Recording Voices & Documenting Memories in Florida

Late this May, Recording Voices & Documenting Memories made its first trip to Florida. The NCSML recorded the stories of a number of Slovaks and Czechs who had settled in and around Sarasota and Miami in particular.

Emil and Elena Brlit in The Brlit Dental Lab

Emil at work in the Brlit Dental Lab

The first stop was Brlit Dental Lab to meet Emil and Elena Brlit. Emil left Czechoslovakia with his family in 1969, while Elena came to the United States more recently, in 1983. Following each of their interviews, they shared a number of old photographs with Recording Voices & Documenting Memories:

Elena dressed in local kroj as a child in Slovakia

Emil (fifth from left, front row) with the Sarasota Slovak Soccer Club, 1990s

In Miami, the NCSML spoke with Luba DeWitt, head of the local Czech-Slovak Cultural Club. Following her interview, she showed Recording Voices & Documenting Memories the Club’s North Miami home, where a Sunday lunch of goulash was being served:

Luba DeWitt in front of the Miami Czech-Slovak Cultural Club

Preparations for lunch at the Czech-Slovak Clutural Club, Miami

Finally, the NCSML met with Dr. Tomáš Gral, who moved to the United States age 39 in 1964. Dr. Gral shared his experiences of incarceration at Auschwitz and Gleiwitz during WWII, and his memories of studying at medical school in Bratislava immediately after the War.

Portrait of Dr. Tomáš Gral from 1945

Dr. Gral in his apartment, 2013

For clips from Dr. Gral’s and each of these other interviews, follow the NCSML’s oral history web pages over the months to come. 

Related Reading #2: Prague Winter

To mark Secretary Madeleine Albright’s visit to the National Czech & Slovak Museum & Library on May 17-18, Recording Voices & Documenting Memories suggests her most recent book, Prague Winter: A Personal Story of Remembrance and War 1937-1948, as an interesting piece of reading related to the oral history project. 

Prague Winter tells the tale of Secretary Albright’s early childhood in Prague (and then in Great Britain during WWII), and of the more recent discovery of her family’s Jewish background.

Secretary Albright pours over her parents’ diaries and papers to learn more of their WWII experiences. She references correspondence sent to and received from the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia throughout the War. She also conducts interviews with relatives and former neighbors as part of her research.

She does so to try and understand “Why we make the choices we do… What prompts one person to act boldly in a moment of crisis and a second to seek shelter in the crowd? Why do some people become stronger in the face of adversity while others quickly lose heart?”

Prague Winter provides a unique eyewitness account of WWII from a Czech émigré perspective. The book is meticulously researched and comments originally on the Czech history of the period.

Prague Winter is sold at the National Czech & Slovak Museum & Library’s store. For more information on purchasing the book, click here.

Related Reading #1: Under a Cruel Star

For those looking for eyewitness accounts of life in (and emigration from) Czechoslovakia in written form, a good place to start might be Under a Cruel Star: A Life in Prague 1941-1968 by Heda Margolius Kovály.

Kovály’s account opens in wartime Prague on the eve of her deportation to the Łódź Ghetto and then Auschwitz. Kovály subsequently describes escaping Nazi captivity and returning to the Czech capital, where former friends turn her away fearing persecution should they assist her.

Following the end of the War, Kovály is reunited with her old companion, Rudolf Margolius, whom she marries. The rest of the book charts Margolius’ rising political star following the Communist coup in 1948, his execution following a notorious show trial in 1952, and Kovály’s persistent efforts to rehabilitate her late husband.

Kovály left Czechoslovakia for the United States following the Warsaw Pact invasion in 1968. She recalls her emigration in the final chapter of her book:

“At the end of September, the invaders were still sitting in full strength at the airports. I boarded a train, carrying two small suitcases and twenty dollars in my pocket.

“The train was crammed. Facing me sat two students, a young man and a girl, who were headed for Holland. We talked about books and about life, and the pretty girl kept complaining that she had left behind her new hat.

