Peter Palecek on his father, General Václav Paleček

In his interview with Recording Voices & Documenting Memories, Peter Palecek shared a number of documents and details about his father, the late General Václav Paleček. In addition to what you can find at www.ncsml.org, here is a bit more about General Paleček, in his son’s own words:

Photo of Vaclav Paleček courtesy of his son, Peter

“My father Václav Paleček was born on November 20, 1901 in Plzeň, western Bohemia. He became President of the National Union of Czechoslovak Students in the interwar period. Between 1934 and 1939, he served as Secretary General of the Czechoslovak-Yugoslav Chamber of Commerce, in which capacity he made frequent trips to Yugoslavia. In late 1939, he escaped occupied Czechoslovakia through Yugoslavia and Italy to join the Czechoslovak troops in France. After France fell to Hitler in June 1940, the Czechoslovak troops moved from France to London, where he joined the Czechoslovak government-in-exile. He worked first for the Ministry of Finance under Ladislav Feierabend and later for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs under Jan Masaryk. My father was instrumental in organizing international students against Nazi Germany and became co-founder and president of International Students’ Day on November 17, 1941 in London. Later, as president of the World Youth Council, he was invited for a six-month lecture tour of the United States by First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt. He spoke at 56 conferences and discussions on the postwar economic reconstruction of Europe in 39 states of the Union. The lecture tour culminated with a visit to Vice President Henry Wallace in the White House in December 1943. The six months of lectures throughout the United States, which addressed thousands of students (as well as a broader American public), represented one of the most significant promotional efforts for Czechoslovakia in the United States ever.

Wartime photo of General Paleček

“After the War, in June 1945, my father was named Chief of the Czechoslovak Military Mission in Berlin. He dealt with war reparations, the design and implementation of the Marshall Plan, the repatriation of Germans, and a myriad of other issues critical for his homeland. Following the Communist coup in Czechoslovakia in 1948, he was arrested and sentenced to 13 years in prison. In 1957, his sentence was reduced to 7 years and with poor health impacted by many years of working in uranium mines he returned to his family. His sentence was nullified in 1967 but as a former political prisoner he was unable to find a job. He traveled to the United States to visit me at Stanford in 1970 and it was here that he died on March 22.”

In this clip from Peter Palecek’s interview with Recording Voices & Documenting Memories, he remembers visiting his father in jail in western Bohemia in the 1950s:



For Czech readers, more about General Václav Paleček can be found in Josef Pejskar’s four-volume work Posledni pocta, which maps Czech and Slovak emigration from 1939-1994.

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.