Early Learning from Interviews with Post-1989 Immigrants

Jozef Bil in Pittsburgh, 1990s

Since 2011, the NCSML has been recording with newer Czech and Slovak immigrants who came to the United States following the Velvet Revolution in 1989. In doing so, the museum has gathered new types of information.

For a start, those who came after the fall of communism in Czechoslovakia have provided us with eyewitness accounts of the Revolution. Responses to this have been particularly varied.

Irena Kovarova was a student at Charles University in Prague in November, 1989. She says she felt impelled to get involved in the protests which brought about the fall of the government: “What I really started feeling more and more, I felt embarrassed that I’m allowing these people to rule my life... And so that was sort of brewing, and when this November demonstration of students was going to take part, it was absolutely clear. I mean, we had to be there.” 

Pavlina Parks, meanwhile, was a few years younger and in eastern Moravia. She suggests that events took her somewhat by surprise: “I was in seventh grade and I remember going to Rožnov for my piano lesson... I remember there were a lot of people on the square… and I didn’t have quite an idea of what’s going on… There was a main speaker and I do not know who he was, what he was talking about… It was a very new experience for me; I was just there with a lot of new people around me and I could feel the big energy and the big vibe and the whole power of something happening, but I didn’t know what.”

“Then they were showing some stuff on TV and we were slowly explained to in school what’s happening, but we didn’t understand why the change is happening because we did not feel that we had a bad life up to now... Teachers started to explain to us that there is democracy in different countries and what a democracy is, and these words were empty to us. We didn’t know what to [think].”

Czechs and Slovaks who came to the United States following the Velvet Revolution often suggest they left for different reasons than those who came before. Many interviewees suggest that they were attracted to America by wanderlust, and so as to seek adventure. This was the case with Ludmila Sujanova, who came to the United States from Košice, Slovakia in 2003. She makes a direct link between the events of the Velvet Revolution and her ability to travel west:



… Others, meanwhile, came to the United States to make money. Many discuss their immigration in initially temporary terms (which is another difference between post-1989 immigrants and those who came before, and who sought political asylum). Stanislav Grezdo moved to New Orleans in 1999:



To date, the NCSML has recorded around 45 interviews with Czechs and Slovaks who came following the Velvet Revolution. This constitutes about one sixth of the interviews we have in our collections.

Recording Voices & Documenting Memories in Washington, D.C.

It has been a long time since Recording Voices & Documenting Memories staff were in Washington, D.C. This August, the NCSML set out for the capital to record the stories of a number of Czech & Slovak immigrants who settled there after the Velvet Revolution in 1989. Here is a small sampling of some of the materials gathered:

Photo courtesy of Jana Kopelentova Rehak

Anthropologist and photographer Jana Kopelentova Rehak settled in the United States in 1994. In the Czech Republic she had worked as a photographer and studied at the film and photography school FAMU in Prague. She continued her studies in the United States, writing her doctoral thesis on Czech & Slovak political prisoners, whom she also photographed. Today, she lives in Baltimore and teaches at Towson and Loyola Universities:

Jana Kopelentova Rehak at home in Maryland

Ludmila Sujanova came to the United States from Kosice, Slovakia. She settled first in New York City and then Florida before coming to Germantown, Maryland. Following her interview with Recording Voices & Documenting Memories, she shared these photos from her youth in Eastern Slovakia:

While in D.C., we revisited former interviewee Juraj Slavik and rummaged through some of his old class photos from the Czechoslovak State School of Great Britain during WWII. Here’s an image from a music lesson complete with the Allied powers’ flags as classroom decoration:

In this clip from his interview with Recording Voices & Documenting Memories, Juraj remembers his school days in Great Britain during WWII:

The NCSML also met with Czech restaurant owner Jarek Mika while in Washington. Look out for another blog post about his business, Bistro Bohem, over the weeks to come:

Jarek Mika at Bistro Bohem, September 2012

… And be sure to check the NCSML’s oral history pages for each of these interviewee’s profiles and more!

Changes wrought by the Velvet Revolution

From left to right: Rasto Gallo, Igor Mikolaska and Peter Vaščák

In May, Isabelle du Moulin wrote to the National Czech & Slovak Museum & Library from the Bay School in San Francisco, asking to use some of our oral histories for a research project she was conducting on the Velvet Revolution in Czechoslovakia. She recently sent us her finished paper. Here are some excerpts from her work:

In 1989, a wave of protests swept across Eastern Europe. In November of 1989, the Czechoslovak people began to take action as well, demanding free elections and an end to the communist regime that had existed for more than 40 years. After less than a month of protests, the Communist government was forced to negotiate and was soon replaced by a transitional government. Václav Havel, a leader of the protest movement, was elected president the following month, becoming Czechoslovakia’s first non-Communist leader since 1948. This Velvet Revolution, named for its smooth, nonviolent, nature, changed the lives of everyone living in the country – from students, to families, to all working citizens. 

The Velvet Revolution led to a multitude of systemic changes that transformed education, migration, and the economic market in Czechoslovakia, greatly affecting the lives of people across the country… To understand the effects of the Velvet Revolution on the Czechoslovak population, one must take a closer look at the ways in which individual lives have been shaped by this event in history. 

