František R. Kraus
Encyclopedia
František R. Kraus was a Czechoslovak Jewish
anti-fascist writer, journalist and editor.
He wrote for the famous Prager Tagblatt
, Freie Presse, and others, and was an editor in the Czechoslovak Radio, founder of its Shortwave
section and speaker for the Foreign section in Czech
, German
, French
and English
.
In his literary work, he deals with reflexion of the Holocaust
in Czechoslovakia
; topics such as human existence, dignity, justice, guilt and hope. Main theme of his short stories is a pictorial world of weird figures and characters from old Prague.
Due to his political prosecution during the Communist regime in Czechoslovakia, vast majority of his work was cesnored and banned. One of his disciples, Arnošt Lustig
, considered him to be one of the most important modern Czech writers ever and compared him to authors such as Jack London
, Egon Erwin Kisch
or Primo Levi
and taught his legacy in universities in the United States
. However, Kraus still remains to be relatively unknown in the present-day Czech Republic
, due to the fact most of his books remain unpublished.
, then Jewish quarter
in Prague
into a Jewish family of Robert Kraus, a travelling salesman and Matylda Kraus née Kollmann, a housewife. As it was common in better well-off Jewish families at that time, he obtained his basic education in a Piarist convent school in Panská street, later he continued at Realschule
in v Jindřišská street and he graduated at Classical High School
in Kinský palace at the Old Town Square
. Because his parents divorced, he could not for financial reasons pursue his academic career but instead, this led him on the track of journalism.
Right at the end of the World War I
, he started to work for German
newspaper, for example for the famous Prager Tagblatt
, Prager Presse, Bohemia
and others. He had strong ties to the Czech intellectual elite. He was well-befriended with Max Brod
, Franz Kafka
, (he describes his first encounter in a short story entitled "Džbánek plzeňského" - "A Mug of Pilsner"), Karel Čapek
, Jaroslav Hašek
, as well as he knew Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk and his son Jan Masaryk
. However, his literary role-model, family friend and life teacher was "The Angry Reporter" Egon Erwin Kisch
. He even lived in his house for some time.
In 1930's, Kraus participated on the foundation of the Czechoslovak Radio, he was an editor of the "Spoken news". He was also active as a reporter, journalist and editor in the Czech News Agency (ČTK)
for quite a long time. Collaboration with the Berlin-based magazine Die Grüne Post would often bring him abroad; he reported from Berlin
, Vienna
but even from outside of Europe.
Kraus was also the whole-country champion in track swimming in the 1930s. He represented the Jewish sport club Hagibor and later the famous Slávia Prague
. He also played water polo
, soccer and tennis
.
In late 1930s, Hitler's Nazi regime was on the rise, and was threatening Czechoslovakia. Kraus often spoke against Nazism - the especially against Konrad Henlein
and rise of Nazi powers in the Sudetenland
- in his regular radio relations. Therefore, he provoked anger of the Henlein followers who even interpelled
against him in the Czechoslovak Parliament.
In May 1938, during the Munich Crisis
, he joined the army during moblization (a story "A Helmet in the Field" ("Přilba v poli")). These events, culminating with the Munich betrayal
(the "Runciman at Henlein's" report), had tragic results not solely for him.
History of the Jews in the Czech Republic
Jews in the Czech Republic are predominantly Ashkenazic Jews, and the current Jewish population is only a fraction of the First republic's Jewish population. As of 2005, there were approximately 4,000 Jews living in the Czech Republic. There are ten small Jewish communities all around the country...
anti-fascist writer, journalist and editor.
He wrote for the famous Prager Tagblatt
Prager Tagblatt
The Prager Tagblatt was a German language newspaper published in Prague from 1876 to 1939. It was considered to be the most influential liberal-democratic German newspaper in Bohemia. It stopped publication after the German invasion of Czechoslovakia...
, Freie Presse, and others, and was an editor in the Czechoslovak Radio, founder of its Shortwave
Shortwave
Shortwave radio refers to the upper MF and all of the HF portion of the radio spectrum, between 1,800–30,000 kHz. Shortwave radio received its name because the wavelengths in this band are shorter than 200 m which marked the original upper limit of the medium frequency band first used...
section and speaker for the Foreign section in Czech
Czech language
Czech is a West Slavic language with about 12 million native speakers; it is the majority language in the Czech Republic and spoken by Czechs worldwide. The language was known as Bohemian in English until the late 19th century...
, German
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
, French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
and English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
.
In his literary work, he deals with reflexion of the Holocaust
The Holocaust
The Holocaust , also known as the Shoah , was the genocide of approximately six million European Jews and millions of others during World War II, a programme of systematic state-sponsored murder by Nazi...
in Czechoslovakia
Czechoslovakia
Czechoslovakia or Czecho-Slovakia was a sovereign state in Central Europe which existed from October 1918, when it declared its independence from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, until 1992...
; topics such as human existence, dignity, justice, guilt and hope. Main theme of his short stories is a pictorial world of weird figures and characters from old Prague.
