Topic Archive Czechs abroad
Holocaust survivor Vera Egermayer : telling children my story helped me understand my own life
Like many child survivors of the Holocaust Vera Egermayer, started a new
life in a new environment soon after the war. Her family moved to New
Zealand when she was just eight and the country became her second homeland.
A few years after the fall of communism in Czechoslovakia she returned to
her birthplace as New Zealand’s honorary consul and faced the ghosts of
the past, the murder of family members and her own internment at Terezin. More
Prague school renamed in honour of Chicago’s Czech mayor
An elementary school in Prague now bears the name of the Czech-born former
mayor of Chicago, Antonín Čermák. The renaming ceremony in his honour
took place on Thursday, the 140th anniversary of his birth, and was
attended, among other guests, by Čermák’s grandson. More
Czech-born author and publisher Marketa Goetz Stankiewicz
My guest today is Marketa Goetz Stankiewicz, a professor emerita at the
University of British Columbia. Born in 1927 in the Czech town of Liberec,
Marketa left Czechoslovakia following the communist putsch in 1948. She
established herself in Canada as a professor of comparative literature,
author and essayist, focusing in particular on publishing samizdat
literature, and also writing about the work of Czech playwrights such as
Pavel Kohout, Josef Topol, Ivan Klíma, and her friend the former president
Václav Havel. More
Czech Republic to provide aid to devastated Texan town
The Czech Republic will provide aid to the Texan town of West, which has
been devastated by a massive explosion at a local fertiliser plant. The
country’s ambassador to the US has arrived in the town, which has a very
strong Czech heritage, and says the Czech government will help rebuild the
community. More assistance for West should also come from the north
Moravian towns whose inhabitants settled in the town more than a century
ago. More
Many dead as fertiliser explosion devastates ‘Czech’ farming town in Texas
The fire and massive explosion at a fertiliser plant in the small Texas
town of West has flattened dozens of homes and left untold numbers of
people dead – casualty figures haven’t been released as many are still
trapped in the wreckage of their homes. The disaster is being followed
closely here in the Czech Republic – the town was settled by Czech
immigrants in the 19th century, and some three quarters of the population
are of Czech origin. More
London’s Czech community centre Velehrad to close down
The Czech and Slovak community in London are set to lose a venue that has
served as a meeting place for generations of refugees and expats. Founded
by a Czech Catholic priest in Notting Hill in 1964, the Velehrad centre has
provided new arrivals with accommodation and served as a place for various
social, cultural and religious events. But the organization that runs the
centre has now decided to sell the property, which is a move opposed by
many Czech expats in the UK. I discussed the issue with Milan Kocourek, a
London-based journalist and the head of the local chapter of the expat
organization Czechoslovak Society of Arts and Sciences. More
Josef Svoboda - From uranium mine prison labourer to Arctic ecologist
Josef Svoboda is a professor, Arctic ecologist and author. Born in 1929 in
Prague, Mr. Svoboda studied science and philosophy at Masaryk and Charles
universities. He was imprisoned for nine years by the communist regime in
1949 for alleged treason and espionage and then emigrated to Canada in
1968, where he has lived ever since. I began by asking Svoboda about his
earliest memories of growing up in pre-war Czechoslovakia. More
Mirko Dolák – A Czech Marine in Vietnam
Today 70 and in retirement in Prague, Mirko Dolák can claim to be one of
the few Czechs to have fought for the US in the Vietnam War. Indeed, his
buddies in the Marines gave him the nickname “Czech”. He later spent
nearly three decades working for the Government Accountability Office,
which uncovers waste and corruption in US federal agencies. More
Olga Hrubá: Supporter of Milada Horáková and campaigner for religious freedom
Olga Hrubá is today a feisty woman of 85. Way back at the turn of the
1950s she campaigned, from exile in the US, to save the life of her friend
Miladá Horáková, a Czechoslovak politician executed by the Communists
after a show trial. For the following four decades Olga Hrubá, along with
her pastor husband, worked – with some success – to protect the rights
of religious believers in Communist states. More
Journalist and writer Aleš Březina
Aleš Březina, is a journalist, author and also editor and publisher of
the Canadian-based Czech and Slovak bi-weekly newsletter “Satellite
1-416”. Mr Březina was born in Prague in 1948 and left Czechoslovakia in
1980 after spending more than two years in jail as a conscientious
objector, rejecting mandatory conscription in the army. Since then, he has
lived in Canada and has just published a new book called Řetěz Bláznů
– or Chain of Fools – filled with short stories written between the
1960s and early 1980s, reflecting on life in communist Czechoslovakia and
the author’s subsequent move to Canada. When I met up with him in Canada
for this edition of One on One I asked him to recall his early years in
Czechoslovakia. More
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