Erich Kulka
Erich Kulka | |
---|---|
Born | Erich Schön 18 February 1911 |
Died | 12 July 1995 | (aged 84)
Citizenship | Czech (1911), Israeli (1968) |
Occupation(s) | Writer, historian, journalist |
Erich Kulka (18 February 1911 – 12 July 1995) was a Czech-Israeli writer, historian and journalist who survived the Holocaust. After World War II, he made it his life's mission to research the Holocaust and publicize facts about it.
Biography
Early life
Erich Kulka was born as Erich Schön to a Jewish family as the youngest of five children in Vsetín. His parents were Siegbert (Vítězslav) Schön and Malvína Schön. Erich studied at Gymnasium in Valašské Meziříčí. In early 1930s he started to work for a company of Rudolf Deutelbaum. He had a secret relationship with his wife Elly (née Kulka) and fathered a son, Otto (born 1933). Erich and Elly married in 1938.
Concentration camps
In 1939 after the outbreak of
During the evacuation of Auschwitz in January 1945, Kulka managed to survive a three-day
Erich Kulka's father, Siegbert, had been taken to
Post-war
In 1956, he donated photographs to the
Another book, Night and Fog (co-authored with Ota Kraus), is a study of the economic system of Nazi concentration camps and genocide motives.
His book Judges, Prosecutors, Advocates deals with the
Migration to Israel
After the Soviet invasion to Czechoslovakia in 1968, Kulka immigrated to Israel. He continued his research activities at the Hebrew University and at the Yad Vashem institute resulting in a first-time-in-history study relating to the significant participation of Jews from the Czech Republic and Slovakia in World War II for the liberation of Czechoslovakia: "Jews in Svoboda's army in the Soviet Union" and "Jews in the Czechoslovak Army in the West".
In Israel, Kulka was among the most active members of the "Association of Immigrants from Czechoslovakia" and in the "Israel-Czechoslovakia Friendship League". In 1977 he was among the founders of the Museum of Tolerance of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles. Other projects included the establishment of the World Association of Auschwitz Survivors and publishing of the journal 'The Voice of Auschwitz Survivors', in English, Hebrew and German. In 1982, he was a contributor for the BBC program, The Gathering.[3]
Post-communist Czech Republic
After the 1989 Velvet Revolution in Czechoslovakia, Kulka devoted himself to the renewal of Jewish life at the Jewish community in Prague, participation in international conferences and delivering lectures in the Czech Republic and in Slovakia. During this period, he also published new and expanded Czech editions of his previous books and his other publications. A monument in his hometown Vsetín was built on his own initiative, on the site of the synagogue that was burned by the Nazis. Another project he initiated is erecting stone tablets on the wall at the entrance to the Vsetín Jewish cemetery, with engraved names of the holocaust victims from his home town and the surroundings. Until the last year of his life he was actively involved in the rehabilitation of political relations, scientific and cultural relations between Israel and the Czech Republic.
In recognition of his life's work Erich Kulka was awarded in 1989 an honorary doctorate by the
In 1993, he founded at the
His scientific library is maintained at Beit Terezin in
In November 2004 a statue was created in his memory (portrait sculpture by the Czech artist Josef Vajce) in the Theresienstadt Ghetto Museum in the Czech Republic. In 2011, his 100th birthday, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the Jewish Museum in Prague, published a file of articles in his memory (Czech, English, and Hebrew) by the name: "Erich Kulka 1911 to 1995, Life as a Mission in Memory of Those Who Did Not Return".[4]
Books & publications
- We Dead Accuse! (co-authored with Ota Kraus) – (Czech: My mrtví žalujeme!) in Vsetín 1945.
- The Death Factory (co-authored with Ota Kraus) – (Czech: Továrna na smrt) Prague 1946, 1950, 1955, 1956, 1957, 1959, 1964; German: Berlin 1957, 1958, 1991; Hungarian: Budapest 1957, 1958; Russian: Moscow 1960 Estonian: Tallinn 1960; Hebrew: Jerusalem 1960; Romanian (Fabrica morții): Bucharest 1959, 1963, 1992; English: Oxford 1966; Greek: Athens 1979.
- Night and Fog (co-authored with Ota Kraus) – (Czech: Noc a mlha) Prague 1958, 1966; Hungarian: Budapest 1961; German: Berlin 1963.
- The Frankfurt Trial – (Czech: Frankfurtský process) Prague 1964.
- Judges, Prosecutors, Advocates' – (Czech: Soudcové, žalobci, obhájci) Prague 1966; Slovak: (Tu sa končia stopy SS…) Bratislava 1965.
- Escape from Auschwitz – (Czech: Útěk z tábora smrti) Prague 1966, 2011; English: Pergamon Press, 1966; South Hadley, USA, 1986.
- The Kidnapping from San Fernando – (Czech: Únos ze San Fernanda, with Věra Trochtová) Prague 1968.
- Catalog of Testimonies and Documents on the Participation Czechoslovak Jews in the War Against Nazi Germany – Jerusalem 1976.
- The Holocaust Is Being Denied!: The answer of Auschwitz survivors – English: Tel Aviv, 1977; German: Jerusalem, 1975, Tel Aviv 1977.
- Jews in Swoboda's Army in the Soviet Union – Czechoslovak Jews fighting the Nazis during the World War II. – (Czech: Židé v československé Svobodově armádě) Toronto 1979, samizdat (Charta 77), Prague 1981, Prague 1990; Hebrew, Jerusalem 1977; English: Jews in Svoboda's army in the Soviet Union, Jerusalem, London, New York 1987; University Press of America, 1979, ISBN 978-0-8191-6577-0.
- "Attempts by Jewish Escapees to Stop Mass Extermination", Jewish Social Studies 47:3/4, Summer/Fall 1985.[5]
- Jews in the Czechoslovak Army in the West – (Czech: Židé v československém vojsku na západě) Prague 1992.
References
- ^ "Theresienstadt Lexikon: Erich Kulka". Ghetto-theresienstadt.de. Retrieved 9 March 2012.
- ^ "Auschwitz-Birkenau - Waiting for Death in the Birch Forest in Birkenau". En.auschwitz.org. 4 March 2003. Retrieved 9 March 2012.
- ^ "Archive - WWII: Witnessing the Holocaust - The Gathering". BBC. 15 September 1982. Retrieved 9 March 2012.
- ^ "Evening programmes in the Education & Culture Centre". Jewishmuseum.cz. 16 September 2011. Archived from the original on 12 May 2012. Retrieved 9 March 2012.
- ^ "Attempts by Jewish Escapees to Stop Mass Extermination", Jewish Social Studies 47:3/4, Summer/Fall 1985;