“’Don’t you think,’ she kept asking ‘That going into exile would be less awful if I were traveling in a beautiful new hat?’

“Later, a grouchy middle-aged German tourist came into the compartment with her small daughter. The little girl stared at the three of us curiously and then asked, ‘Mutti, why are these people so sad?’”

“Her mother snapped at her ‘Don’t you know the Czechs love their country, you dummy?’…”

Heda Margolius Kovály died in Prague in 2010. For more details on her book, Under a Cruel Star: A Life in Prague 1941-1968, click here.

Cedar Rapids Humanities Iowa event, November 11

In the last in its series of Humanities Iowa events, the National Czech & Slovak Museum & Library (NCSML) is presenting clips from its oral history project in Cedar Rapids on November 11.

The event, titled Remembering World War II, will see oral history project staff Rosie Johnston and Katie Shaffer show footage presenting Slovaks' and Czechs' memories of World War II. Clips will highlight the stories of those who spent the War in hiding, as well as those who encountered American, Soviet and German troops. The discussion will be moderated by Dr. Margaret Haupt, professor emerita of political science at Coe College.

The event will take place at the NCSML (1400 Inspiration Place SW, Cedar Rapids IA 52404) at 2:00 p.m. It is free and open to the public. There is no need to RSVP.

Oral History Video Editor, Katie Shaffer

At the beginning of July, Recording Voices & Documenting Memories welcomed Katie Shaffer to the oral history team. A fortnight in, we asked her a couple of questions about what first interested her in the project:

“I was originally wanting to volunteer. I was looking for something interesting to do, and I love museums and history. I came to the NCSML and actually thought I’d volunteer in the library (as I’m a librarian by training). Then I heard about the oral history project and it caught my interest. It was something new.”

“I started out tagging profiles, adding subjects to biographies which were already up on the web. But now I edit footage, select clips and create online profiles for some of the interviewees.”

What are your favorite and least favorite bits of the work?

“My favorite is certainly listening to the interviews. I’ve learned so much about Czech, Slovak, and world history and politics. Each of the stories is so unique and fascinating. My least favorite part is dealing with technological issues. I’ve picked up a lot since I started working here, but there are still glitches which can take away your momentum when you’re working on an interview.”

Which interview have you enjoyed working on the most so far?

“I really have liked every single one. They are all unique, but equally inspiring and moving. But, I have to say, I loved working on Jan Kocvara's interview. He seemed like such an ordinary person at the beginning of the interview – but then his story of working in radio…



“I didn’t think of radio work as particularly dangerous or world changing, but his story was eye-opening. What he was saying on air clearly changed people’s lives and those who didn’t like what he was doing saw his work as very intimidating – so intimidating he felt his life was in danger. This gave me an entirely different perspective on a job you don’t always think of as all that dangerous.”

“I really liked the progression of his interview, from growing up in Slovakia to interviewing famous people, then feeling his life was in danger and ending on a note of ‘I was making history.’”



What is your view of such oral history projects, and has this changed since you started working on Recording Voices & Documenting Memories?

“Sure. And I think a lot of interviewees have said this too – recording the history of people who lived, not leaders or those written about in history books, gives you different perspectives. You can relate more, perhaps, because these people were just living their lives. And this way you learn about daily life. Especially for me, with no experience of living under communism, you get little bits of insight like ‘oh, that’s how that worked!’

“And it’s entertaining to watch. The spoken delivery of these stories adds insight that you might not get in a transcript.”

You’ve been working on selecting particularly striking excerpts from people’s interviews for the past couple of weeks. In the course of your work, which single clip has struck you the most?

“There are a couple I really liked from the interview with Klara Sever. I really like the one in which she is talking about the priest [who helped protect her family during WWII], because I like the way she says it.

“But the one that sticks with me is the clip about her family being released from Žilina labor camp, because the series of events she describes is so extraordinary.”



“This clip gives you the idea that certain instances can change your life in a second. If her father hadn’t been out working on the road, if no one had picked up that note and if his uncle hadn’t had that connection in that small village – who knows? She herself calls it a ‘miracle.’”