Foreigner Looking for an Apartment: USA

synopsis

Czech Immigrant Makes Cookies

Escape to Freedom

biography

The American collection of archival footage shows the life stories of Czechoslovak immigrants to the United States. Famous people and their fates after coming to this country are well known; therefore, w e have focused on the lives of ordinary people and the perception of Czechoslovak refugees by the Americans, as with other countries in this section. About 150,000 people from Czechoslovakia came to the United States during the whole period of communist dictatorship. One of them was Mr. Jiří Knedlík who lived in Sacramento, California. His successful business with Carlsbad wafers enriched the range of confectionery products in local supermarkets – they caught on mainly thanks to the traditional formula, manual production, and the fact they were recommended to be consumed with wine, the production of which is typical for this area. anks to this success, we can easily get the impression that at that time, America embodied the ideal of immense possibilities, thus representing the essential counterpart to the occupied Czechoslovakia. The next report focuses fi rst on the precarious situation of refugees from communist countries to then thematize mainly the dramatic escape of Igor Baronský, a Czechoslovak exile. In the large number of refugees in the USA, the Czechs and Slovaks have only been a negligible minority, which has also been refl ected in a smaller number of media outputs. That is why we are happy that we have succeeded to compile this collection, despite the decentralized system of American television archives.