Miroslav Kárný

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Miroslav Kárný (born September 9, 1919 in Prague ; † May 9, 2001 there ) was a Czech historian and Holocaust researcher.

Life

Miroslav Kárný, who came from an assimilated Jewish family, graduated from primary school in his hometown and began studying philosophy , the Czech language and history at Charles University in Prague .

Prague

In the mid-1930s Kárný began his political work. He was part of the editorial team of the left-wing magazine Mladá kultura and had been a member of the International League for Human Rights since 1936 . A year later he joined the Communist Party .

After the occupation of Bohemia and Moravia and the formation of the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia in 1939 by the German Empire, Kárný was unable to continue his studies because the Czech universities were closed by the Germans after a student strike. He worked in agriculture and joined a resistance organization. On November 24, 1941, Kárný was deported to Theresienstadt together with 341 other prisoners of the "construction command" (Transport Ak I) . He worked there first in the "transport service", later a. a. with the fire brigade and from spring 1942 on with the water supply.

Theresienstadt

Kárný worked politically in Theresienstadt for the illegal communist youth. “It can be proven that he was one of those who took part in the prisoners' educational programs as part of the so-called 'leisure activities' of the prisoners, and that he gave lectures on historical subjects; At least some of these titles have survived, for example: Fragments from World History (December 30, 1943), The Ottonians (March 1, 1944), The Age of Discoveries (March 14, 1944), The Crusades (March 15, 1944). 3rd 1944). However, it could also be that these titles were only used to camouflage conspiratorial gatherings of the resistance group of young communists in the ghetto. "

It was in this group that Kárný met Margita Krausová and married her in 1944 in Theresienstadt.

With the autumn transports in 1944, Kárný was deported to the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp, his brother Zdenek was sent off the ramp to the gas chamber. A little later he came as a concentration camp prisoner to the Kaufering III subcamp of the Dachau concentration camp and was driven as one of the survivors on a death march to Dachau in April 1945 , which ended with the liberation by the US Army in Munich-Allach .

After the Second World War

After the Second World War, Kárný worked from 1945 as editor of the central organ of the Czech Communist Party Rudé právo . 1951 lost this post in connection with the Slansky trial . He was suspected of having highly treasonable contacts with a US agent and expelled from the Communist Party. Until 1958 he worked for the company newspaper of the United Steelworks in Kladno and then for the party newspaper Svoboda in Central Bohemia. His work as editor-in-chief was rated as very successful, so that in 1967 Alexander Dubček brought him to the party's central committee and made him head of the press department.

After the invasion of the Warsaw Pact troops in August 1968, Kárný was again excluded from the party and removed from his editorial post. Until his retirement in 1974 he worked in the reprographic center of a consulting institute in Prague. From then on he devoted himself to historical research and the publication of the results together with Mrs. Margita. An order from the Jewish Museum Prague about the National Socialist murder of Jews in Bohemia and its publication in its journal Judaica Bohemiae established Kárný's reputation as a historian.

Historical research

Kárný's work had four focal points: "the economic policy of the SS, the protectorate policy of the German conquerors, the barbarism of the so-called 'Final Solution', with the horrific experience of Birkenau, and the history of the Theresienstadt ghetto."

To make his work effective, Kárný has published numerous articles and used forums and publications. Initiated by him in 1994 z. B. the yearbook Theresienstadt Studies and Documents , which was published in both a German and a Czech edition by the publishing house of the Theresienstadt Initiative Institute . The last edition appeared with the volume in 2008 in 2009. Kárný was unable to finish a work that he and Margita Kárná had begun years ago: The Calendar of Events in Theresienstadt , a daily chronicle of life in Theresienstadt between 1941 and 1945.

German Jews in Theresienstadt

One of the last contributions by Miroslav Kárný is entitled: German Jews in Theresienstadt and appeared in both the Czech and German language in the Theresienstadt Studies and Documents . In it the author describes the development of Theresienstadt after the Nazi occupation. It was to become the central assembly and transit camp for the Jewish population of the Protectorate, but at the same time also a camp for selected German Jews - with a temporary role model for the international public. Kárný traces the genesis of this second role in his contribution, leaving no doubt that this function is related to the " final solution to the Jewish question " declared by the Nazis .

