Jindřich Waldes (also Heinrich Waldes or Henry Waldes; 2 July 1876, Nemyšl – 1 July 1941,

Havana Havana (; ) is the capital and largest city of Cuba. The heart of La Habana Province, Havana is the country's main port and commercial center. Karel Waldes, father of Jindřich, had an inn and a small haberdashery shop in the village of Nemyšl near the town of

Tábor Tábor (; ) is a town in the South Bohemian Region of the Czech Republic. It has about 34,000 inhabitants, making it the second most populated town in the region. The town was founded by the Hussites in 1420. The historic town centre is well pres ...

in southern

Bohemia Bohemia ( ; ; ) is the westernmost and largest historical region of the Czech Republic. In a narrow, geographic sense, it roughly encompasses the territories of present-day Czechia that fall within the Elbe River's drainage basin, but historic ...

. He wanted his son to continue his business but Jindřich found a position of a clerk at the firm of Eduard Lokesch and Son in

Prague Prague ( ; ) is the capital and List of cities and towns in the Czech Republic, largest city of the Czech Republic and the historical capital of Bohemia. Prague, located on the Vltava River, has a population of about 1.4 million, while its P ...

. This company made buttons and cufflinks. As Waldes had a good knowledge of languages he became Lokesch's business agent and travelled the world on behalf of the firm. In 1902 together with an engineer Hynek Puc (1856–1938) Waldes left Lokesch and founded his own company. A year later Puc invented a special machine that inserted a small spring into concealed dress fasteners, the main product of the new firm. The new machine supplemented labour of ten skilled workers. With the increased production Puc kept inventing more machines to support the manufacture of pins, safety pins, needles and buttons. The world-renowned Waldes trademark, Miss KIN, came about in 1912 when Waldes on his ocean trip met Elizabeth Coyne who playfully put one fastener in her eye.

František Kupka František Kupka (23 September 1871 – 24 June 1957), also known as ''Frank Kupka'' or ''François Kupka,'' was a Czech painter and graphic artist A graphic designer is a practitioner who follows the discipline of graphic design, eit ...

painted her portrait in oils and Vojtěch Preissig from it designed the firm’s trademark. The other trade names used were Koh-i-noor and Otello. Waldes Koh-i-noor headquarters were located in

suburbs of

Vršovice Vršovice is a cadastral district of Prague. All of Vršovice lies within the Prague 10 administrative district. Vršovice is located south-east of the city centre. It borders Vinohrady to the north, Nusle to the south-west, Michle to the south and ...

. Soon the company grew to a large concern with branch factories in

Warsaw Warsaw, officially the Capital City of Warsaw, is the capital and List of cities and towns in Poland, largest city of Poland. The metropolis stands on the Vistula, River Vistula in east-central Poland. Its population is officially estimated at ...

Dresden Dresden (; ; Upper Saxon German, Upper Saxon: ''Dräsdn''; , ) is the capital city of the States of Germany, German state of Saxony and its second most populous city after Leipzig. It is the List of cities in Germany by population, 12th most p ...

Vienna Vienna ( ; ; ) is the capital city, capital, List of largest cities in Austria, most populous city, and one of Federal states of Austria, nine federal states of Austria. It is Austria's primate city, with just over two million inhabitants. ...

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...

Barcelona Barcelona ( ; ; ) is a city on the northeastern coast of Spain. It is the capital and largest city of the autonomous community of Catalonia, as well as the second-most populous municipality of Spain. With a population of 1.6 million within c ...

and

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

Nazi-era

After Hitler invaded in 1939, the Waldes, who were Jewish, lost everything. On 1 September 1939 Waldes was imprisoned by

Gestapo The (, ), Syllabic abbreviation, abbreviated Gestapo (), was the official secret police of Nazi Germany and in German-occupied Europe. The force was created by Hermann Göring in 1933 by combining the various political police agencies of F ...

after the

Third Reich Nazi Germany, officially known as the German Reich and later the Greater German Reich, was the German state between 1933 and 1945, when Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party controlled the country, transforming it into a totalitarian dictat ...

occupation of

Czechoslovakia Czechoslovakia ( ; Czech language, Czech and , ''Česko-Slovensko'') was a landlocked country in Central Europe, created in 1918, when it declared its independence from Austria-Hungary. In 1938, after the Munich Agreement, the Sudetenland beca ...

and kept in concentration camps

Dachau Dachau (, ; , ; ) was one of the first concentration camps built by Nazi Germany and the longest-running one, opening on 22 March 1933. The camp was initially intended to intern Hitler's political opponents, which consisted of communists, s ...

and

Buchenwald Buchenwald (; 'beech forest') was a German Nazi concentration camp established on Ettersberg hill near Weimar, Germany, in July 1937. It was one of the first and the largest of the concentration camps within the Altreich (Old Reich) territori ...

