Sedmý závoj - Listy z jednoho století – Kraus František R. (2023)

In the third volume of the collected works of Prague-born, Czech-speaking Jewish journalist and writer František R. Kraus, a contemporary of Franz Kafka, Egon E. Kisch, Johannes Urzidil, and other members of the so-called Prague Circle, the reader will find eleven stories thematically connected to the Holocaust. The author, himself a prisoner in Terezín, Auschwitz, Gliwice, and Blechhammer, depicts the stories of people of various ages and social standings united by a tragic fate, whether it be an 'ordinary woman' in the Terezín ghetto or a famous Viennese opera singer and other personalities. Some stories thematically and temporally transcend the period of World War II. The shadow of the future Holocaust influenced the fates of people even before the war, just as it persisted after it, when Holocaust victims became victims of further extortion, unable to convey their experiences to those who had not lived through it, or simply carrying the horror of the years they endured. The book, like the two previous ones, is illustrated by the son of the author's long-time friend and fellow prisoner in Terezín, academic painter Ivan Bukovský.