Interviewees A - Z
All interviewees are listed below in alphabetical order. Click on a name to see that person's full profile and video highlights from their interview.
November 08, 2011
Michlean Amir was born in 1940 in Nimes, France to Czech Jewish parents. She lived in Plzeň, Czechoslovakia from 1945 to 1948 when she emigrated to Israel with her parents and younger sister. Michlean then moved with her family to Rochester, New York in 1955. Today, she is an archivist at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and lives in Rockville, Maryland.
September 23, 2010
Ludmila Anderko was born in the small mountain town of Kolačkov, North Eastern Slovakia, in 1949. Her mother stayed at home and raised Ludmila and her three sisters, while her father worked in a textile factory in nearby Kežmarok during the week, coming home to visit the family on weekends.
June 10, 2011
Brother Gabriel Balazovic was born Julián Balažovič in Dolná Krupá, Slovakia, in 1949. His father worked as a forest ranger and then in a facility for the mentally ill, while his mother stayed at home and raised Julian and his six siblings. Julian trained to be a gardener in Rakovice before coming to Canada in 1967. In Toronto, he became an active member of Sts Cyril and Methodius Slovak Roman Catholic Church. In 1980, he decided to become a part of the Benedictine monastery at St Andrew Abbey in Cleveland, Ohio.
June 14, 2010
Ludvik Barta was born in the town of Liberec, north Bohemia, in May 1945. His mother was a Sudeten German, while his father was a Czech who narrowly escaped execution after working for the Nazis as a translator during the War.
September 28, 2011
Zdeněk Bažant was born in Prague in 1937. He studied civil engineering at Czech Technical University and graduated first in his class. Zdeněk began working with a state company as a civil engineer and earned a PhD in mechanics and a postgraduate diploma in physics. In 1968, while completing a fellowship at the University of Toronto and hearing of the Warsaw Pact invasion, he decided to stay abroad. Zdeněk is a Murphy Professor at Northwestern University.
January 30, 2012
Dagmar Benedik was born in Kladno in 1952. She left Czechoslovakia with her family on August 22, 1968 - one day after the invasion of the country by the Warsaw Pact troops. Dagmar's family settled in Toronto where she learned English and attended school. She has since lived in Tampa and returned to Prague to live for six years. Today, Dagmar lives in Richmond Hill, Toronto.
August 25, 2011
Ladislaus (Lou) Bolchazy was born in Michalovce in eastern Slovakia in 1937. In 1948, Lou's father emigrated to the U.S., and one year later, Lou and the rest of his family joined him. They lived in Yonkers, NY. Lou has a PhD in classical studies and he owns Bolchazy-Carducci Publishers. He lives with his wife Marie in Barrington, Illinois.
August 17, 2011
Vera Borkovec was born in Brno in 1926 and lived in Prague until 1934 when she moved to Tehran with her family. They returned to Czechoslovakia following WWII, but left the country in July 1949 after the rise of the Communist party. She first immigrated to Bolivia, and later arrived in the United States in 1952, eventually settling in the Washington, D.C. area. Vera was a professor of Russian language and literature at American University for over 30 years.
May 30, 2010
Paul Brunovsky was born in the spa town of Piešt’any, in what is today Western Slovakia, in September 1930. He left Czechoslovakia in October 1949. After 18 months in refugee camps in Germany, Paul sailed to Canada, where his first job was as a lumberjack in Batchawana, Ontario. He moved to Cleveland in 1959.
July 18, 2011
Paul Burik was born in the Southern Bohemian town of České Budějovice in 1954. He left Czechoslovakia with his father on August 23, 1968 and spent almost three months in Vienna, Austria, where he attended English classes at the Berlitz language school. He arrived in Cleveland in November, 1968. Paul worked as an architect for the City of Cleveland for 25 years until he retired in 2010. He is currently president of Cleveland’s Czech Cultural Garden.
April 05, 2010
Marie Cada was born in the small village of Komorovice, south-eastern Bohemia, in 1919. She became an orphan at a young age and spent her early teenage years looking after the family farm with her brother.
September 22, 2011
Matt Carnogursky was born in Bratislava in 1960. He left the country in 1983, shortly before graduating with an engineering degree from technical university. He emigrated to Canada where an uncle lived, earned his degree, and began working for an aerospace company. Matt and his family have lived in Nigeria, Budapest, Slovakia, and the United States. He, his wife Gaby, and their eight children live in northern Virginia.
March 07, 2011
Ingrid Chybik was born in Brno, Moravia, in 1939. During WWII, she fell ill with diphtheria which, she says, saved both her and her brother Alfred, as they were quarantined when the nursery school they normally attended was bombed. Both of Ingrid's parents were killed during WWII. In 1946, Ingrid and her brother were taken in by an aunt in Vienna. In 1952, Ingrid was sponsored to come to Chicago.
August 08, 2011
Miroslav Chybik was born in Jalubí, Moravia, in 1935. His mother Josefa and father Miroslav had met in Chicago, Illinois in the 1920s, but had returned to Europe to care for their ailing parents in 1930. In 1948, Miroslav’s older sister Ester gained US citizenship on grounds that her father had been considered an American at the time of her birth. She came to America in December 1949 and encouraged her brother to do likewise. Miroslav applied for US citizenship and left Czechoslovakia on May 25, 1950.
January 04, 2011
Dusan Ciran was born in Brezová pod Bradlom, Western Slovakia, in 1929. His family arrived in Canada in 1950, settling first in Lethbridge, Alberta, before moving to Toronto, where Dusan played for the local Hungarian football club – Pannonia. Dusan moved with his family to Chicago in 1952. He co-founded the Oil Painters of America association.
July 08, 2011
Vladimir Cvicela was born in Kl’ačany, Slovakia in 1946. When he was 19 years old, Vladimir was conscripted into the Czechoslovak Army and sent to České Budějovice, where he trained as a tank driver. He says his tank unit was disbanded two years later, however, following the Soviet-led invasion in August 1968. He came to Cleveland in March 1970 and became an American citizen in 1977.
November 22, 2010
Zdenek David was born in Blatná, South Bohemia, in May 1931. He left Czechoslovakia in 1947, when he gained a one-year scholarship to complete his secondary education at the Putney School in Vermont. When the Communist takeover happened in 1948, his parents urged him not to return home. Zdenek was invited to work at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington DC in 1974. He works there to this day, now as the senior scholar.
January 10, 2012
Gene Deitch was born in Chicago in 1924. He grew up in California and became a well-known animator and illustrator. In 1959, Gene traveled to Prague to direct an animated film. He fell in love with the city and Zdenka Najmanová and decided to return to Prague to live. Over 50 years later, Gene is married to Zdenka and is still in the Czech capital. Throughout his successful career, he has directed and produced many films, including the Oscar winning Munro.
October 26, 2010
Duke Dellin was born in Prague in 1940. His father, Eduard, had studied agricultural engineering and, after a time spent at the helm of the Sugar Beet Growers’ Association, became involved in politics as the Secretary of the Czechoslovak Agrarian Party. Duke arrived with his family in Chicago in 1949, after one year spent at Ludwigsburg refugee camp. He is now partner at William Blair & Company, an investment firm based in downtown Chicago.
January 23, 2012
Eva Derman was born in Šahy in 1947. When she was ten, she moved with her parents and brother to Modra. Eva studied natural sciences at Comenius University, but did not finish her studies there, as she left the country in the summer of 1968. Eva and her family moved to New York City where she received a masters degree in physics and a PhD in molecular biology. Eva has recently become involved with the Society for the History of Czechoslovak Jews.