- Summary
- Videotape testimony of Ivan K., a famous Czech author, who was born in Prague, Czechoslovakia in 1931, the elder of two sons. He recounts his grandparents' orthodoxy; his father's atheism; his father declining the family's emigration to England, not wanting to leave his mother; German occupation; his parents having him and his brother baptized hoping to avoid persecution; expulsion from school; his father's deportation to Theresienstadt; he and his mother following (his brother, age three, stayed with family friends); fear of SS officers and daily searches; his optimism; trading books with other children and constantly rereading the two he had brought with him; seeing his father only twice (he was deported elsewhere); writing a poem entitled "Suicide"; drawing camp streets and buildings; the horrendous condition of prisoners from other camps; receiving Red Cross packages; liberation by Soviet troops, described in his book "Sudce z Milosti" (Judge on Trial); a cousin bringing him back to Prague; returning to school; listening to the Nuremberg trials; and his belief in communism.
Mr. K. recalls majoring in literature at university; his father's imprisonment on false charges; other political trials; publication of a short story in the mid-1950s; writing for a literary magazine beginning in 1956; becoming its editor; traveling outside Czechoslovakia beginning in 1966; learning of the Soviet occupation when he and his family were abroad in 1968; living in the United States; returning to Czechoslovakia in 1970; cancellation of his and his family's passports; blacklisting of his work; interrogations by the secret police; feeling protected due to western diplomats and politicians; popularity of his work and writing multiple books following the 1989 Velvet Revolution; his daughter's Judaism and his son's Protestantism; and his relationship with his brother, who retained his Christian identity. Mr. K. discusses identifying himself as Czech rather than Jewish, although his writing features Jewish protagonists and topics; his extensive research on life in concentration camps; his unpublished novel about a concentration camp uprising; writing for a Czech audience; specific books; and a small autobiographical component in his writing. He reads from his diary.
- Author/Creator
- K., Ivan, 1931-
- Published
- Israel : Words & Images, 1997
- Interview Date
- September 23, 1997.
- Locale
- Czechoslovakia
Prague (Czech Republic)
- Cite As
- Ivan K. Holocaust Testimony (HVT-4090). Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies, Yale University Library.
- Notes
-
This testimony is in Czech.
Due to the fact that this testimony contains significant dialogue between the witness and the interviewer, two versions were produced at the time of the taping. One version has the camera focused solely on the witness; the second has two cameras alternating between the witness and the interviewer.
Related publication: Soudce z milosti / Ivan Klíma. -- Praha : Rozmluvy, c1991.
Related publication: Judge on trial / Ivan Klíma ; translated from the Czech by A. G. Brain. -- London : Chatto & Windus, 1991.
Related publication: Love and garbage / Ivan Klíma ; translated from the Czech by Ewald Osers. -- London : Chatto & Windus, 1990.
Related publication: The ultimate intimacy / Ivan Klima ; translated from the Czech by A.G. Brain. -- New York : Grove Press, 1997.
