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.

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.

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.

Slovo, Summer 2011

Cover of Slovo, Summer 2011

A new edition of the NCSML’s journal Slovo is out, and the whole issue is devoted to Recording Voices & Documenting Memories. Here are extracts from some of the articles written for Slovo by oral history project participants alongside images they shared with the NCSML at the time of their interview.


Portrait of Karel Ruml, 1949

Karel Ruml left Czechoslovakia in 1951 by “crashing a train through the Iron Curtain into West Germany.” In this edition of Slovo, he remembers his escape:

“My own task was to prevent anyone from using the single manual brake in my coach. With the train in motion… I got up and walked slowly to the end of the corridor, where I casually leaned on the wheel of the brake. Soon we were racing through As and a big, self-assured border guard tried to push me aside. I quickly drew my gun and ordered him to stop and keep quiet. He glared at me with a mixture of hate and cowardice, but didn’t move… We finally stopped among farm fields. Not too far behind us was a forested ridge bristling with watch towers and barbed wire – the Iron Curtain… Bewildered passengers [milled] outside the train.”


Birthday card designed by John Palka, circa 1950

In Twice Displaced But Not Defeated John Palka (who came to the United States in 1941 and then again in 1949) writes:

“…My parents worked hard to raise me with a dual identity – that of a devoted American grateful to his new homeland for the safety and opportunities it offered him, but also that of a Slovak who knew about and was proud of his heritage. In this they succeeded, for that is the way I still see myself today. After her death, I found in my mother’s files a memento that expresses this duality perfectly, a birthday card I made for her. On the front I wrote Happy Birthday and Št’astlivé narodzeniny, and on the back I drew two flags, the Czechoslovak above and the U.S. flag below. I was 11 or 12 when I sat down with my crayons to make this card.”


Jana Svehlova with her father, Jan Roubik, in England during WWII

Jana Svehlova is the founder of a non-governmental organization called The Enemy’s Daughters. She herself is the daughter of a political prisoner, her father having been arrested in 1949 because he was an RAF pilot during WWII and, she says, “the communist regime viewed those who had fought for the Allies with hostility.” In Slovo, Jana recollects her father’s arrest:

“The only clear image I have of that day is the color of my dad’s face when the agents were taking him away at 9 o’clock in the morning – stark white. I did ask one of the men, 'Where are you taking my daddy?' The security agent answered, 'We have to ask him some questions.' My father was arrested and sentenced to 10 years of hard labor… My mother and I were able to visit him about two times a year.”


Vladimir Maule's ID card, circa 1969

In From Lenin to Lennon, Vladimir Maule remembers his youth in Prague and journey to America in 1969. He settled with his mother in what was then a particularly Czech neighborhood of Chicago:

“As we walked along 26th Street, we heard some voices speaking in Czech. The sound was coming out of a travel agency. It was a social group of elderly Czechs at their monthly meeting, where they discussed global events and exchanged cooking recipes. They were genuinely happy to help. They found a place for us to stay the first night and recommended where to apply for work – my mom at Western Electric and I at a steel company called CECO. The next day we were both hired. (I had taken the wrong bus so ended up at Sears.) We found a basement apartment in Berwyn, a Chicago suburb with a sizable Czech population. We were on a roll.”

Vladimir talks more about the mix-up which led him to find employment at Sears (and not CECO) in this clip from his oral history interview:



Also in this edition of Slovo are articles by project participants Melania Rakytiak and Peter Hruby. Slovo is sent to all NCSML members and can be purchased at the museum store in Cedar Rapids.

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