, arriving in Dachau on September 10, 1939, and transferred to Buchenwald on September 26 of the same year. In 1941 his family, who were sent to USA by Waldes before the war (he decided to remain in Prague as a Czech patriot) paid the Nazi authorities 8 million Czech crowns (about 1 Million Reichsmarks or $250,000 US) ransom. In Buchenwald he suffered a diabetic attack, and was in the prison hospital from 11 April 1940 until his release on 2 June 1941. The Gestapo then transported Waldes by plane to Lisbon, Portugal, where he boarded a United States-bound ship. However, Waldes did not survive the journey to the USA and died under suspicious circumstances on the ship which stopped at

Havana Havana (; ) is the capital and largest city of Cuba. The heart of La Habana Province, Havana is the country's main port and commercial center.Cuba Cuba, officially the Republic of Cuba, is an island country, comprising the island of Cuba (largest island), Isla de la Juventud, and List of islands of Cuba, 4,195 islands, islets and cays surrounding the main island. It is located where the ...

in May 1941.

"He aldesarrived on a Portuguese ship in Cuba. In the moment that he stepped onto solid ground, he broke down and died."Obituary in ''Aufbau'' Magazine, New York, July 25, 1941. Translated from the German: "Er kam mit einem portugiesischen Schiff auf Cuba an. In dem Augenblick, da er den festen Boden betrat, brach er zusammen und starb.

According to Aufbau Magazine, Waldes died in a hospital in Havana. He was cremated at a memorial attended by several hundred people on 15 July 1941 at Fresh Pond, Maspeth, in New York. Other reports say that Jindřich and his family perished in the Buchenwald concentration camp.

Art collection

Waldes was also a passionate art collector of contemporary Czech art. In 1918 in Prague he founded Waldes Museum for his collection of buttons which had over 70 thousand items. The collection was transferred after the

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

to Museum of Decorative Arts in Prague. Apart from buttons he collected works of Czech painters especially

's paintings. They became friends in 1919 and remained so until 1938. Waldes supported Kupka throughout his career by buying his canvases. Part of Jindřich Waldes' collection held by the

National Gallery in Prague The National Gallery Prague (, NGP), formerly the National Gallery in Prague (), is a state-owned art gallery in Prague, which manages the largest collection of art in the Czech Republic and presents masterpieces of Czech and international fine a ...

had been returned to his descendants living in the United States.

Restitution of looted property

After the war the factory was not restituted to the family, but instead taken by the state. In 1999 it was announced that much of the stolen art collection would be restituted. In 2007 the Prague City Court rendered the decision to return fifty percent of the Czech Koh-i-Noor holdings to the Waldes family heirs. However, in 2010 the

Constitutional Court A constitutional court is a high court that deals primarily with constitutional law. Its main authority is to rule on whether laws that are challenged are in fact unconstitutional, i.e. whether they conflict with constitutionally established ru ...

Brno Brno ( , ; ) is a Statutory city (Czech Republic), city in the South Moravian Region of the Czech Republic. Located at the confluence of the Svitava (river), Svitava and Svratka (river), Svratka rivers, Brno has about 403,000 inhabitants, making ...

reversed the decision, stating that the

Beneš decrees The Beneš decrees were a series of laws drafted by the Czechoslovak government-in-exile in the absence of the Czechoslovak parliament during the German occupation of Czechoslovakia in World War II. They were issued by President Edvard Beneš fr ...

of 1945 handed the property to the Czech state, not the Communist seizures in 1948.

Literature

* Patrik Šimon: Jindřich Waldes – sběratel umění, Patrik Šimon – Eminent, Praha 2001 * Jiří Waldes a kolektiv: Kupka – Waldes Malíř a jeho sběratel, Petr Meissner, Praha 1999

References

External links