Recording Voices & Documenting Memories in the San Francisco Bay Area

The NCSML’s recent trip to California uncovered all sorts of particularly interesting historical documents and stories. Here are some of the highlights from Recording Voices & Documenting Memories most recent material-gathering expedition:



Georgina Teyrovsky’s father was a member of the Czechoslovak Legions in Russia. In this photo from 1918 he is at work as a telegraphist (sitting in the bottom row, second from left).



George Malek originally immigrated to Canada before coming to the United States to work in what was a fledgling Silicon Valley. During his interview with Recording Voices & Documenting Memories, he shared this picture with us: the photo shows his mother, who was a member of a Sokol dance troupe in Czechoslovakia prior to WWII. She is the dancer in the front row furthest to the right.



Two images of Prague during the Warsaw Pact Invasion, 1968

George Skoda left Czechoslovakia in 1948. He subsequently settled in the Bay Area and worked on the Stanford Two-Mile Accelerator. He says that he was sent the photos above by a friend in Prague following the Soviet-led invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968.



Peter and Hana Palecek arrived in the Bay Area in the late 1960s. Although they were married at the time, the pair arrived in the United States separately, and in totally different ways. The Paleceks both shared their stories with Recording Voices & Documenting Memories.

Excerpts from all of these interviews, and more from the NCSML’s recording trip to the Bay Area, will appear on the National Czech & Slovak Museum & Library’s oral history web pages over the weeks and months to come.

Recording Voices & Documenting Memories in Toronto, November 2011

This November, the NCSML was invited to Toronto to present Recording Voices & Documenting Memories. Never ones to pass up on a good recording opportunity, we met a number of Czechs and Slovaks who immigrated to Canada over the past 60+ years whilst we were in town. As ever, look to our web pages for excerpts from the interviews over the next couple of weeks. Here is a fraction of the interesting photos and other archival documents which our interviewees shared with us when we visited their homes:


Czech ball, Montreal - photo courtesy of George Heller

George Heller came to Canada with his parents shortly after the Communist coup in 1948. The family settled in Montreal. The photo above shows George’s parents (on the far right) at the city's yearly Czech & Slovak ball, which he says was the émigré community’s annual social highlight.


Photo of George Heller's father, Havlickuv Brod, 1948

Prior to leaving Czechoslovakia, George’s father was a baker. In this photo from 1948, George’s father is shown taking part in a parade in Havlickuv Brod representing the bakery he worked for at the time, named Rozvoj (meaning progress or development in Czech). Along the side of the truck are both Czech and Soviet flags and a caption which reads “sixty-nine wagons of bread baked in 1947 – 4,650,000 bakery items.”


George (in the blue coat on the right) with Queen Elizabeth II, 1994

When George was 18, he answered an advert posted by the Hudson’s Bay Company recruiting fur traders to work in Canada’s Northern Territories. He enjoyed tremendous success at this job and, after a number of promotions and some time spent in other firms, rose to the position of president and CEO of The Bay. He took some time off from this job to organize the 1994 Commonwealth Games, which were held in Vancouver. In the photo above, George is watching the Games’ opening ceremony with Queen Elizabeth II and the Duke of Edinburgh.


Dagmar Benedik with fellow members of the swim team, Kladno

Dagmar Benedik left Czechoslovakia with her family in 1968. Prior to emigration, she attended junior and senior high school in Kladno, where her father was coach of the junior hockey team, and enjoyed swimming competitively for the city, as evidenced by the photo above, in which Dagmar can be seen on the top left.


Envelope containing correspondence from Dagmar's pen pal

Following her interview with Recording Voices & Documenting Memories, Dagmar shared a number of interesting documents with the NCSML, including this envelope which she received from her pen pal in the Soviet Union in the 1960s. Dagmar says that Czech and Slovak schoolchildren would often write to a peer in the Soviet Union as part of their Russian language training at this time. This particular letter came encased in an envelope commemorating February 23 - Soviet Army Day.


Milos Krajny upon arrival in Canada beside Professor Julius Axelrod (left)

Milos Krajny also came to Canada in 1968 to work in Quebec as a medical doctor. He subsequently moved to Toronto where he opened his own practice and, among other achievements, became the president of the Toronto Philharmonic. Dr. Krajny is extremely active in the Czech community in Toronto and organizes a series of classical music performances called Nocturnes in the City, about which more details can be found here.

Excerpts from all three of these interviews and more will be posted to www.ncsml.org over the weeks to come.

Recording Voices and Documenting Memories in New York City, November 2011

The National Czech & Slovak Museum & Library’s oral history project is coming to New York City. Over the next two years, the NCSML will record the oral histories of 50 Czech & Slovak Cold War-era émigrés, and 25 newer immigrants from the Czech and Slovak Republics who settled in New York after 1989.

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.

The case for oral history, as made by Leo Tolstoy

Monica Rokus and friends at school in Košice, 1967

Two things that I have been reading recently have caught my eye and shaped the way I think about some of the materials being gathered as part of Recording Voices & Documenting Memories. The first is an extract from Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace translated by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky. On the capture of Moscow by Napoleonic troops in 1812 Tolstoy writes:

“The stories and descriptions of that time all speak without exception of self-sacrifice… despair, grief and heroism… In reality, it was not like that. It seems so to us only because all we see in the past is the general historical interest of the time, and we do not see all those personal, human interests that the people of that time had. And yet in reality the personal interests of the day are so much more significant than the general interests that as a result the general interests are never felt (or even noticed at all). The majority of the people of that time paid no attention to the general course of things, but were guided only by the personal interests of the day. And those people were the most useful figures of that time.”

