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 Článek v ČEŠTINĚ dole (Klikněte na “Read the rest …”)

Author: Josef Čermák (CzechFolks.com PLUS)

Czech (or Czechoslovak) television in Canada is nothing new: Vladimír Bubak and David Ševčík started broadcasting their programs in Kitchener-Waterloo in 1978, in Ottawa the first broadcast (Arnošt Wagner) took place even earlier (1973), in London the creators of a television program were a husband and wife team, Josef and Ružena Mára. Perhaps the most significant was the TV program in Toronto, a child of Milo Kubik (I was his happy assistant). But of course none of those programs could match in scope the Nová vize of Marketa Slepčíková-Rešovská.

Whenever I talk to Marketa, it hits me how much the world has changed during the 87 years of my earthly visit. Imagine (for example) a business street in a city of almost any size 87 years ago, a street where women used to come to shop. Prams everywhere. Read the rest of this entry (Čtětě více ZDE) »

 Článek v ČEŠTINĚ dole (Klikněte na “Read the rest …”)

Author: Josef Čermák (CzechFolks.com PLUS)

Weather and the opening ceremonies
The Czechoslovak (and later Czech and Slovak) Days used to be held on Sunday and the weather (if my recollection is correct) behaved as it should. Switching the date of our important day to Saturday apparently displeased the gods of weather and they started to spray us. This year wasn’t an exception, even though - although the sky over Masaryktown was full of playful clouds - it didn’t rain there. It rained though all around and that certainly affected the afternoon crowd. Read the rest of this entry (Čtětě více ZDE) »

Článek v ČEŠTINĚ dole (Klikněte na “Read the rest …”)

Author: Josef Čermák (CzechFolks.com PLUS)

An evening in the Mysteriously Yours Theatre in Toronto
Richard Krpač completed his four year tour of duty as the first Consul General of the Czech Republic in Toronto on June 30th. He left behind a terrific amount of work, starting - as we have already reported - with bringing into the Czech-Canadian circle an impressive number of highly successful countrymen and countrywomen, who until that time had little contact with the community. One of his most memorable actions was the evening at the Hart House of the University of Toronto, which he named Glamorous Prague, an event in which he managed to bring together hockey, Canadian Indian children, and Czech models. Read the rest of this entry (Čtětě více ZDE) »

Článek v ČEŠTINĚ dole (Klikněte na “Read the rest …”)

Author: Martina Roe - Václav Židek (CzechFolks.com PLUS)

“Let live our Czech Republic!”       
We all call from our lungs.  
We respect and love Masaryk
But we do not do anything ourselves!

(Karel Hasler 1919) 

Thomas Hasler was born in Prague in 1941, a month before his father was murdered at the Mauthausen concentration camp by the Nazis. He left Czechoslovakia with his mother in 1949, a year after the Communists came to power, and grew up in Australia. He spent his childhood until the age of 16 years in Australia.  He moved with his mother to the U.S. in 1958.  He now lives in Baltimore. He  earned a B.A. from Hobart College and an M.A. from the University of Michigan.  Read the rest of this entry (Čtětě více ZDE) »

Článek v ČEŠTINĚ dole (Klikněte na “Read the rest …”)

Author: Josef Čermák (CzechFolks.com PLUS)

It all started long time ago. Next year, it will be 60 years. In 1952 Jaroslav Roušal opened in a building municipally known as 638 Queen Street West in Toronto “J. Rousal Prague Ham Shop”. It was the first establishment in Toronto making Prague ham and sausages. The Roušal family continued in this business until 1968 (I stopped there occasionally for sausages or other goodies, but because it happened long time ago and my memory isn’t all that good anymore, I don’t remember too much about the Rousal years, and will move directly to the Pichlik family dynasty). That year (1968, when in Prague and actually all across the land, Prague Spring filled the streets with a new hope - and then came the tanks from the east), in the fall, the Prague Ham Shop was bought by the Pichlik family.  Read the rest of this entry (Čtětě více ZDE) »

Článek v ČEŠTINĚ dole (Klikněte na “Read the rest …”)

Tomorrow is a special day for San Diego Czechs and Slovaks. It will be the first time for all of them to learn and share their heritage at the San Diego Czech-Moravian-Slovak festival. The festival will feature traditional music, art and crafts, but visitors will also be able to come to the Czech and Slovak Mass and taste the food, which is much different from the food available in the local restaurants or grocery stores. 

