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Jan Skala (around 1930)

Jan Skala (born June 17, 1889 in Nebelschütz , Amtshauptmannschaft Kamenz , Kingdom of Saxony ; † January 22, 1945 in Erbenfeld / Dziedzitz , Namslau district , Lower Silesia ) was a Sorbian publicist and writer. In the interwar period he was involved in the Association of National Minorities in Germany for the rights of non-German ethnic groups in the German Reich.

Life

Birthplace in Nebelschütz
Skala Monument in Namysłów

Jan Skala was the son of a quarry worker and a Sorbian costume tailor. He grew up in Nebelschütz in Upper Lusatia . In 1901 he attended the Catholic cathedral school in Bautzen for a short time. Because his parents could not afford the school fees, he had to drop out of school. From 1902 he completed an apprenticeship as a ceramist in Kamenz and then worked in various locations in the chemical and ceramic industries until 1916. In addition, he trained in workers' education associations and published articles in social democratic newspapers. In 1910 some of his Sorbian poems were published for the first time.

From 1916 to 1918 Skala served as a soldier in the Balkans and on the Eastern Front in Russia . During this time he learned Russian and Serbo-Croatian . In the winter of 1918/1919, Skala worked for the Berlin pension office. In the days of the November Revolution he turned against the Spartakists and was committed to the establishment and defense of the parliamentary German republic. In 1919 he worked for a few months at the weapons office of the Berlin police in Moabit.

In the years 1919–1920 Jan Skala worked as an editor of the Sorbian newspaper Serbski Dźenik in Weißwasser . At the end of 1919 he took part in the founding of the Lusatian People's Party , which wanted to represent the political interests of the Sorbs, but was unable to win any seats in the elections until 1933. Skala was also involved in founding the Sorbian sports association Serbski Sokoł .

In 1921 Skala spent a few months at the Sorbian daily Serbske Nowiny in Bautzen , where he intervened in the journalistic dispute about the closure of the Prague Wendish seminar by the Bautzen cathedral chapter. In the same year he got a job with the Prager Presse , an officious German-language newspaper of the Czechoslovak government. In 1923 he was able to publish a small volume of poetry. After another interlude with the Bautzener Serbske Nowiny , Skala joined the Union of Poles in Germany in 1924 . The organization of the largest minority in the German Reich had its seat in Berlin.

From 1925 to 1927 he took part in the European Nationality Congresses in Geneva. As one of the delegates of the Association of National Minorities in Germany , he and Bruno von Openkowski and Jan Kaczmarek were received by Reich Chancellor Adolf Hitler on November 5, 1937 . In 1925, Jan Skala set up the editorial team for the journal of the Association of National Minorities in Germany , Kulturwille , and headed this journal (since 1926 under the name Kulturwehr ) as editor-in-chief until it was banned by the National Socialists in 1936.

In the same year, the authorities banned Skala from all journalistic and writing activities and he went back to Bautzen. There he was arrested by the Gestapo in 1938 and imprisoned for over 9 months without charge in the remand prison of the Dresden Police Headquarters . After his dismissal, Skala worked in various Bautzen and Berlin companies.

In 1943 he left the increasingly bombed Berlin and moved to Erbenfeld (until 1939: Dziedzitz) near Namslau in Silesia to live with his wife's relatives. He was employed in an electrical engineering company in nearby Namslau . There he had contact with Polish resistance fighters.

When Red Army units marched into Erbenfeld in January 1945, Jan Skala received the Soviet troops as liberators. Shortly afterwards, he and his family were attacked by a drunken Soviet soldier and shot by him - the daughter of Jan Skalas described the process as follows:

“On January 22nd, a drunken Red Army soldier came into our apartment, waved the machine gun around, shot a volley into the kitchen equipment and shouted that he would now shoot all the fascists. My father, who as Sorbe spoke several Slavic languages, including Russian, talked reassuringly to the soldiers that there were no fascists here. When he saw that the Russian raised the machine gun again, he stood in front of my mother (I was behind it) and was fatally hit. Others in the room were also hit by the sheaf. Then the Russian staggered out of the house. My mother and I were unharmed. My father saved our lives. "

Works

  • Skre. Zberka z lubosće khwilow. Budyšin 1923
  • Stary Šymko. Budyšin 1924, novella that for the first time addresses the negative effects of lignite mining in Lusatia on the Sorbian culture
  • The national minorities in the German Reich and their legal situation. (together with Julius Bogensee), Bautzen 1929

Jan Skala published only a few of his own books. Most of his poems, articles and essays were published in Sorbian and German newspapers and in the Kulturwehr .

Honors

In Nebelschütz, Bautzen and Kamenz streets were named after Jan Skala. A memorial commemorates him in Namysłów , Poland .

Literature on Jan Skala

Web links

Commons : Jan Skala  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Richard Krawatzeck: In Memoriam. Jan Skala died January 22, 1945. Retrieved September 22, 2013 .
personal data
SURNAME Skala, Jan
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Skala, Johann
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Sorbian publicist and writer
DATE OF BIRTH June 17, 1889
PLACE OF BIRTH Nebelschütz , Amtshauptmannschaft Kamenz , Kingdom of Saxony
DATE OF DEATH January 22, 1945
Place of death Erbenfeld