Rose Green - May 21, 2008
Czechoslovakian Politics
Do you remember the stories about Thomas Masaryk as well?
Sure. He sat with my mother and my sisters and we cried when he died. He was, he was the finest man.
A hero.
Oh yeah, yes, he was a big hero. He married an American girl, you know that?
I didn't know that.
His wife was American girl. She was a Garrigue girl. Her name was Garrigue and he adopted her name like Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk. That's how his name went, you know. Oh, I remember him. My cry--my mother cried her eyes out when he died.
Did you ever see him?
Never met him, no, no.
I mean...
Just--not just--no, no. He didn't come. It was small town, very small town. But I remember, I--we were very patriotic; we were very, very patriotic.
Czechoslovakian patriotic.
Yeah, very.
So, you knew the history of when Czechoslovakia was founded after the First World War.
Of course. My father--I was born in the middle of the war. My--the war started the fourteens, I was born sixteens and my brother was born the eighteens.
And the war was over.
And the war was over, yeah, so.
And you were multi-lingual. You spoke...
We all--everybody in Czechoslovakia we spoke more languages because uh, after Austro-Hungary, you know, there was Hungarian spoken after--my grandparents from my mother's parents spoke German. My grandfather was sent when he was a young boy he was sent to Germany to study--my mother's father.
And your grandparents were also born in Michalovce.
Uh, my, my--not in Michalovce. In, in the area.
But in Czechoslovakia.
In Czechoslovakia. That was Hungary at the time.
Yeah, yeah. Um...
It's, it's a mixed up family, you know.
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