[1] In 1938, with his immigration papers to the United States already in order, Zenkovsky planned to visit his family in Prague one last time, but was caught up in the German occupation of Czechoslovakia.
After escaping from the Prague Offensive, Zenkovsky and his parents wound up in the American zone of occupation in Germany, where he taught at the Polytechnical school of the International Refugee Organization in Munich, until making their way to America in 1949.
[1] Zenkovsky spent a year shrubbing shrimp at Schrafft's in New York City, until he was hired as teacher for various courses on Slavonic subjects at Indiana University.
Two years later, in 1954, he was invited to Harvard University as visiting lecturer for the Russian Research Center, while his wife completed her PhD at Radcliffe College.
Starting in 1986, Zenkovsky struggled against several illnesses, but continued editing The Nikonian Chronicle together with his wife, completing the final volume in time for the thousandth anniversary of the Christianization of Kievan Rus' in 1988.