Slovo, Summer 2011

Cover of Slovo, Summer 2011

A new edition of the NCSML’s journal Slovo is out, and the whole issue is devoted to Recording Voices & Documenting Memories. Here are extracts from some of the articles written for Slovo by oral history project participants alongside images they shared with the NCSML at the time of their interview.


Portrait of Karel Ruml, 1949

Karel Ruml left Czechoslovakia in 1951 by “crashing a train through the Iron Curtain into West Germany.” In this edition of Slovo, he remembers his escape:

“My own task was to prevent anyone from using the single manual brake in my coach. With the train in motion… I got up and walked slowly to the end of the corridor, where I casually leaned on the wheel of the brake. Soon we were racing through As and a big, self-assured border guard tried to push me aside. I quickly drew my gun and ordered him to stop and keep quiet. He glared at me with a mixture of hate and cowardice, but didn’t move… We finally stopped among farm fields. Not too far behind us was a forested ridge bristling with watch towers and barbed wire – the Iron Curtain… Bewildered passengers [milled] outside the train.”


Birthday card designed by John Palka, circa 1950

In Twice Displaced But Not Defeated John Palka (who came to the United States in 1941 and then again in 1949) writes:

“…My parents worked hard to raise me with a dual identity – that of a devoted American grateful to his new homeland for the safety and opportunities it offered him, but also that of a Slovak who knew about and was proud of his heritage. In this they succeeded, for that is the way I still see myself today. After her death, I found in my mother’s files a memento that expresses this duality perfectly, a birthday card I made for her. On the front I wrote Happy Birthday and Št’astlivé narodzeniny, and on the back I drew two flags, the Czechoslovak above and the U.S. flag below. I was 11 or 12 when I sat down with my crayons to make this card.”


Jana Svehlova with her father, Jan Roubik, in England during WWII

Jana Svehlova is the founder of a non-governmental organization called The Enemy’s Daughters. She herself is the daughter of a political prisoner, her father having been arrested in 1949 because he was an RAF pilot during WWII and, she says, “the communist regime viewed those who had fought for the Allies with hostility.” In Slovo, Jana recollects her father’s arrest:

“The only clear image I have of that day is the color of my dad’s face when the agents were taking him away at 9 o’clock in the morning – stark white. I did ask one of the men, 'Where are you taking my daddy?' The security agent answered, 'We have to ask him some questions.' My father was arrested and sentenced to 10 years of hard labor… My mother and I were able to visit him about two times a year.”


Vladimir Maule's ID card, circa 1969

In From Lenin to Lennon, Vladimir Maule remembers his youth in Prague and journey to America in 1969. He settled with his mother in what was then a particularly Czech neighborhood of Chicago:

“As we walked along 26th Street, we heard some voices speaking in Czech. The sound was coming out of a travel agency. It was a social group of elderly Czechs at their monthly meeting, where they discussed global events and exchanged cooking recipes. They were genuinely happy to help. They found a place for us to stay the first night and recommended where to apply for work – my mom at Western Electric and I at a steel company called CECO. The next day we were both hired. (I had taken the wrong bus so ended up at Sears.) We found a basement apartment in Berwyn, a Chicago suburb with a sizable Czech population. We were on a roll.”

Vladimir talks more about the mix-up which led him to find employment at Sears (and not CECO) in this clip from his oral history interview:



Also in this edition of Slovo are articles by project participants Melania Rakytiak and Peter Hruby. Slovo is sent to all NCSML members and can be purchased at the museum store in Cedar Rapids.