soviet Union, China, the Near East, Africa and Latin America.”</p><h4>Palacký Medal</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/UYkOKvZmNSA?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0"></iframe><p>“Because of my work on the Bohemian Reformation, especially for my book, I was awarded the Palacký medal for social sciences, which is given, I believe it’s annually, to a scholar who is to be honored for his contribution to Czech history. This happened in [September] 2009.”</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 Zdenek David Description An account of the resource <p>Zdenek David was born in Blatná, South Bohemia, in May 1931. He moved to Prague at age seven, however, when his father Václav (a judge) was appointed to the capital’s circuit court. Zdenek spent most of WWII in Prague and remembers his schooling changing under German occupation. He says students at his gymnázium on Husova Street were taught no history during the War and were expected to learn subjects such as mathematics in German. Zdenek remained in the capital at the time of liberation and remembers ‘chaos’ as reprisals were inflicted upon ethnic Germans and those suspected of collaborating with the Nazis. Zdenek left Czechoslovakia for the United States in 1947, when he gained a one-year American Field Service scholarship to complete his secondary education at the Putney School in Vermont. When the Communist takeover happened in 1948, his parents urged him not to return home in light of the political climate.</p><p> </p><p>Zdenek enrolled at Wesleyan University to study a bachelor’s degree in politics and philosophy. Upon graduating in 1952, he was accepted at Harvard, where he gained both his master’s and doctoral degrees. As a professor of Russian history at the University of Michigan in 1964, Zdenek was awarded a one-year scholarship to conduct research in Finland. It is here that he saw his parents Julie and Václav again for the first time in 17 years. After nearly a decade at Princeton University, Zdenek moved to the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, D.C. He works there to this day, now as a senior scholar at the center. A frequent visitor back to the Czech Republic, Zdenek says the Velvet Revolution in 1989 ‘inspired’ him to conduct more scholarly research on Czech topics. In 2003 he brought out a book about Czech religious group the Utraquists, titled Finding the Middle Way: The Utraquists’ Liberal Challenge to Rome and Luther. He published a new work focusing on 18th-century Czech history called Realism, Tolerance, and Liberalism in the Czech National Awakening. In September 2009, he was awarded the Palacký Medal for social sciences by the Czech Academy of Sciences. A longtime member of the Czechoslovak Society of Arts and Sciences (SVU), Zdenek is now the organization’s secretary general.</p><p><a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20170609043310/http://www.wilsoncenter.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=sf.profile&amp;person_id=3405" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">A profile of Zdenek on the Wilson Center’s pages</a></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 Blatna Child emigre Czech-German relations Education emigrant German occupation gymnazium Munich Crisis Nazis Palacky Medal refugee Teachers Vaclavske namesti World War II https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/24397/archive/files/e187802b231faecbcd6ce6a77377fbc1.jpg?Expires=1789603200&Signature=ZArE2V4Lj15YhE8-QAHoMdeiIknnxk%7E4HgPwXRSj31mg8k85y7auZ1t5seYA-pMFDJtJOkDHrMU-wIoYuEswej9iL4CJa2hHoPF4nbTluTXt-lHkpLj9VP-iIYCwHxXpEH4LBrEhv1FP5sPE2IE2ORcSbN5pTpNkg4Ko3XJoyyarK3lWN7lIuyahtYeLpU58SujryDcWzv1XRAQ-Z2u-A33tuhAXATZNbe0k83D2YEAV45Q2WMtp9v7eoXY3Nzg09yxp7YJFEsT5bc0wsUyVm9ktzSyLfEBo5Mk2zKyIcLHDKUY29CKzu9FV5J3U-%7EQk8hj3bkowKbkqUXXbTIA1DQ__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM f12bdd679f01223be6b3edce14c69e16 https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/24397/archive/files/268bbed0acd761bdf75d37d33fef31fe.jpg?Expires=1789603200&Signature=JiY8vDhgSzfZ1whDYBwFBhrR8qDMCbo6Pbo9rUBoYg3BO96whNcjR%7Ezxk%7E6UX9AiLMA3C9Ye8p1UyFgtvjfRqMp9Ry6GbY8Ldjql77lk8Ka3oNLI87iEzDth60lmls-SylhDoqhqkpO9DQBA7%7EpkMU291T%7EOuNBc8W%7Er1v9m7-%7EUWHnk7Pew4fkI9J3Iifod4itAsQA2hVvECUSv2XsdWiXZa1gXmXbSM34xxdbqQNrAQO-Z80HyiDmwAvETyuHfKWNfEyeld-TZ8e8l-k02b6RodLS9x%7EkNxpVNgndMEpX5Ebb0kbwOYaxXf-ucBecuHtENv0VewA2E0i3ZCO7MOA__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM 