Miroslav Kárný (1919-2001)
Miroslav Kárný (1919-2001)

Summary/Abstract: The introductory essay of Jaroslava Milotová introduces the life and work of Miroslav Kárný (the entire 2002 volume is a festschrift in his honour). Karny was a doyen of the Czech Holocaust research; among many others, he founded the Terezin Initiative Institute and its yearbook, Theresienstädter Studien und Dokumente. Born in an assimilated Czech Jewish family, he enrolled at the Charles University to study history. Lifelong an engaged leftist, he joined then Communist circles. As early as 1941 he was deported to the Terezin ghetto, where he met his wife and future collaborator, Margita Krausová. After surviving Auschwitz and Dachau (cf. “Sieben Monate in Kaufering”), he returned to Czechoslovakia, cooperated at the building of a new “better” society, was persecuted anew during the Slansky trials. Only after 1968 he had the occasion to start his lifelong vocation: researching the Czech Holocaust. After much struggle with the Communist regime, time after 1989 brought new possibilities, which Kárný was keen to use, for example travels to archives abroad or the establishment of monumental Terezin prisoners database. The essay is accompanied by a bibliography of his works.

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