Of course Tolstoy is not discussing oral histories and the benefits of interviewing eyewitnesses in this paragraph, but the extract does remind me of another quotation, which is about oral histories in particular, and which conveys something rather similar. In an article entitled Talking about War, historian Edward Coffman writes:

“Meeting and talking with [interviewees] provides a human touch and a richness that one cannot get from paper documents and, in many instances, one can get information that is not available elsewhere.”

One of my favorite clips from all of the oral histories gathered to date is that of Melania Rakytiak recalling the Warsaw Pact invasion as she experienced it in Bratislava in August 1968. I think I find it so interesting because she contrasts information about “the general course of things” – panic buying, queues in shops, food shortages and the requirement of a birth certificate to buy baby milk – with her own “personal interests” throughout the invasion:



In the paragraph I cited above, Leo Tolstoy was not talking about oral history (which was not even a concept until after his death). But he does express one of the strengths of oral history particularly well. It seems to me that speaking to people who witnessed historic events in Czechoslovakia and the United States during the 20th century provides information on both the “general course of things” and “the personal interests of the day.”

-posted by Rosie Johnston

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.

Czech & Slovak immigration to the United States

This blog post first appeared on the Tenement Museum's blog on August 10, 2010.

Czechs and Slovaks had been immigrating to the United States long before Czechoslovakia even came into existence in 1918. But two events in the country’s more recent history sparked mass immigration to America: the Communist coup in Czechoslovakia in 1948 and the Soviet-led invasion of the country in 1968. At the National Czech & Slovak Museum & Library, we have been recording the stories of those who left during the Communist era, asking them why and how they came to settle in America.

When Communists seized power in Czechoslovakia in 1948, approximately 25,000 of the country’s citizens fled in that year alone. The most frequent routes out of the country were over the Czech border with Bavaria in the west and the Slovak border with Austria in the south. The borders were guarded and closed, but especially in these early days, people found a way across if they knew what they were doing. John Palka escaped with his family in 1948, escorted by a paid guide:




At this time, leaving Czechoslovakia was regarded as a criminal offense and, indeed, if you fled, your closest relatives could well end up in prison. Click here for the story of Ludvik Barta, whose mother-in-law spent four years in prison because her husband left in 1948.

A number of escapes during this early period of Communism in Czechoslovakia read like something out of a spy novel or Hollywood film. Perhaps the most famous escape of this era was that of the Masin brothers, who spent one month on the run in East Germany in 1953, trying to make their way to West Berlin. They had tried to leave in 1951, but this plan had been foiled and oldest brother Ctirad Masin spent two years in labor camps as punishment. The brothers were pursued at one point by as many as 25,000 East German police and they killed at least three people on their journey to the West. Ctirad Masin remembers the very last leg of his group’s journey:




In other stories, people allegedly used scuba gear to swim down the Danube River into Austria (the Danube was later mined to prevent such escapes). In 1951, a group of resistance fighters actually hijacked a train and forced it over the border into Western Germany. A number of those on board the so-called ‘Freedom Train’ later settled in the United States, including Karel Ruml.

The next big spike in Czech and Slovak immigration to America came in 1968, the year that Warsaw-Pact troops invaded Czechoslovakia and put an end to a period of liberalization and reform (including an easing of travel restrictions) often referred to as the Prague Spring. It is thought that even more Czechs and Slovaks fled in 1968 than had 20 years previously.

Immediately following the Soviet-led invasion on August 21, Czechs and Slovaks continued to apply for tourist visas abroad; they received them without problems and then left the country, with no plans to return. There are also stories of border guards ‘turning a blind eye’ in the days after the Warsaw Pact Invasion. However, in 1969, so many Czechs and Slovaks left the country that the government nullified all existing passports in a bid to stem the exodus.

The most common forms of escape during the years that ensued were, on the whole, much less dramatic than those of the early Cold War era. A common way of leaving the country was through organized coach tour. Joe Gazdik’s story is quite typical. He took a bus tour to Denmark in August 1969, obtained his passport from the group leader and then declared his intention to remain abroad. He says it was important not to talk too early:




Another way that Czechs and Slovaks made it to America during this period was through marriage (though understandably, many of those in question would insist that emigration was not their prime concern when tying the knot). Those who did marry an American citizen and emigrate legally to the United States (such as Stan Pechan) talk about the large amount of paperwork and multiple bureaucratic barriers to navigate, particularly on the Czechoslovak side. In Stan Pechan’s case, it took one and a half years before he could join his wife in the United States. Some were not even granted visas to get married in person – the ceremonies instead took place by proxy at the Czechoslovak Embassy in Washington and Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Prague.

By the time Communism fell in Czechoslovakia in 1989, it is believed that between 180,000 and 600,000 Czechs and Slovaks had fled their homeland. Thousands of these individuals live in the United States today.

-posted by Rosie Johnston