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.

Preview of Remembering World War II

The Czechoslovak Division of the British Army in Prague, May 1945

On Veterans’ Day (Sunday, November 11 at 2:00pm), the NCSML’s oral history team, Rosie Johnston and Katie Shaffer, will show clips at the museum in which interviewees reflect upon their experiences of World War II. There are dozens of hours of footage on this subject housed at the National Czech & Slovak Museum & Library.

Here are a few clips which touch upon the topic, and which offer a preview of the sorts of videos you’ll see at the NCSML on Sunday:

Alex Cech was a teenager during WWII. He has some fond memories of wartime:

Likewise, Helena Fabry’s youth was spent in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia. In this clip from her interview, she remembers one of her hobbies during the War:

Poster for a play in which Helena Fabry starred. At the bottom it states 'No Jews Allowed.'

Robert Budway was born in the United States. He moved with his mother to her native Czechoslovakia in 1931. He says his American citizenship became a problem following the assassination of Reichsprotektor Reinhard Heydrich in 1942:

These clips give you a taster of what to expect on Sunday. For more information, click here for a preview of the event in The Cedar Rapids Gazette. And, of course, come to the NCSML (1400 Inspiration Place SW, Cedar Rapids 52404) at 2:00pm on Sunday!

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.

More Political Prisoner Transcripts In

For the past couple of months, intern Cecilia Greco has been transcribing interviews that the National Czech & Slovak Museum & Library recorded with former political prisoners. In the second transcript in this series, Czech-American Robert Budway (who was imprisoned on a visit back to Czechoslovakia in 1962) remembers the way that his childhood in Bohemia was affected by the onset of WWII:

Robert Budway in his hometown of Těchonice, circa 1935

"When the disintegration of Czechoslovakia began, I was 10 years old. I was not really even 10 years old. I lived it intensively; I believed at 10 years old, I realized the gravity of what was happening. So by the time the country totally ceased to exist, I was 11. Then when I went to high school, I could not change down deep in my heart and mind that what I have learned in those first formative years in that grade school in that little village of Těchonice to love the Czech scene; Czech nation; Czech history; Czech everything. It was difficult to come to terms that I must repeat things I didn't believe. And I also was a little shocked because most teachers I encountered in my experience in the First Czechoslovak Republic, the Second Czechoslovak Republic... I think were very decent people who were doing their best to educate the young people in the spirit of Czechoslovak ideas. However, there were a few who did not, and I had difficulty with that. I would rebel in my usual way, even pretend. When they asked a question, let's say pertaining to German geography – and I was a geography buff – I would immediately declare loud and clear, 'I do not know.' And everybody in the classroom knew that I knew. It was daring at that particular time to even answer to a teacher, 'I don't know.' If you didn't know, you would look down and be silent. But that was also considered my American or rebellious way, I did not know. Even the teacher sensed that I must have known because after all, he did give me the best grade in geography. And yet I answered his question on examinations – many times when I didn't like the question, 'I don't know.'"

You said that in school you would have to repeat things you didn't believe... What sorts of things? I know that you were talking a lot about Germany, but what in particular?

"Right. First of all, the spirit of education at that particular time was suddenly [that the] German language was the language you learn; German besides Czech. Then there was an emphasis on a 'Future Europe,' a so-called Neuordnung Europas – that is, in German, a new order in Europe.  That was all around. To listen to the news and declarations of loyalty to German leadership, that was definitely something that was very hard to swallow. For somebody whose heroes were [Tomáš Garrigue] Masaryk, [Edvard] Beneš, and [Milan] Štefánik. So that was the thing. For example, we had to also do recycling. [We collected] scraps and all sorts of things. That was something I rebelled against, because I had to meet certain quotas. In high school you had to deliver so much and so much, I no longer can tell you, but let's say 10kg of scrap. Or you have an option; you can do it [by bringing] some metal, that means one object will do. Or you can collect papers and other things, which would take you quite a lot of time to do. So one time I went to do a shortcut, so I was caught taking some of my mother's cooking pots. And when she realized this is what I wanted to do, she said, 'You little fool' – I want to repeat the name she called me – 'Do you know that your uncles and your father may be in America's army? And they are going to produce bullets out of this thing... You are actually going to contribute to the killing of your own compatriots, of your American relatives, who must for sure be in the army!' Certainly it was a cold shower for me. I dropped it, and then had to collect what in Czech is called byliny, which is collecting herbs. And that took me weeks and weeks because I had to dry it, I had to find some bag to put it in, drag it up to the high school – and I walked two hours to high school. So obviously it would have been much easier to pick up one pot and I'd meet my quota. 

