Miroslav Kárný (9 September 1919 – 9 May 2001) was a historian and writer from

Prague Prague ( ; cs, Praha ; german: Prag, ; la, Praga) is the capital and List of cities in the Czech Republic, largest city in the Czech Republic, and the historical capital of Bohemia. On the Vltava river, Prague is home to about 1.3 milli ...

Czechoslovakia , rue, Чеськословеньско, , yi, טשעכאסלאוואקיי, , common_name = Czechoslovakia , life_span = 1918–19391945–1992 , p1 = Austria-Hungary , image_p1 ...

Early life and education

Kárný was born into an assimilated Jewish family. His mother ran a shop selling candy and haberdashery and his father was a tradesman. After graduating from the gymnasium, Kárný studied history and

Czech language Czech (; Czech ), historically also Bohemian (; ''lingua Bohemica'' in Latin), is a West Slavic language of the Czech–Slovak group, written in Latin script. Spoken by over 10 million people, it serves as the official language of the Czech R ...

at the

Charles University of Prague ) , image_name = Carolinum_Logo.svg , image_size = 200px , established = , type = Public, Ancient , budget = 8.9 billion CZK , rector = Milena Králíčková , faculty = 4,057 , administrative_staff = 4,026 , students = 51,438 , under ...

from 1937 to 1939. During this time, he joined the students' communist organisation Kostufra.

Deportation

Because he was Jewish, Kárný was sent on 24 November 1941 to the

Theresienstadt ghetto Theresienstadt Ghetto was established by the SS during World War II in the fortress town of Terezín, in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia ( German-occupied Czechoslovakia). Theresienstadt served as a waystation to the extermination ca ...

, where he met his future wife, Margita Krausová (1923–1998). Both became active in the communist resistance group in Theresienstadt and collaborated with Josef Taussig, Bruno Zwicker, Valtr Eisinger, Josef Stiassny and Friedl Dicker-Brandeis. In September 1944, they were deported to the Auschwitz concentration camp in occupied Poland. From there, Kárný was deported for

slave labour Slavery and enslavement are both the state and the condition of being a slave—someone forbidden to quit one's service for an enslaver, and who is treated by the enslaver as property. Slavery typically involves slaves being made to perf ...

to the

Kaufering concentration camp Kaufering was the common name of a system of eleven subcamp (SS), subcamps of the Dachau concentration camp which operated between 18 June 1944 and 27 April 1945 and which were located around the towns of Landsberg am Lech and Kaufering, Bavari ...

in Germany, a subcamp of Dachau. After the war, he became a journalist, then a freelance historian, specializing in the

Holocaust The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; ...

and

German fascism Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Na ...

. He was expelled from the

Communist Party of Czechoslovakia The Communist Party of Czechoslovakia ( Czech and Slovak: ''Komunistická strana Československa'', KSČ) was a communist and Marxist–Leninist political party in Czechoslovakia that existed between 1921 and 1992. It was a member of the Comint ...

(KSČ) due to condemnation of his brother Jiří in the anti-Semitic Slánský trial (1952),Jiří Kárný was then working as a manager, closely with Ludvík Frejka, one of the main defendants. Frejka was hanged; Jiří received a long sentence. Se
"Miroslav Kárný (1919–2001)"
. By Raimund Kemper, p.6 . and for a second time in 1969, after the

Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia The Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia refers to the events of 20–21 August 1968, when the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic was jointly invaded by four Warsaw Pact countries: the Soviet Union, the Polish People's Republic, the People's Rep ...

. He retired in 1973.

Publications

;Books * With Götz Aly and Susanne Heim: ''Sozialpolitik und Judenvernichtung. Gibt es eine Ökonomie der „Endlösung“?'', Rotbuch 1987, * With Jaroslava Milotova and Margita Karna: ''Deutsche Politik im „Protektorat Böhmen und Mähren“ unter Reinhard Heydrich 1941–1942. Eine Dokumentation.'' Metropol 1997, * '' Theresienstädter Gedenkbuch – die Opfer der Judentransporte aus Deutschland nach Theresienstadt 1942 – 1945.'' Institut Theresienstädter Initiative. Edited by Miroslav Kárný in Kollaboration with Alexander Blodigová. Berlin, Metropol-Verlag 2000 . Edition Theresienstädter Initiative ;Articles * "Zur Typologie des Theresienstädter Konzentrationslagers". In: ''Judaica Bohemiae.'' XVII Jg., Nr. 1, 1981, 3–14. * "Zur Statistik der jüdischen Bevölkerung im sog. Protektorat". In: ''Judaica Bohemiae.'' Nr. 2, Bd. XXII, 1986, 9–19. * "Das Schicksal der Theresienstädter Osttransporte im Sommer und Herbst 1942". In: ''Judaica Bohemiae.'' Nr. 2, Bd. XXIV, 1988, 83–97.
"Deutsche Juden in Theresienstadt"
In: ''Theresienstädter Studien und Dokumente.'' 1994, 36–53. * "'Heydrichiaden'. Widerstand und Terror im Protektorat Böhmen und Mähren". In: Loukia Droulia, Hagen Fleischer (Hrsg.): ''Von Lidice bis Kalavryta. Widerstand und Besatzungsterror. Studien zur Repressalienpraxis im Zweiten Weltkrieg.'' (Nationalsozialistische Besatzungspolitik in Europa 1939–1945, Band 8). Berlin 1999, .
"Sieben Monate in Kaufering"
In: ''Theresienstädter Studien und Dokumente.'' 2002, 13–24.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Karny, Miroslav 1919 births 2001 deaths Czech Jews Writers from Prague Auschwitz concentration camp survivors Dachau concentration camp survivors Theresienstadt Ghetto survivors StB Czechoslovak historians Czechoslovak journalists