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Článek v ČEŠTINĚ dole (Klikněte na “Read the rest …”)

Author: Josef Čermák (CzechFolks.com PLUS)

I occasionally see her at concerts and community celebrations. A vigorous (she’ll be ninety in July, but no one could guess that), apparently utterly self-confident, self-sufficient, practically invulnerable, woman. The only thing I knew about her was that she taught children (and adults) to play tennis, and that she had a son, who worked in real estate and also played tennis. On the first day of the year 2011, I was watching on the Toronto Czech television program, Nová vize (New vision) a re-run of a film. The beautifully tanned producer, Marketa Slepčiková-Rešovská (Marketa has to her credit some 350 television programs, many of which, especially those created in the last two years with cameraman Igor Rešovský, are of outstanding quality), introduced Vlasta Brankovká (that self-confident, self-sufficient woman I occasionally see at concerts), standing beside a Christmas tree.

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Článek v ČEŠTINĚ dole (Klikněte na “Read the rest …”)

Author: Josef Čermák

The concert on Sunday, November 28, 2010, one in the series of Dr. Miloš Krajný’s Nocturnes, was sponsored by the estate and family of Patriška ze Slaného, Vlasty Scheybalová, born Provazníková. Both CzechFolks and the Toronto Satellite published articles about Vlasta a few months ago.

Today, just a few dates: Vlasta was born in 1928 in Slaný and she died there in 2009. For a number of years, she lived with her husband Frantisek and son of the same name in Toronto. Today, all of them sleep in their family grave in a charming little cemetery in Bolton, Ontario. A fate - at least seemingly - not dissimilar to the fate of many Czech and Slovak families. Except that the fate of the Scheybal family was written more tragically. And also, because Vlasta left behind an unusually deep footprint.

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Článek v ČEŠTINĚ dole (Klikněte na “Read the rest …”)

Author: Josef Čermák

Towards the end of last October, I attended in the North York Centre for the Arts - at the invitation of my friend, Ladislav P. Kozak, the pastor of the Slovak Lutheran Evangelical Church in Toronto, who seems to have friends everywhere - a festive occasion: the inauguration of this year’s “Holocaust Education Week”. There must have been at least one thousand of us, the majority, of course, Jewish. We listened to an outstanding musical program and good speeches, but the evening belonged to seven remarkable people, who witnessed the horrors of the Nazi regime and bore witness of it. The evening was organized by the Azrieli Foundation established in 2005 to collect, preserve and share the memoirs and diaries written by those who survived Nazism and found a new home in Canada, and share their testimony with the largest possible number of people (the books written by the survivors are distributed free of charge to libraries, educational institutions and Holocaust-education programs across Canada and given to everyone who participates in the Foundation’s activities. Read the rest of this entry (Čtětě více ZDE) »

Článek v ČEŠTINĚ dole (Klikněte na “Read the rest …”)

Author: Martina Roe

A few days ago I set off with my son to visit Alice Herz Sommer in her very cosy and modest flat in Belsize Park in North London and made an exclusive interview with her for readers of CzechFolks.com Plus. It was a few days before her 107th birthday.

Alice is currently the oldest Holocaust survivor and the second oldest Czech woman. Despite her age she welcomes several visitors each day into her flat who come to share her memories and life experiences. During my 40-minute stay she welcomed three more visitors from a young writer, visitor from Prague and another local lady who also survived her stay in a concentration camp. Till present day, Alice plays the piano for three hours a day and her flatmates say that living in the same block of flats as Alice means that they can listen to lovely piano recitals each day for free. Even passersby stop by Alice’s window and listen to her playing beautiful music. Alice loves to play Smetana and Dvořák, but her favourite is Beethoven. Alice assigns her longevity to optimism. Read the rest of this entry (Čtětě více ZDE) »

Článek v ČEŠTINĚ dole (Klikněte na “Read the rest …”)

If you would like to see a real historical object in Prague, surrounded by mysterious stories and a long history, you would find such a structure on the side wall of the Old Town Hall. Can you guess which one? If you guessed the Prague Astronomical Clock, you were absolutely right. This clock was built in 1410, by Mikulas of Kadan, and recently celebrated its 600th anniversary.

Mikulas of Kadan was not the only person behind this historical clock tower. He collaborated with Jan Ondrejuv, who was a mathematician and astrologist. The clock was then rebuilt by the master Hanus, who was permanently blinded so he could not recreate such a masterpiece anywhere else in the world. Master Hanus, however, damaged the clock and cursed it against those, who would try to repair it again. The clock became silent for more than fifty years. Read the rest of this entry (Čtětě více ZDE) »