David Binar

* 1966

A 1948 – 1989 emigrant/refugee, Relative of a political prisoner
1. 1. 1977 - Declaration of Chart 77
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    Pressure on Charter 77 signatories from the communist regime

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    “The regime didn't like him and tried to break him in several ways, either to make him cooperate with the StB or with the regime. Or they would actually bully him – not only him but also our family. My dad would constantly be taken to interrogations after work. They would wait for him in a car and just take him away. And he had no idea – would he be coming back, would he never come back, would they lock him up right away, would they let him go? They kept putting pressure on him to sign a collaboration contract with the StB. Which he never did and that's something I truly admire him for. Because I don't know whether in that situation - a young family, two kids, huge pressure - whether I wouldn't perhaps give in, I really don't know. It is very difficult to carry out judgments and retrospectively say that someone was a collaborator. There were many reasons for collaborating.”

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    Emigration

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    duration: 01:40
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    “We had our tickets, we took off on the 27th of May. There was a train from Poland, I think, that went all the way down to Vienna. Anyway, we were on the way and at the borders, it was early morning, we had taken off at midnight, and around six in the morning we were at the borders, and there they took us off the train. The train went on and we… They were taking us, carrying submachine guns, across the platform and into some room where they interrogated us, took our clothes off, everything, checked all they had to. They found some sort of manuscript from my dad so they were happy. And then they let us go to do whatever we wanted. In Austria they knew we would be coming and now we didn't arrive, they didn't know what was going on. However, we had our tickets and they wanted to get rid of us. So we waited for another train that was coming at twelve o'clock, around noon, this small local train, and we took that to get to Vienna. It was a beautiful day, when we got across the border we went through these tiny towns, school had just ended so the train was full of children with school bags… We got to Vienna and had no idea what was next.”

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    Atmosphere in Prague in December 1989

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    “Eventually, after maybe two hours that we spent being stuck in Rozvadov, they let us go. So we brought a batch of the Svědectví magazine. Back then there was a huge demand for all sorts of publications, books, recordings, a huge hunger because there was nothing here. Everything in Czech that could somehow be brought here in Czechoslovakia, all that went here. There were stands everywhere, a stand with books on every corner, people were shopping, they were queueing for books, something completely unimaginable today. Those were beautiful times. The atmosphere in Prague was absolutely amazing then, kind of euphoric, extremely friendly, people were friendly. There were still all sorts of posters and signs around the city, from the point where it all broke down. It wasn't even a month after the 17th of November. People were dancing on the Old Town Square. Beautiful, beautiful times.”

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    u pamětníka doma, Praha 7, 30.03.2017

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    duration: 46:02
    media recorded in project The Stories of Our Neigbours
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Freedom is not easy, you have to take responsibility for your decisions, for what you do

David Binar
David Binar
photo: archiv PNS
photo: archiv PNS
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David Binar was born in 1966 in Ostrava. His father was a dissident and signatory of Charter 77. After relentless pressure from the StB the family first emigrated to Austria in 1977 and later to Germany. In Munich where the family stayed he graduated from university. He permanently returned back to Czechoslovakia in 1992. He lives in Letná, Prague with his wife and three children, working as a journalist.

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Dětství a mládí v emigraci

  • date:
    11.05.2017
  • medium type:
    Internet
  • medium name:
    Příběhy našich sousedů
  • author:
    Tereza Slachová