Kapitán Otakar Jaroš – Kluc Jiří (2018)

This Czech-language biography offers the first comprehensive account of the life of Captain Otakar Jaroš, one of the most prominent members of the Czechoslovak foreign resistance and a hero of Sokolovo. More than 150 unique, previously unpublished photographs from his pre-war life present the young patriot as a member of Sokol and Junák, as well as an athlete, who after the Second World War became one of the communist symbols of the struggle against Nazism. The first part focuses on his life in Louny and later Mělník, and also recalls the fate of Jaroš’s role model, his uncle, legionnaire and general František Konopásek, who was executed by the Nazis in 1943. The book then follows Otakar Jaroš’s military career, from his studies at the academy in Hranice through his departure abroad and his life in the Soviet Union, with particular attention to his service in the Czechoslovak unit there and the fighting at Sokolovo. The second part examines Captain Jaroš’s post-war legacy and brings together the many different connections associated with him, from monuments to street names, as the first Czechoslovak Hero of the Soviet Union.