Rasto Gallo immediately took advantage of the new academic options that became available after changes were made in the education system. Peter Vaščák, though young at the time, was profoundly impacted by the Revolution and the changes that resulted – in particular, the opening of the borders which allowed him to reunite with his father, who had left the country illegally. Tomas Votocek, a carpenter, was able to start his own company because of the privatization of business—one of many steps in the economic transition from communism to capitalism. These individuals’ perspectives each represent the larger story of each community’s collective narrative.

Rasto Gallo was born in Slovakia in 1970. He grew up in Banská Bystrica where he spent his free time playing the piano, as well as hiking and skiing in the nearby mountains. He began learning English while attending gymnázium, the equivalent to an American college preparatory high school today. Gallo was very interested in the popular Western music of the time, and it was his passion for this music that furthered his knowledge of the English language. As he says, “I wanted to know what [the artists] were singing about… I translated all their lyrics, and that’s how I really got much better at English.” After gymnázium, Gallo went on to study music education at a teacher’s college in Banská Bystrica. His first year at university was marked by the protests of the Velvet Revolution. Gallo himself was out in the streets almost every day, supporting the protest movement. Many other students as well, like Ondrej Krejci, who partook in a strike at his high school, participated in the events of the Revolution. 

For many students, it was hard to study the subjects they were passionate about before the Revolution… Afterwards, however, Gallo was able to study English, which led to many new career opportunities, both in and out of the country. These changes to the education system applied to elementary schools as well. Igor Mikolaska, who was ten at the time of the Revolution, remembers that Russian was no longer mandatory after the Revolution, and that German became an option—Igor immediately switched.

The reunification of families and even the ability to travel without fear were direct results of the Velvet Revolution, which had life-changing consequences for many people. Peter Vaščák was born in Bratislava in 1981 and grew up with his father, mother, and sister. They were living on the border with Austria, says Vaščák: “I remember the barbed wire fence and the soldiers… They were just walking [along] the fence the whole time with German shepherds and AK-47s. They were watching for people [trying] to escape.” In 1989, Vaščák’s father obtained a permit through his job as an air traffic controller which allowed him to travel to the United States for one month. He did not return. While watching the protests of the Velvet Revolution on TV, Vaščák, who lived on the twelfth floor of an apartment building, remembers yelling off the balcony, “Open the border, open the border!” He explains, “[My father] was gone, and we couldn’t get to the United States because they didn’t want to give us visas.” Vaščák’s father, like many other escapees, could not return to Czechoslovakia because he had left the country illegally. 

Matt Carnogursky left Czechoslovakia in 1983 when he booked a two week trip to Italy through a travel agency—he was 23 years old at the time, and was close to graduation at a technical university in Bratislava. Carnogursky did not return to Czechoslovakia until the Revolution, six years later. Before the Revolution, Carnogursky did not dare go back because, technically, he had committed a criminal offense. But, as he explains, “The first time we went there was literally a few weeks after the Revolution, and I could not even believe when my dad said, ‘Come back, come and visit. It’s no problem… It’s completely free, everything changed.’”

… These stories of individual experience reveal much about the impact of the Velvet Revolution. There were many more opportunities for education, travel and business. The strict laws of the communist regime gave way to new freedoms, a more relaxed civil society and, for many people, the opportunity to reunite with loved ones and fulfill dreams of travel or enterprise. The rapid response and willingness of individuals to make major changes in their lives, such as emigration, show the importance of the changes post-Revolution and indicate that many people had been waiting for their chance. The effects of these changes can still be seen and inform our understanding of the Czech Republic and Slovakia today.

Interviewees remember the Velvet Revolution

Jan Hus Statue, Prague's Old Town Square, November, 1989

Since the NCSML began recording the stories of newer Czech and Slovak immigrants to the United States in the autumn of 2011, it has gathered numerous accounts from eyewitnesses to the Velvet Revolution in Czechoslovakia in 1989. Here are a few of the memories that interviewees have shared from that time:

Poster calling for dismissal of politicians Štěpán, Jakeš & Obzina

Irena Kovarova remembers the build up to the Velvet Revolution in Prague in 1989:

“What I really started feeling more and more, I felt embarrassed that I’m allowing these people to rule my life. I felt embarrassed for myself. And so that was brewing, and when this November demonstration of students was going to take part, it was absolutely clear - we had to be there.”

At the time of the Revolution, Jana Frankova was working in Prague as a translator for a seminar of young journalists:

Rasto Gallo was a student in Banská Bystrica, Slovakia:

Vlado Šolc was a couple of years younger. He was attending military school in Prešov in November 1989:

Veronika Heblikova-Balingit, Prague, 1989

Veronika Heblikova-Balingit took many photos of Prague at the time of the Revolution (all of the photos in this blog post are courtesy of her own personal archive). She remembers being in the capital when the Velvet Revolution gained traction:

For more eyewitness accounts of the Velvet Revolution on the NCSML’s webpages, have a look at Pavol Dzacko, Irena Cajkova and Katya Heller’s profiles.

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