7ca0f3d8bfb860dad8de5d1e2b5a38ae https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/24397/archive/files/c5155f573eb1d539ccda86855f619276.jpg?Expires=1789603200&Signature=Pk0oFMumWJA2ZU4Ltm0FzwEP2pz%7EDn1obm9nvtilKO5%7EyRqDl7865IX7bvWBjaZbea54qsbpWKaej-kc34w6R4DibIcUKZTrYnC326argpzTlVeoIDKHVSugnPYUWZ51%7E0CsYk11eS1VqbcAuSUiK8EJGd5YOsPfFJ4LA4zNHGi7m-ErrWMlOdH9CuSVr62D8MNu1mN3u6iVIyLhQ0RzKPZW75aZ9f-uyQqd1Xm6S8QSD0d1BT96zz0ryyoO56Pg06JojTwLfUIqgSafU%7EqHBLJOr5L-EJ-WigX6Sqr49sQZrl2QonpULUDR7sgQjQ2ZxWe4tLbMMiyst5ulEJhT%7Eg__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM 4b0f44ee306f5bd43dbd6fbab5d6cf44 https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/24397/archive/files/62e913b6d7463eb4736d8b6efaf088a1.jpg?Expires=1789603200&Signature=rDZiBG8LRc3my-YME7rvrgSZyw-1b6FTUjctvg7oLvKHWMvK%7EqeSoYPzmYnjsna2EljgM-G9HaDnNwvgPBv6cs7QUBx5GWeFNet5tpO5wP8XMWHOXkmOiaqoEzomsErwTwwnbC-grr24GHI6CTQuODZiz7bieL-HkDixZG1P7QThZSByTVlI83ZLYRq%7Egs4wD7nTvJ5PfoEMAHQbVcFT%7EJDyKzeU4K7QlVtKqcEHhNc2OIRNmqHnW%7EjYjAPKq5BDb-QKtyjJJIA-ierrbDP0MUgjAX-sqbEkV7k7MdBY0sfDOYzla8g7-ciwbwzkZUNEPpJanExbq-VSyAyKio93Fw__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM d38e4f72bf1333f49b0b731d14e715aa 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 &amp; Documenting Memories of Czech &amp; Slovak Americans was an oral history project launched by the National Czech &amp; Slovak Museum &amp; 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 &amp; Slovak Museum &amp; 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>Grandfather</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Ov3W5odcdpU?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0" id="undefined"></iframe><p>I remember my grandpa returning from the concentration camp, which was very lucky because his good friend learned of his imprisonment and intervened with the Allies and put him on a list to be exchanged. So my grandpa and the other leaders of Sokol – he was one of the five leaders – were on transport to Auschwitz, all the others died there, but they took him out of a railroad car, cattle car in Terezín and gave him a ticket to Prague.</p><h4>First School</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/b1polGDAGMM?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0"></iframe><p>I was largely with my aunt in southern Bohemia, and I started going to school in the village of Radějovice which was about three miles away. I had to walk across tracks and through the fields, and I loved that, because the first bench, first row, was first grade, second row was second grade, fifth row was fifth grade, everything together. The teacher was fantastic: ‘Now I’m teaching for the first graders, now I’m teaching for the second graders.’ I listened to it all. It was very stimulating. And he was such a dedicated guy who loved to teach. He played the violin for us in class; he would hit our fingers with the bow. That was during the War, it was a great memory. I liked it more than the school in Prague when I came to regular school with a big class. So education does not only depend on how much money is spent and how big classes are. That guy, he achieved alone more than probably the teachers gave me subsequently.</p><h4>Skiing and a Patent</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Amm1F4mHrhw?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0"></iframe><p>I invented, in 1958 after a ski accident which busted my knee, a ski binding – which was an alternative to Marker, which was the first, a year before – and had it patented. With a big effort, I managed to get it produced. It was not so easy, but eventually, in 1962 or ’63, one third of Czech skiers – by my sales figures – were using my binding, the ZPB binding. Then I had some other patents of systems for bridges and such things, but this one is the best known. It is actually exhibited, my binding, in the New England Ski Museum in Franconia, New Hampshire. On the other hand, the income was decent but not like it would be here, so fortunately I didn’t go into this kind of business, otherwise I would have been diverted from what I really like.