"This was quite an experience which made me aware again that I do have somebody in the United States, and there is a war going on. And I was contributing unknowingly, unwillingly to [something like this]. These were the types of things I really objected to. And everything that was German was always bigger, and that also aggravated me. Even though I must admit, certain things certainly were quite interesting. I did not reject learning something about Mozart, Schiller, and Goethe. I did not object to seeing a German movie; they fascinated me, most of them were for kids. But then I was nothing but 14 years old. But I do know that Czech movies tell me much more, I have much recollection of Czech movies even up today. Usually at that time, the quality movies were taken from Czech literature. And I was familiar with Czech literature, so I knew what they were trying to convey to me and they did their job. They did convey to me a very nice [message], you know, that there's something else besides Germany; that Czechs are here to stay. And I felt what one of the earlier Czech patriots during the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, Karel Havlíček Borovský, said in Czech, 'Jsme a budeme' – 'We are and we are going to be.' That's a loose translation of the Czech nationalism defying the Austrian Monarchy. So, I used that against the German domination, which was in place there."

Where did you go to high school?

"I went to a high school in a small regional town called Plánice. Plánice was about a two-hour walk from the village where I lived. So I was quite a familiar figure to the countryside. I had to pass through a number of villages, everybody knew 'That's the American, that's Bobek from Těchonice who is going to high school.' And every fruit tree by the road, I knew them very well. So it was an adventure. I did not have a bicycle because it was difficult to obtain during the War. Even then my grandparents tried hard to find a bicycle, but somehow I preferred to walk. And a walk actually taught me something about perseverance: no matter what, or what weather, I will definitely go to school. During wintertime I would have to wake up by 5 o'clock; by 6 [o'clock] I would be on the road. I do particularly remember one winter, very early in the morning when it looked like this was not a day to go to school – grandmother and mother were looking out of the window and definitely saying no. But I would say yes, and I would start my journey to school... I got stuck very fast; I still could see our house, and I cried there because there was so much snow so I was falling in, and I had to get up, and [would fall] down again. But I dared to say, 'I am not going to go back and admit that they were right, I will go through this to the end.' I believe I have learned a lot about – which came to help me during the War and after the War – perseverance, don't give up."

For more on Robert Budway, visit his oral history profile at www.ncsml.org. 

New Transcripts Just In

Recording Voices & Documenting Memories is happy to welcome a new intern. For the past two months, Cecilia Greco has been producing transcripts of interviews with former Czech & Slovak political prisoners and their families. Watch the NCSML's oral history web pages over the weeks to come for the complete transcripts and, in the meantime, here is a taster of what to expect:

Jana Svehlova three weeks before her father's arrest

Jana Svehlova was interviewed in Washington, D.C. in 2010:

"My parents left Czechoslovakia in 1939. But they married in England – they met in England. My father was with the Royal Air Force – with the 311 Czechoslovak Squadron. And my mother managed to get to England as a domestic person. And her War duty was delivering milk to English homes. And all her life she complained about those dirty English women not washing those glass milk bottles properly."

So, both of your parents fled the Nazis?

"Yes, they fled the Nazis. And my father and mother met in Cardiff, because my mother went with her friends to an official Air Force Club in Cardiff. And she was still very sad because her boyfriend in Czechoslovakia told her he wouldn't marry her. But she was persuaded by her friends, and she went. And in walks a group of handsome Czechoslovak airmen. And one of them asked her to marry him – I mean, I'm sorry, to dance with him. And she said yes. And next, he asked her to lend him money for cigarettes. (Laughs) And next thing, they have a date. And then he asked her to marry him because he said, 'look, I'm going to get killed anyway. So why shouldn't a nice Czech girl get a good pension?' And so they married in May 1943. And I must admit, I was born December 1943."

So, when did you then return to Czechoslovakia?

"Well, my father couldn't wait to get back to Czechoslovakia. So in August 1945 – immediately after the War when they demobilized – he went back to Prague. And my mother did not want to return because she was from the Sudetenland, her first language was German, and she didn't have the best memories of Prague just before the War. So she wanted to stay in England, but my father wouldn't hear of it. So, first the families of people who fought with the Allies were flying back. But so many planes crashed that the Red Cross organized that the spouses - basically the wives and the children - would go by train and boat. So my mother and I then came by train to Czechoslovakia in 1945."