"What was Theresienstadt in the years 1941-1945?" Asks the author and comes to the following answer:

“The term ghetto for Theresienstadt and other ghettos founded by the SS was a deliberate perversion of this term. The leading ideologue of Nazi anti-Jewish politics, Peter Heinz Seraphim , characterized the difference between the medieval and the Nazi ghettos as follows:
The medieval ghetto was far more a right of the Jews than a coercive measure. According to Seraphim, the ghetto of the Middle Ages was essentially a voluntary residential community, which in no way excludes business contact between Jews and non-Jews ... However, the current forced ghetto, without contact with non-Jews, is - according to Seraphim - only an isolation zone before the final solution . (...)
Some ghettos ", Kárný concludes his considerations," were, however, set up as camps from the start, and the name ghetto was only formal in this sense for various reasons. Theresienstadt is a clear example of this. "

While this was true of Theresienstadt's role with regard to the Czech Jews, Kárný leaves no doubt that it was also true of the Germans in the so-called “old age ghetto”.

“In Theresienstadt,” he writes, “there were 73,468 Czech and 42,921 German Jews who had been deported to Theresienstadt before April 20, 1945. The difference in mortality between Czech and German Jews directly in Theresienstadt was very large, which can be seen as a result of the different age structure.
A total of 6,152 Czech prisoners died in Theresienstadt itself; that was 8.37% of the total number of prisoners from Czech transports - every twelfth died. The mortality of the German group was almost six times higher in Theresienstadt. 20,848 German Jews died here, that was 48.57% of the total number of prisoners from German transports - every second.
But if we want to compare the fate of the Czech and German groups, ”he continues,“ we have to add the numbers of those deported from Theresienstadt to the east. 60,382 Czech Jews (that was 82.19%) and 16,098 German Jews (37.5%) were deported to the east from Theresienstadt. Of the Czech Jews, 3097 survived, of the Germans less than 100. This means that after the deportation from Theresienstadt in the east - during the migration to the east, as the head of the concentration camp Oswald Pohl called it - 57,285 Czech Jews and around 16,000 German Jews perished .
In summary: the percentage of all deaths of Theresienstadt prisoners - ie death in Theresienstadt and death after further deportation - is 86.35% (63,437 deaths) among Czech Jews and 85.85% (36,848 deaths) among German Jews. The death record of both groups of prisoners differs by only half a percent. "

Fonts

Books
  • With Götz Aly and Susanne Heim : Social Policy and the Destruction of the Jews. Is there an economy of the final solution? (= Contributions to National Socialist health and social policy. 5). Rotbuch, Berlin 1987, ISBN 3-88022-954-6 .
  • As editor with Jaroslava Milotová and Margita Kárná: German politics in the “Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia” under Reinhard Heydrich 1941–1942. A documentation (= National Socialist Occupation Policy in Europe 1939–1945. 2). Metropol, Berlin 1997, ISBN 3-926893-44-3 .
  • As editor with others: Theresienstädter Gedenkbuch. The victims of the transport of Jews from Germany to Theresienstadt 1942–1945 (= Edition Theresienstadt Initiative. ). Institute Theresienstadt Initiative published by Academia et al., Prague et al. 2000, ISBN 80-200-0793-8 .
Essays
  • On the typology of the Theresienstadt concentration camp. In: Judaica Bohemiae. Vol. 17, No. 1, 1981, ISSN  0022-5738 , pp. 3-14.
  • To the statistics of the Jewish population in the so-called Protectorate. In: Judaica Bohemiae. Vol. 17, No. 2, 1986, pp. 9-19.
  • The fate of Theresienstädter Osttransporte in the summer and autumn of 1942. In: Judaica Bohemiae. Vol. 17, No. 2, 1988, pp. 83-97.
  • German Jews in Theresienstadt. In: Theresienstadt studies and documents. 1, 1994, ZDB -ID 1233756-0 , pp. 36-53 .
  • "Heydrichiaden". Resistance and Terror in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia. In: Loukia Droulia, Hagen Fleischer (ed.): From Lidice to Kalavryta. Resistance and Terror of Occupation. Studies on the practice of reprisals in the Second World War ((= National Socialist Occupation Policy in Europe 1939–1945. Vol. 8). Metropol, Berlin 1999, ISBN 3-932482-10-7 , pp. 51–63.
  • Seven months in Kaufering. In: Theresienstadt studies and documents. 2002, pp. 13-24 .

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ http://www.ghetto-theresienstadt.info/pages/k/karnym.htm (accessed on January 28, 2014)
  2. ^ A b Raimund Kemper: Miroslav Kárný (1919–2001). 2001.
  3. ^ A b German Jews in Theresienstadt. In: Theresienstadt studies and documents. 1, 1994, pp. 36-53.
personal data
SURNAME Kárný, Miroslav
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Czech historian and Holocaust researcher
DATE OF BIRTH September 9, 1919
PLACE OF BIRTH Prague
DATE OF DEATH May 9, 2001
Place of death Prague