Photo of Mila Rechcigl, circa 1990
“Many people don’t realize why the SVU actually started and under what condition, and the reason was that at the time there were lots of political disputes in the Czechoslovak community and there were numerous organizations and clubs and what have you. And the politicians, if they belonged to one particular group, they wouldn’t talk to politicians in another group; they just wouldn’t talk to each other. And it was sometimes quite nasty, you might say. And, in this type of, at the same time the situation in Czechoslovakia was getting worse, from bad to worse. So this was the time when the intellectuals of Czech and Slovak descent or Czechoslovak intellectuals decided that enough is enough. Let’s focus on the positive. See what’s… Let’s decide on something which sort of unites us rather than divides us. And that was the society. They said that they will create a society where anybody can talk that wishes, where we can explore different issues and what have you. And, from the very beginning, it was meant to be a nonpolitical organization…”
In 1987, Mila was invited to speak at a conference in České Budějovice by the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences:
“When the time came for my speech I started speaking in Czech, because the whole conference was in English. I started talking in Czech and I told them that I’m bringing greetings from Czechs and Slovaks abroad and then I told them that we have –I told them that Czechs have made a tremendous contribution to the United States and that they can be proud of what these people have done. It is a fantastic a sort of advertisement we are doing for the country. And then I told them about SVU and whatever else. And, I don’t know how I ended it, but when I finished this there was a dead silence. I really mean it, dead silence. In the back some young guy, some 25 year old, got up and started applauding then everybody started applauding. (Laughs) So, that was a really fantastic experience.”
Photo of Andrew Hudak, circa 1991 (by Olan Mills)
“I know that I cannot accomplish one tenth in Slovakia of what I accomplished in America. Because when I compare myself to my friends, same education - don’t forget it is a smaller country, smaller opportunity. This is a big country - as long as you have the guts and the know-how, you can move as far as you want in America. That’s a beautiful country - I love America and I never, you know…
“I had tremendous faith when Slovakia came up, and also I wanted to put the impression of Slovaks in America forward to help Slovakia, okay? [I wanted to] put the impression on American Slovak society to help Slovakia. We helped which was the number one thing. I tried to help them rebuild the Church. The same thing with the monastery. The same thing with the Society of the Divine Word Seminary when I went to Bethany. At the same time I encouraged Slovak organizations to give some money. And then I encouraged trade between Americans and Slovakia hoping to better itself… There’s a lot of money coming from America to Slovakia. A lot of pensions, a lot of estates, and things like this, you know? And so the money - American Slovaks help the Slovaks a lot.”
For full-length transcripts, visit http://www.ncsml.org/Content/Oral-Histories.aspx.
