The NCSML made a first recording trip to New York City this November. As ever, watch our website for biographical profiles and video clips over the weeks to come. Here though, is a preview of some of the materials we gathered:
Ivana Edwards in her home in New York City, November 2011
Ivana Edwards left Czechoslovakia with her family in 1948. She settled first in Israel and then Canada before coming to the United States to study. This is a snapshot from her first visit back to Prague in the 1960s. Ivana says that she had her hair done specially for the occasion, which is evidenced by this photo:
A well-coiffed Ivana Edwards with her grandmother in Prague
Gabriel Levicky came to New York City from Bratislava in 1979. This was the second time he had left Czechoslovakia, having emigrated to Israel following the Warsaw Pact invasion in 1968 (he then decided to return to Czechoslovakia as part of an amnesty one year later).
Gabriel Levicky, New York City, 2011
Today, Gabriel works as a translator, tour guide and cartoonist. A book of his work, entitled Pardon Me, Which Way to Heaven or Hell; Whatever? was published by the New York Chapter of the Czechoslovak Society of Arts and Sciences (SVU) in 2010.
Cartoon drawn by Gabriel Levicky in Prague, 1990
Tomas Hadl arrived in the United States more than a decade after the Velvet Revolution in 1989. He lived first in Washington, D.C., where he worked as a life-guard, before moving to New York City and starting out as a waiter. Today, he is the manager of the Bohemian Benevolent and Literary Association (BBLA), which is based in New York’s Bohemian National Hall.
Tomas Hadl at the Bohemian National Hall, New York City, 2011
Watch our web pages for excerpts from these interviews (and more) over the weeks to come.
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