Due to his political prosecution during the Communist regime in Czechoslovakia, vast majority of his work was cesnored and banned. One of his disciples, Arnošt Lustig
Arnošt Lustig
Arnošt Lustig was a renowned Czech Jewish author of novels, short stories, plays, and screenplays whose works have often involved the Holocaust.Lustig was born in Prague...
, considered him to be one of the most important modern Czech writers ever and compared him to authors such as Jack London
Jack London
John Griffith "Jack" London was an American author, journalist, and social activist. He was a pioneer in the then-burgeoning world of commercial magazine fiction and was one of the first fiction writers to obtain worldwide celebrity and a large fortune from his fiction alone...
, Egon Erwin Kisch
Egon Erwin Kisch
Egon Erwin Kisch was a Czechoslovak writer and journalist, who wrote in German. Known as the The raging reporter from Prague, Kisch was noted for his development of literary reportage and his opposition to Adolf Hitler's Nazi regime.- Biography :Kisch was born into a wealthy, German-speaking...
or Primo Levi
Primo Levi
Primo Michele Levi was an Italian Jewish chemist and writer. He was the author of two novels and several collections of short stories, essays, and poems, but is best known for If This Is a Man, his account of the year he spent as a prisoner in the Auschwitz concentration camp in Nazi-occupied Poland...
and taught his legacy in universities in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
. However, Kraus still remains to be relatively unknown in the present-day Czech Republic
Czech Republic
The Czech Republic is a landlocked country in Central Europe. The country is bordered by Poland to the northeast, Slovakia to the east, Austria to the south, and Germany to the west and northwest....
, due to the fact most of his books remain unpublished.
Childhood and early life
František R. Kraus was born in JosefovJosefov
Josefov is a town quarter in Prague, Czech Republic, known as the Jewish quarter.Josefov may also refer to:* Fortress Josefov, a former fortress in the Hradec Králové Region of the Czech Republic...
, then Jewish quarter
Jewish Quarter
The Jewish Quarter is one of the four traditional quarters of the Old City of Jerusalem. The 116,000 square meter area lies in the southeastern sector of the walled city, and stretches from the Zion Gate in the south, along the Armenian Quarter on the west, up to the Street of the Chain in the...
in Prague
Prague
Prague is the capital and largest city of the Czech Republic. Situated in the north-west of the country on the Vltava river, the city is home to about 1.3 million people, while its metropolitan area is estimated to have a population of over 2.3 million...
into a Jewish family of Robert Kraus, a travelling salesman and Matylda Kraus née Kollmann, a housewife. As it was common in better well-off Jewish families at that time, he obtained his basic education in a Piarist convent school in Panská street, later he continued at Realschule
Realschule
The Realschule is a type of secondary school in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, and Liechtenstein. It has also existed in Croatia , Denmark , Sweden , Hungary and in the Russian Empire .-History:The Realschule was an outgrowth of the rationalism and empiricism of the seventeenth and...
in v Jindřišská street and he graduated at Classical High School
Magnet school
In education in the United States, magnet schools are public schools with specialized courses or curricula. "Magnet" refers to how the schools draw students from across the normal boundaries defined by authorities as school zones that feed into certain schools.There are magnet schools at the...
in Kinský palace at the Old Town Square
Old Town Square (Prague)
Old Town Square is a historic square in the Old Town quarter of Prague in the Czech Republic at .Located between Wenceslas Square and the Charles Bridge, Prague's Old Town Square is often bursting at the seams with tourists in the summer. Featuring various architectural styles including the...
. Because his parents divorced, he could not for financial reasons pursue his academic career but instead, this led him on the track of journalism.
Prewar Czechoslovak Republic
Kraus was a journalist and writer. He belonged to the so-called "Der enge Prager Kreis" or "close Prague circle" (Prager Kreis).Right at the end of the World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
, he started to work for German
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
newspaper, for example for the famous Prager Tagblatt
Prager Tagblatt
The Prager Tagblatt was a German language newspaper published in Prague from 1876 to 1939. It was considered to be the most influential liberal-democratic German newspaper in Bohemia. It stopped publication after the German invasion of Czechoslovakia...
, Prager Presse, Bohemia
Bohemia
Bohemia is a historical region in central Europe, occupying the western two-thirds of the traditional Czech Lands. It is located in the contemporary Czech Republic with its capital in Prague...
and others. He had strong ties to the Czech intellectual elite. He was well-befriended with Max Brod
Max Brod
Max Brod was a German-speaking Czech Jewish, later Israeli, author, composer, and journalist. Although he was a prolific writer in his own right, he is most famous as the friend and biographer of Franz Kafka...
, Franz Kafka
Franz Kafka
Franz Kafka was a culturally influential German-language author of short stories and novels. Contemporary critics and academics, including Vladimir Nabokov, regard Kafka as one of the best writers of the 20th century...