... Jana's father was arrested in December 1949, when she was 10 years old. Despite this, Jana says she still has good memories from childhood:

"I was never hungry. My mother told me, and I have lived with this – my mother complaining, not having money for example for coal. So, I know that one of the neighbors – we found out later that that particular neighbor was the one that was reporting on us to the Secret Police. But she was very nice to us. (Laughs) And she gave us money, or lent us money for coal. And also, when my mother was writing to the president and everybody else, you know, 'Let my husband out; he's been out there now five years; I think he's reeducated.' Because her first language was German, she was never sure about the Czech grammar. So this particular neighbor was also helping her with those letters. And I – after my mother died, she died when she was 92 in England – and I found she kept all the letters from my father from prison. All those 10 years, year-by-year. So I found those letters and it was kind of funny. Oh, and some of the letters she wrote to the president. And she also wrote a letter to the commandant of the labor camp, 'My husband has been there for seven years now; let him out. I'm sick, and my child needs a father.' And he wrote back, 'Your husband's behavior is not right. He is not reeducated and he plays cards.' Because sometimes when they were down in the mine, you know, the guards wouldn't go down there. So, somebody obviously must have said it that he played cards. (Laughs) My mother wrote back, 'Well, he was a gambler before he went to prison, and I guess the prison hasn't cured him yet.' (Laughs) So, they didn't let him out. Maybe because he was playing cards." (Laughs)

Visit http://www.ncsml.org/Content/Oral-Histories.aspx for more full-length transcripts over the months to come.

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!

Barbara Reinfeld’s Refugee Camp Diary, 1948

At a recent oral history shoot, Recording Voices & Documenting Memories interviewee Barbara Reinfeld (née Koháková) shared her childhood diary with us.

Refugees in West German camps were issued with these scrapbooks, which they were encouraged to “keep as a permanent souvenir of the current unpleasantness.” In fact, these diaries had been repurposed from World War II, when they were intended to lift the spirits of prisoners of war.

In her diary, Barbara documents moving from one refugee camp to another, shopping in American military PX stores, receiving CARE packages and comparing the taste of Coca Cola and Pepsi Cola.

 

The diary contains a number of photos, including these images of a wedding in Barbara’s refugee camp in August, 1948. Note that the wedding car is a decorated International Refugee Organization jeep.

 

While in West Germany, Barbara and her family were in touch with the Alexander family in the United States. In the summer of 1948, they sent the Koháks a photo of their children with the following inscription:

“This is to show Raza & Barbara how American children dress in the Middle West. Willa’s shorts are navy blue, her shirt a red plaid. Buzz’ are navy blue cowboy jeans with a light blue plaid shirt. David’s T-shirt is bright blue, his pants are of U.S. army material – khaki colored. The picture was taken for you – the children knew why, which is no doubt why they look so serious.”

 

Barbara started seventh grade in fall 1948, where she made a number of friends mentioned throughout this diary. To her entry for September 20, 1948 she attaches this invite to her friend Virginia Rice’s party at which, she is reassured, “there will not be any boys there.”   

 

For clips from Barbara Reinfeld’s oral history, watch the NCSML’s oral history pages over the months to come.

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 and Documenting Memories in New York City, January 2012

Recording Voices & Documenting Memories staff have been gathering interviews in New York City and environs over the past two weeks. Here are but a few of the nicest materials gathered:


Joseph Ben-David feeding pigeons in Prague, circa 1933

Joseph Ben-David (born Josef Polák) was raised in a Jewish family in Prague until the outbreak of WWII in 1939, when he fled to Palestine.


Photo of Joseph on ship to Palestine, October 1939

Joseph came to the United States in 1954, where he worked at first as a printing ink maker (a trade he had inherited from his father in Czechoslovakia). In 1973, he founded the Church of Humanism, in which he remains active to this day.


Portrait of Joseph Ben-David in New York City, January 2012

Otto Ulc (also known as Ota Ulč), meanwhile, came to the United States in 1960, after working as a judge in Czechoslovakia. He is the author of numerous books, including The Judge in a Communist State: A View from Within.


Selection of books by Ota Ulč released by 68 Publishers

One of Otto’s first jobs in New York City was at (the now defunct) Vašata Czech Restaurant on East 75th Street.


Otto in uniform at Vašata Restaurant, 1960s


Business card from Vašata, courtesy of Otto Ulč

Otto now lives in Binghamton, NY where he is retired following a career teaching political science at SUNY Binghamton.


