Nina Ingrišová

* 1931

  • “Well, at least I am not there, completely alone. So I decided to return. No one told me there were communists in the government here. And don’t tell me they are not in the government, that they are just in the Senate and in the Parliament. Because the Senate and the Parliament, it is government. And that there are some extra big shots, how they call the government here — but the Senate and the Parliament rule! The government can’t do anything without it being approved by the Senate and the Parliament. And I didn’t know this. Perhaps I would have thought twice. We thought that after 89 the communists were wiped out, that they were not here any longer. We didn’t know that they left them alone, that Mr Havel said, ‘We are not like them’. We didn’t know, no one told us.’”

  • “The gym was nice, it was a former Arab mosque and just across the street there was, on the corner, a restaurant called Heart of Europe Restaurant, because Czechoslovakia is the heart of Europe. He used to have a restaurant already in Prague. Not just a pub, a restaurant. His name was Karel Fink and had to change his name to Finek, since Fink is a pejorative word in America. He called himself Finek and still had Fink in his documents. It was a tiny restaurants, twenty tables packed in, a piano, harmonium, he played harmonica and sang. It was so popular! The restaurant was frequented by film actors, TV actors, it was almost a meeting place of the old Hollywood, it was always crowded and he had Yugoslav wine, traminer, this I remember. And he was very skilled. Like it used to be in cafés, he always wore a tuxedo, he could present himself. No wonder people went there. And the meal was great. Fink cooks like your mother did, this was his motto in Czech. And indeed, it was Mrs Fink who did the cooking with her mother. They hired a Mexican guy to wash the dishes. It was small and comfy. Karel Fink always used to say this joke. Whenever exiles arrived who had nothing and boasted that they had factories and everything, while they being still very young… and the Finks had a little dog, a bitch called Lassie. And he used to say: “Back in Prague, our Lass used to be a Saint Bernard dog.’ I will never forget that. It was so apt for many people.”

  • “Then three trains met in this deep valley. Two headed in one direction, the other one in the opposite one. I don’t remember clearly, but our train was in the middle. And there was a house on the hill, a field and a lot of soldiers. There came a plane, shot at us and the two engines were on fire. We ran into the field, behind the house, there was a fence from the back, and in front, we found later, there were soldiers of the Vlasov army. They were going to liberate Prague. They were these idiots who were going to liberate Prague. And they used to say, ‘You are from Czechoslovakia? We are going to liberate Prague.’ Our men told them, ‘You fools, they will hang you. Do you think they welcome you with open arms when you have German uniforms?’ We tried to persuade them and they tried to persuade us to go back, that they would liberate Prague. And they made fires and scolded us that it was because of our train that the Americans air raided their trains. They could not hit our engine, as it was in the middle.”

  • “[Inozemcev] told us, ‘Try to get into the American zone.’ They already knew that it was divided into French, English and American zones. And so into Bavaria, in the Bavarian direction. We rode in the direction of Munich. Of course the journey was quite horrible. They joined our car to military trains, they always disconnected us at one railway station or another, until another train arrived and we could move on. We ran like rabbits… during the journey, before we got behind Munich in Germany, they shot out three engines. Always there was a volley of shots and the steam was gone. And we ran across the field… once at night we ran from the train near a village of Mühldorf. We were exhausted and nervous, we alway had to run for shelter whenever…”

  • “The parents of my mother did not want to say farewell to him and he always used to say that they didn’t properly say farewell. They reproached him for taking us to Germany, to uncertainty. ‘Leave them here, Victor, we’ll hide them here! Nothing will happen to them.’ My dad said, ‘I don’t force them! They can stay here, I don’t make them go.’ But I said before all of them, my relatives, ‘If my mum stays, I’ll go with my dad alone. I will not be waiting for the Soviets here.’ I knew from the cossacks and people who had fled the Soviet Union, what atrocities they did. Well, they showed you here, the Malinovsky Army, and you still have the Malinovsky Square in Brno, this makes me so mad’ He has a statue there, the communists lay flowers at it and sing The International. Now, twenty years after the Velvet Revolution. It is horrible.”

  • Full recordings
  • 1

    Tuchlovice, 10.06.2010

    (audio)
    duration: 08:02:17
  • 2

    Brno, Eye Direct, 24.10.2017

    (audio)
    duration: 03:50:21
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O muži, jako byl Eduard Ingriš, jsem snila od dětství

Nina Ingrišová
Nina Ingrišová
photo: archiv pamětnice

Nina Ingrišová se narodila 14. června 1931 v Brně. Její otec Viktor Vasiljevič Karpuškin patřil k ruské kozácké emigraci. Matka Marie Brychtová pocházela z Veverské Bítýšky. V dubnu 1945 Karpuškinovi se skupinou kozáckých rodin opustili republiku a směřovali na Západ, z dosahu blížící se Rudé armády. Cesta do západní okupační zóny skončila v uprchlickém táboře v Memmingenu na podzim 1945. Teprve v roce 1949 rodina získala povolení k vycestování do Jižní Ameriky. Pamětnice za války v Brně studovala měšťanku a v Německu střední vzdělání dokončila. Později se v Brazílii věnovala opernímu zpěvu a působila na operní scéně Ipanema. Pracovala jako tlumočnice a průvodkyně na letišti v São Paolu. V roce 1957 rodina přesídlila do Los Angeles v USA. Získala místo v zahraničním oddělení Bank of America. Rodina Karpuškinových udržovala kontakty s československou krajanskou komunitou v USA. Byla zapojena do kulturních aktivit Čechoslováků v Los Angeles, kteří spolupracovali mj. s Eduardem Ingrišem. Jako zpěvačka se podílela na inscenacích Ingrišových operet Tam na horách (1963), Maryša (1964) či Okolo rybníka (1965). Navázala s ním bližší vztah a v červnu 1965 se vzali. V roce 1966 se jim narodil syn Eduard. Od roku 1968 společně cestovali po Severní Americe a živili se promítáním Ingrišových cestopisných filmů, které natočil v 50. letech. Když po deseti letech náročných cest s promítáním skončili, založili si obchod se zdravou výživou. Na sklonku 80. let Eduard Ingriš starší vážně onemocněl. V té době pamětnice obchod prodala, aby mohla financovat nákup počítače na psaní Ingrišových pamětí. Ingriš ale v roce 1991 zemřel a paměti nedokončil. Nina Ingrišová ještě dalších jedenáct let pracovala v obchodě a v roce 2002 odjela natrvalo do České republiky. Žije v Brně a snaží se udržovat odkaz svého muže.