, (he describes his first encounter in a short story entitled "Džbánek plzeňského" - "A Mug of Pilsner"), Karel Čapek
Karel Capek
Karel Čapek was Czech writer of the 20th century.-Biography:Born in 1890 in the Bohemian mountain village of Malé Svatoňovice to an overbearing, emotional mother and a distant yet adored father, Čapek was the youngest of three siblings...
, Jaroslav Hašek
Jaroslav Hašek
Jaroslav Hašek was a Czech humorist, satirist, writer and socialist anarchist best known for his novel The Good Soldier Švejk, an unfinished collection of farcical incidents about a soldier in World War I and a satire on the ineptitude of authority figures, which has been translated into sixty...
, as well as he knew Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk and his son Jan Masaryk
Jan Masaryk
Jan Garrigue Masaryk was a Czech diplomat and politician and Foreign Minister of Czechoslovakia from 1940 to 1948.- Early life :...
. However, his literary role-model, family friend and life teacher was "The Angry Reporter" Egon Erwin Kisch
Egon Erwin Kisch
Egon Erwin Kisch was a Czechoslovak writer and journalist, who wrote in German. Known as the The raging reporter from Prague, Kisch was noted for his development of literary reportage and his opposition to Adolf Hitler's Nazi regime.- Biography :Kisch was born into a wealthy, German-speaking...
. He even lived in his house for some time.
In 1930's, Kraus participated on the foundation of the Czechoslovak Radio, he was an editor of the "Spoken news". He was also active as a reporter, journalist and editor in the Czech News Agency (ČTK)
Czech News Agency
The Czech News Agency , abbreviated to ČTK, is a national "public law" news agency in the Czech Republic. It publishes in Czech, Slovak, and English....
for quite a long time. Collaboration with the Berlin-based magazine Die Grüne Post would often bring him abroad; he reported from Berlin
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
, Vienna
Vienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...
but even from outside of Europe.
Kraus was also the whole-country champion in track swimming in the 1930s. He represented the Jewish sport club Hagibor and later the famous Slávia Prague
SK Slavia Praha
Sportovní Klub Slavia Praha is a Czech professional football club founded in 1892 in the city of Prague.They play in the Gambrinus liga—the highest competition in the Czech Republic. Alongside Sparta Prague, they are considered one of the top Czech clubs and the rivalry between the two clubs is...
. He also played water polo
Water polo
Water polo is a team water sport. The playing team consists of six field players and one goalkeeper. The winner of the game is the team that scores more goals. Game play involves swimming, treading water , players passing the ball while being defended by opponents, and scoring by throwing into a...
, soccer and tennis
Tennis
Tennis is a sport usually played between two players or between two teams of two players each . Each player uses a racket that is strung to strike a hollow rubber ball covered with felt over a net into the opponent's court. Tennis is an Olympic sport and is played at all levels of society at all...
.
In late 1930s, Hitler's Nazi regime was on the rise, and was threatening Czechoslovakia. Kraus often spoke against Nazism - the especially against Konrad Henlein
Konrad Henlein
Konrad Ernst Eduard Henlein was a leading pro-Nazi ethnic German politician in Czechoslovakia and leader of Sudeten German separatists...
and rise of Nazi powers in the Sudetenland
Sudetenland
Sudetenland is the German name used in English in the first half of the 20th century for the northern, southwest and western regions of Czechoslovakia inhabited mostly by ethnic Germans, specifically the border areas of Bohemia, Moravia, and those parts of Silesia being within Czechoslovakia.The...
- in his regular radio relations. Therefore, he provoked anger of the Henlein followers who even interpelled
Interpellation (politics)
Interpellation is the formal right of a parliament to submit formal questions to the government. In many parliaments, each individual member of parliament has the right to formally submit questions to a member of government. The respective minister or secretary is then required to respond and to...
against him in the Czechoslovak Parliament.
In May 1938, during the Munich Crisis
Munich Agreement
The Munich Pact was an agreement permitting the Nazi German annexation of Czechoslovakia's Sudetenland. The Sudetenland were areas along Czech borders, mainly inhabited by ethnic Germans. The agreement was negotiated at a conference held in Munich, Germany, among the major powers of Europe without...
, he joined the army during moblization (a story "A Helmet in the Field" ("Přilba v poli")). These events, culminating with the Munich betrayal
Munich Agreement
The Munich Pact was an agreement permitting the Nazi German annexation of Czechoslovakia's Sudetenland. The Sudetenland were areas along Czech borders, mainly inhabited by ethnic Germans. The agreement was negotiated at a conference held in Munich, Germany, among the major powers of Europe without...
(the "Runciman at Henlein's" report), had tragic results not solely for him.
Literary works
- Gas, gas... then Fire (Plyn, plyn… pak oheň) (1945)
- And Bring Back Our Scattered Ones (A přiveď zpět naše roztroušené)
- David will Live (Originally Shemaryahu seeks God) (David bude žít; Šemarjáhu hledá Boha)
- A Changed Land (Proměněná země) (1957)
- A Hangman Without a Shadow (Kat beze stínu) (written in 1960's, published illegally in samizdat in 1984, officially published in 2003
- Drůš Mauruse Blocha