Ivan and Gina Simonek walk with their daughter Lucy at the Volunteer Park trail almost every day. The couple left Czechoslovakia in the wake of the Russian invasion in 1968. Russia's invasion of Ukraine is bringing back memories that are all too familiar, Ivan Simonek said.
A Wrangell couple that escaped Prague during the 1968 Soviet Union-led invasion of Czechoslovakia is finding parallels to the Russian invasion of Ukraine - and it is bringing back old memories of escaping Prague shortly after they were married.
Ivan Simonek, 78, and Gina Simonek, 77, arrived in Wrangell in November 1968 with swimsuits packed - not because they were planning to take a dip in the Zimovia Strait, but because the couple, 25 and 23 at the time, had a honeymoon planned in Yugoslavia. Visas and passports obtained, they were eager after living in their landlocked country to catch a glimpse of the Adriatic Sea. But their travel plans were thwarted by the Soviet invasion.
They returned their tickets and took a train to Vienna, where they waited for two months for extraction, aided by Alaska's lone member of the U.S. House, Rep. Howard Pollock, and a couple in Wrangell.
"We are the first generation of communist Czechoslovakia," Gina Simonek said last Tuesday. "In 1948 is when the communist regime took over, we were growing up adjusting to Russian rule. The country was not doing well. Our parents grew up in democracy. They were telling us, 'This regime is wrong.'"
Leading up to the Soviet invasion of 1968, Wrangell got on their radar because Ivan came across an issue of Alaska Sportsman magazine in Prague and got a glimpse of what Alaska was really like. Until then, his idea of Alaska was stereotypical igloos and polar bears.
Ivan said he wrote a letter to the editor of the magazine, stating he wanted to learn more about Alaska, and was seeking a pen pal. The magazine published his letter and 60 people answered. The letter drew the attention of Pollock and a couple from Wrangell, Susan and Virgil Vazquez, who sent money to tide over the Simoneks and later sponsored their move to the U.S.
"I kept asking innocent questions," Ivan said of his letters, because he had to be careful. Through writing, he was able to get insight into the unemployment and economic health of the United States and Alaska. "Learning what the truth was," he said. He received letters from Ohio, Washington state, Illinois and several from people in Alaska, including Yakutat, Ketchikan, and even a state trooper.
And now, 54 years later, "the invasion of Ukraine feels like déjà vu all over again," he said. "We feel sorry for them."
Seeing images of the rubble in Ukraine "brings back bad memories of seeing buildings being destroyed. Cruise missiles didn't exist. They would shoot up the front of the buildings," Ivan said.
Gina worked in downtown Prague. "For three days, my parents didn't allow me to go to work. Our people were not allowed to have guns or weapons. The army was locked up. All people could do was demonstrate, actually talk to the Soviet soldiers," she said.
The sight of a young Russian soldier crying while he was being comforted by Ukrainians and calling his mom brought back for Gina the disillusionment Soviet soldiers faced in Czechoslovakia. They were told "they're being sent to defend and protect us," the same thing the soldiers are being told in Ukraine, Gina said.
When they first escaped, Ivan said, "we could not talk politics. No one did our story. It (would not have been) authentic because the communists made it clear, if we publicly oppose the regime they will take revenge on Gina's family," Ivan said.
Ivan remembers a Hollywood film being made, "Bridge at Remagen," with actors George Segal, Ben Gazzara and Robert Vaughn. He recalled the Soviet propaganda at the time spun the presence of Hollywood actors in Czechoslovakia as evidence of the need for an invasion.
"When Americans were making it, Russians claim the movie was precedent to move them in," Ivan said.
When the movie couldn't be finished, "all the movie stars had to run for their lives," he said. The movie had to be finished in Italy.
"Russians had to invade Czechoslovakia because of a movie set," Ivan said of the propaganda.
Their daughter, Lucy Simonek, lives with them, and is grateful she got to see Prague on a visit in 1989, and has since been back more than a dozen times. They go every couple of years. "Now it's vibrant," she said.
She said she admires her parents for what they did. "I am grateful I got to grow up here and didn't have to suffer. I am grateful they taught me Czech," she said. Knowing a second language even helped her learn Spanish in school.
The Czech spelling of Simonek is actually Šimonek.
She wants her parents to know that they're her best friends.
"I love and admire them," she said.
"We are very proud of Lucy," Gina said.
Seeing the war in Ukraine, Lucy wondered, how is it going to end?
"It's one thing to demonstrate," Ivan said, but heroism turns pretty quickly at the business end of a gun.
"I have been there," he said. "I can relate to those people."
"This time, it seems like it affects the whole world," Gina said.
Ivan said he doesn't belong to any political party, and doesn't ascribe to "isms."
He looks at how a government treats its people. "If the government leaves you alone. If you can speak up without your children getting hurt."
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