Leaving or Staying: Personal Stories of 20th-Century Czechs and Slovaks

The following text is the summary of a presentation made at the Bohemian National Hall in New York City on April 23, 2013: 

Since 2009, The National Czech & Slovak Museum & Library (NCSML) has been recording the stories of Czechs and Slovaks who settled in the United States throughout the course of the Cold War. Of the 282 interviews recorded to date, around one tenth have been with people who left during the normalization period. For the purposes of this blog post, normalization means the era following the Soviet-led invasion of Czechoslovakia and prior to the Velvet Revolution. It refers to the 1970s and 1980s, and the rule of Communist Party Leader Gustáv Husák in particular. There are, of course, many reasons why Czechs and Slovaks emigrated during this period. Marek Skolil explains his reasons for departure in the mid-1980s thus: “I realized that I want to leave the country – if I cannot study, I will leave.” Jan Kocvara, meanwhile, suggests that it was for his family’s sake that he decided to leave the country:

Among the older generation of NCSML interviewees, who emigrated in the late 1940s and early 1950s, there are many dramatic stories of crossing the border into West Germany on foot, often with bullets whistling past as they ran. By the 1970s, to all accounts, the process of emigration seems to have been a lot more bureaucratic. Borders were almost hermetically sealed, and the way out of the country was often through bribing and/or tricking a functionary, or stealing a stamp or appropriate piece of letterhead. Jerry (born Jiří) Barta’s experience reflects this trend:

A favorite means of emigration during this time was through the organized coach tour. Interviewees discuss traveling to Yugoslavia and seeking asylum at a UN-run refugee camp in Belgrade. West Germany was another country in which Czech and Slovak tourists frequently claimed asylum. Tomas Pavlicek took a coach to Munich with his daughter in 1987:

In total, historians believe that around 13,000 Czechs and Slovaks settled in the United States during the normalization period. Following the Velvet Revolution, it is thought that thousands of them returned to today’s Czech and Slovak Republics. 

Artist Sonya Darrow on Work with the Oral History Project

Detail from Untitled #1

To enhance the NCSML’s traveling oral history exhibit, Leaving Czechoslovakia, Cedar Rapids artist Sonya Darrow worked with the National Czech & Slovak Museum & Library to create a collage of documents Czechs and Slovaks used to emigrate. Here, she reflects upon the collaboration:

The collage - Untitled #1 - was first shown in New York City at the Bohemian National Hall in June 2012. It has also been displayed at Des Moines Public Library, Iowa. It is the first in a series of artworks using documents gathered by the National Czech & Slovak Museum & Library’s oral history project Recording Voices & Documenting Memories of Czech & Slovak Americans.

Untitled #1 on display in NYC

Sonya Darrow and Rosie Johnston with Untitled #1 in Des Moines

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. 

Humanities Iowa event in Des Moines, October 17

The NCSML is opening its oral history traveling exhibit, Leaving Czechoslovakia, in Des Moines Public Library Central Branch on Wednesday, October 17. 

At the opening, speakers will include Dr. Kieran Williams (Drake University), Dr. Mila Saskova-Pierce (University of Nebraska - Lincoln), Dr. Igor Tchoukarine (Macalester College) and Recording Voices & Documenting Memories interviewee Peter Vodenka.

The opening will run from 6:00pm - 8:00pm. It is free and open to the public. Leaving Czechoslovakia will remain on display at Des Moines Public Library until October 31. 

Please RSVP to Rosie Johnston by October 12 at rjohnston@ncsml.org. 

The event is co-sponsored by the Iowa International Center and Des Moines Public Library. It is made possible by a grant from Humanities Iowa, an affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities.