Certain people expected me to take revenge on the communists, who were bullying me all those years long, but they punished themselves in fact
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Ivan Zwach was born on 12 June, 1952 in Rýmařov as Ivan Marieník. His father was a ranger in Bílé Karpaty and a founding member of the communist party of Slovakia. He organised guerrilla movement against the fascists and due to post-war conflict with the secret police he was forced to immigrate to Bohemia. In 1954 the secret police came for Ivan and his siblings and placed them without any official decision of authorities to children shelters all over the republic. Ivan was adopted and given a surname Zwach. His adoptive mother and he carried a negative cadre profile until the fall of communism. A regional committee of the communist party decided that Ivan would not attend the secondary school, but studied the agriculture training centre, where he specialised as a tractor driver. After a year of studies a director secured his application to the secondary agriculture technical school. During 1972-1974 he served military service, although he was not meant to be recruited at all. He was forced to enter the communist party or a cooperation with the secret police. After military service worked at the farm in Janovice near Rýmařov, and then the museum in Bruntál offered him a position of the nature protector. He became the single member of the Academy of Science with a secondary school education. During his activity in the field of biology he first applied a biological-ecologic monitoring of constructions linear and flat, he published several books and is an author of a biological evaluation. After the revolution he worked as a spokesperson of the Civic Forum in Stará Ves; today he is a freelancer in a sector of the nature protection.
