Since KITnDO launched its feature PLACES, we created a special category within it named “Heritage”. We thought it could be very useful for people to have somewhere to record certains happenings important for their community of compatriots living abroad and memories of their ancestors. Isn’t interesting to learn that some particular places used to have an important significance although many times there is no more mark of their history there? And, how fascinating is to see how those places looked before and compare to how they look today. While few addresses have been listed under this category, things are presently moving for Czech and Slovak cultures.

Our team has been joined by Martin Nekola Ph.D. whose role is highlighting historical facts and sharing pictures of places linked to Czech (and a little bit to Slovak) heritage around the World. In fact, Martin is a specialist on the History of Czech and its immigrants. He’s the author of the book “Czech Chicago”, the exhibit “Czechs and Slovaks in New York” and a dozen of articles related to the history of Czech immigrants in the USA. He spent lot of time researching archives around the World, and he’s going to share his findings with the KITnDO community.

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Here are few examples of places related to Czech and Slovak History in New York:

If you want to discover more about the heritage of Czech and Slovak immigrants, check another project that Martin is managing called Czechoslovak Talks, that is quite complementary to the KITnDO’s directory. This project aims to present interesting life stories of Czechs and Slovaks abroad. These stories are very touching and let us dive deep into different faces of life that Czechs or Slovak immigrants challenged in the past – escapades, arrests, fights for freedom, death, but also the successes, joys and family reunions. Seven inspirational stories from USA, Canada, Australia and Peru have even served for a comic book. It has been recently published by Albatros, in Prague, and the book is available in Czech with English translation.

It is very important we keep our cultural heritage known for the next generations. So if you are aware of any story that shouldn’t be forgotten and are interested to contribute with approx. 600 words text and 3 photographs, please contact Martin. And if you would like to share historical pictures of specific places where something interesting happened for Czech or Slovak community, please add it directly on KITnDO with a short description.

If you are reading us and you are from other origin than Czech or Slovak, do you know if there is a similar project to collect memories of immigrants? Please, share. Thank you!