Ivan Exnar

* 1944

A 1948 – 1989 emigrant/refugee, Relative of a political prisoner, The Sportsmen
21. 8. 1968 - Invasion of the Warsaw Pact troops
  • 1
    Přehrát
    Pozastavit

    Asylum in Switzerland

    (video)
    duration: 02:16
    Download file
    Info

    "Well ok, there (in Chamonix) we stayed for a relatively long time, about three or four weeks. Then the Czechs had much sympathy. All hoteliers were borrowing us for lunch and dinners and we had everything for free in the best hotels. Gradually people were missing out, some tried to come back home. As a student of chemistry in fourth grade I arranged a praxis in a company CAMAG in Muttenz. It was privately agreed, but the school in Prague accepted the deal. So I went over there (…) "I came to Switzerland and everything was ready for the Czechs, just euphoria. I began working in CAMAG in Muttenz; I spent about three weeks there. They offered me to study at the university so I signed up. It gave me the opportunity to stay there and I had never intended to come back or run away, it was just out of discussion. Sometime later I got an announcement form from the Czech institutions regarding being expelled from studies and was sentenced for three years to serve in prison."

  • 2
    Přehrát
    Pozastavit

    Relation to homeland

    (video)
    duration: 00:55
    Download file
    Info

    „When we talk to relation to the Czechoslovakia, so I remember we flew from Vienna. We went to Vienna by train and there was an official saying good-bye. (…) We flew up and the weather was lovely and we could see the Elbe and Moldow confluencing in Mělník. It was a very emotional moment for me, as I was ten kilometres from home and stil so very far. I still remember it today in a very fine manner.“

  • 3
    Přehrát
    Pozastavit

    I was lucky

    (video)
    duration: 01:09
    Download file
    Info

    "It was such a time. By escaping we got lucky personally. A man killed himself there (in Czechoslovakia) through all the active years, when you can realize yourself (in sport of workwise). For us, and our year the revolution came too late. Here I could realize myself, I learned languages and quite a different way of life. To a certain extent we got lucky. Of course it was paid for by immigration.“

  • 4
    Přehrát
    Pozastavit

    Visit to father in prison

    (video)
    duration: 01:11
    Download file
    Info

    "Once we visited him, it was some place in the Jáchymov region. I went with my sister and mother, sometime before Christmas. I was still a small child. There was a double fencing, a small window and double bars. What is a man supposed to say in this situation? It was really hard for our mother. Christmas was coming, so she started ‚Ježíšku, panáčku‘. The supervisor heard it and bang, bang. He beat my dad in front of us. Then he told us, that they kicked him all the way to his cell. That was how it worked then. It is just like that.“

  • 5
    Přehrát
    Pozastavit

    Mountaineer in Himalaya

    (video)
    duration: 01:57
    Download file
    Info

    "Then there is the sports part (of my life). Of course I was climbing in Switzerland with my Swiss as well as Czech colleagues. My friend and I got invited to the Mount McKinley in Alaska, and we managed to climb the mountain. The expedition was guided by a famous Austrian mountaineer, Erich Vanis, so we got acquainted. The Austrians were planning an expedition under the auspices of the Austrian Himalaya Association and invited me as a guest to come with them. For me it was a huge chance to get to Himalayas. That was in 1979. We went there together with Petr Šír, a friend from Vienna, also of Czech origin. (…) We were lucky to get the peak. It was one of the last largely state funded expeditions.“

  • Full recordings
  • 1

    Itingen (BL), CH, 02.08.2014

    (audio)
    duration: 44:10
    media recorded in project Stories of 20th Century
    Download file
    Info
Full recordings are available only for logged users.

Personally I was happy to emigrate

Ivan Exnar in the 1970s
Ivan Exnar in the 1970s
photo: archiv pamětníka
photo: archiv pamětníka
Download image

Ivan Exnar was born in December 1944 in a Prague family of army lieutenant. During 1950s his father was imprisoned in work camps for seven years. Due to cadre reasons the witness was not accepted to gymnasium and apprenticed in Spolana Neratovice; in evenings he finished graduation exams. By 1964 he started studying at the High School of Chemistry and Technology in Prague. Since his childhood, Ivan Exnar devoted himself to climbing mountains and in August 1968, he was hiking in the French Alps and never came back to the Czechoslovakia. He applied for asylum in Switzerland and settled down in Basel, where he finished high school. Later he got a doctorate in chemistry - PhD. Professionally he devoted himself to applied research of battery packs, for clock industry (Renata AG - Swatch group) or car industry. Sport has had an important place in his life as he has devoted himself to gliding and mountain climbing, both at professional levels. His best climbing successes were Mount McKinley in 1976 and Lhotse in 1979. He is the holder of the Czech climbing altitude record of Lhotse - 8516 m above the sea level (1979-1983). He lives in the Swiz Itingen (canton Basel-village).

Show witness full story (Česky)
Photos (5)
Links (2)

České kořeny ve Švýcarsku - nový dokument je hotov

  • date:
    21.03.2011
  • medium type:
    Newspapers and magazines
  • medium name:
    Český dialog
  • author:
    Český dialog

Češi a jiní v Himálaji

  • date:
    01.09.2003
  • medium type:
    Television
  • medium name:
    Česká televize - České himalájské dobrodružství
  • author:
    Česká televize