Obituary for George A. Bubenik

BARTOŠ, Luděk. Obituary for George A. Bubenik. European Journal of Wildlife Research , 2018, vol. 64(3), p. Articla Number 34. ISSN .
Year2018
CathegoryOthers
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Abstract

George was born on May 19, 1942, in Brno, Czechoslovakia. Now, almost 30 years since the collapse of the communist era in George’s native country, less and less people can realise what it meant to grow up and work under the dictatorship of commu­nists. George’s father, an internationally known deer biology scientist, was fired from his position in 1958 being labelled as ´politically unreliable´. At that time to be marked ´politically unreliable´ was a stigma for all the family members. George wished to study natural science; however, he did not receive permission for that. The only possibility for him to study some sort of biology was dentistry at the Faculty of Medicine, Charles University. There he graduated with an M.D. in 1967. (Honestly, he was lucky to not be prevented from gaining any undergraduate education which happened frequently to young people originating from a family like George.) No wonder, when Czechoslovakia was invaded by the Soviet Union and its satellites in 1968, George did not hesitate and defected first to Switzerland and later to Canada where he joined his parents who had got out of their native country earlier. In Canada, he met his future wife Ella, with whom he has had three children and seven grandchildren.