</p><h4>Education Systems</h4><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/KCqdhk3oL9U?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0"></iframe><p>In this country, we recognized quickly that education has a completely different spirit. My children never had a systematic course of history or geography. But what they do for example, my son in the second grade – already from the first grade at school – they have to go to the library and the teacher says ‘You study Richard III’ and then he has to make a presentation at school, or study the Napoleonic Wars and make a presentation, or tell us something about Indonesian history. But they never had a systematic drill, the rote learning, so I think in this regard, many Americans are not properly educated, like systematically, but it leads them to be creative and that’s a plus.</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 Zdeněk Bažant Description An account of the resource <p><img class="alignleft wp-image-3237" src="http://web.archive.org/web/20170609085212im_/http://ncsml.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/Handler-119.jpg" alt="Zdeněk Bažant" width="200" height="253" /></p><p>Zdeněk Pavel Bažant was born in Prague in 1937. He was raised in Prague, though during WWII he spent a long period in southern Bohemia with his aunt. His father and grandfather were engineering professors ČVUT (Czech Technical University) and his mother – a junior colleague of Milada Horáková – held a doctorate in sociology. Zdeněk recalls the time following the Communist coup in 1948 as difficult for his family. He was labeled ‘bourgeois’ because of his parents’ backgrounds. His maternal grandmother had acquired a number of properties through the sale of her factory; at this time Zdeněk says that all of these buildings were nationalized. He says that it was at this young age that the idea of leaving the country began to germinate. An excellent mathematician, he was national champion of the Mathematical Olympics in 1955.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Zdeněk studied civil engineering at ČVUT and graduated at the head of the class. He was not, however, accepted into a postgraduate program, which he attributes to his decision not to accept an invitation to join the Communist Party. Instead, Zdeněk began working as an engineer for Dopravoprojekt, a state company, and was able to complete a doctorate in engineering as an external student. In 1966, after earning a postgraduate diploma in theoretical physics from Charles University, he traveled abroad on two fellowships, to Paris and Toronto, and then on a visiting appointment to Berkeley, California. Zdeněk was in Toronto during the Prague Spring in 1968. He and his wife Iva (whom he had married the previous year) were planning on returning to Czechoslovakia; however, upon hearing the news of the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia in August, they decided to stay abroad.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>In 1969, Zdeněk was appointed associate professor at Northwestern University, and is still today at this school, holding a distinguished professorial chair in civil engineering and materials science. He is a world-renowned, frequently-published researcher with much of his work focusing on structural and materials engineering. Zdeněk and Iva have two children, Martin and Eva, who, although they did not learn it at home, can both speak Czech. Zdeněk enjoys many hobbies, including skiing, tennis, and playing the piano. His passion for skiing led to his 1959 patent of a safety ski binding which was mass-produced and became very popular among Czech skiers. Although he visits Prague several times a year and says he misses the ‘beautiful landscape of Prague,’ Zdeněk says that he has been ‘very impressed with America’ and has no plans to return to the Czech Republic to live. He also has no plans to retire. Today, Zdeněk lives with his wife (a retired physician) in Evanston, Illinois.</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 Concentration camp Education emigrant Engineers Radejovice refugee school Sports Teachers Zdenek Bazant