Katerina Kyselica, New York City, January 2012

Katerina Kyselica came to the United States in 2001 after working as a lawyer (and, prior to that, a professional swimmer) in the Czech Republic. She settled in New York City two years ago, where she now heads the dob2010 initiative, promoting new Czech and Slovak design in the States.


Peter Sís DJing in Poland, 1960s

Peter Sís arrived in the United States in 1982 to make a film in Los Angeles. When he decided to remain in the country after his travel visa expired, his first offer of work came from Milos Forman, who asked Peter to design the poster for his Oscar-winning film Amadeus. Before settling in the United States, Peter had worked as a DJ (with his own show on Radio Prague) and had himself won a Golden Bear at the Berlin Film Festival for his animated short - Heads.


Portrait of Peter Sís in his studio, January 2012

Today, Peter lives in Connecticut and works in Manhattan. Watch out for clips from his and these other interviews on the National Czech & Slovak Museum & Library’s web pages over the weeks to come.

Czech & Slovak Family Restaurants

In the course of working on Recording Voices & Documenting Memories, food has been an important theme, and a good number of the people the National Czech & Slovak Museum & Library has spoken to have owned their own family restaurant, either here in the United States or in Europe prior to their departure.

Dusan Ciran’s stepfather, Emil Sarvady, owned a restaurant in the town of Senica, Western Slovakia, in the run up to WWII (the restaurant in question is pictured above, in more recent times). In this clip from Dusan’s interview with Recording Voices & Documenting Memories, he recalls serving German soldiers there during the War:



Robert Dobson, meanwhile, worked as a waiter (as well as a hair model) in Prague in the 1970s. When he came to Chicago with his family in 1984, he started working as a bartender in the city before buying Pilsner Restaurant in Berwyn three years later. He and his family ran the establishment for the next 13 years. In this clip from his interview, Robert remembers the most popular items on the menu:



Today, Robert runs a remodeling and construction firm based in Bolingbrook, Illinois.



Josef Tousek was a waiter and hotelier in Czechoslovakia before he came to Chicago in 1981. After working at Ciel Bleu French Restaurant in Chicago’s Mayfair Hotel for some years, he set up his own Alpine Banquet House, which now has two branches in the Greater Chicago Area. He shared photos of his restaurant on Roosevelt Road before and after reconstruction with Recording Voices & Documenting Memories:


Photos of Alpine Banquet House before and after renovation

Ales Vesely came to the United States in 1983. Today he works as a barman in Chicago’s Klas Czech Restaurant (where this photograph was taken):



Of Klas Restaurant and the neighborhood, Cicero, in which it is found, Ales says: “…It used to be all Czech over here. I remember we’d drive down Cermak Avenue and there would be Czech butcher shops, a bakery, other restaurants, Czech bars, even Polish places. And now you drive down Cermak Avenue and pretty much it’s all Spanish. This is the last Mohican on Cermak Road. I love this place, it’s very unique."

Working with Raw History - Sharing Czech and Slovak History through Video Clips

My name is Jakob Garman, and I am an Oral History Project intern for the summer of 2011. Working with the Oral History Project has been a great experience. There is so much history and so many stories from these individuals that would otherwise be lost without this project. It has been a great privilege to see these interviews uncut, in their raw state, and then have the opportunity to help NCSML edit and share them with the world.

One of the things I’ve done here is put together the trailer and teaser for the project. The clips I chose for the trailer were ones I believe express the key points that interviewees remember from their experiences in Czechoslovakia during WWII and the Cold War:



I have been touched by the stories these individuals tell; stories of escape and yearning for freedom, stories of childhood during war and tension, and stories of crossing the borders of communism, and coming to America. Everyone has a story to tell, and the Oral History Project gives these people a voice for the entire world to hear.

The first interview I edited was Barbara Skypala. The things she remembers are quite remarkable:



Besides the amazing heritage and history of the Czech and Slovak people, there have been many things I have learned and enjoyed in the technology department as well. I have learned more about the process of producing a professional video project, as well as hosting a professional web site. I have always enjoyed working with technology, and this project seems to be a bridge between history and technology, the old and the new. This is especially important for my generation, who might be more inclined to view internet media, or maybe a YouTube video than a normal encyclopedia or history book. This bridge also gives instant access to the Czech & Slovak Museum & Library’s content to people all over the world, which in itself, is amazing.

Again, it has been an honor to work with the museum on this project. I am certainly glad to be a part of it.

-posted by Jakob Garman