Karel Poláček (22 March 1892 – 21 January 1945) was a

Czech Czech may refer to: * Anything from or related to the Czech Republic, a country in Europe ** Czech language ** Czechs, the people of the area ** Czech culture ** Czech cuisine * One of three mythical brothers, Lech, Czech, and Rus' Places *Czech, ...

writer, humorist and journalist of

Jewish Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

descent.

Life

He was born in

Rychnov nad Kněžnou Rychnov nad Kněžnou (; german: Reichenau an der Knieschna) is a town in the Hradec Králové Region of the Czech Republic. It has about 11,000 inhabitants. The town centre is well preserved and is protected by law as an urban monument zone. Adm ...

into the family of a Jewish merchant. He attended the gymnasium there, but did poorly, so he transferred to a secondary school in

Prague Prague ( ; cs, Praha ; german: Prag, ; la, Praga) is the capital and largest city in the Czech Republic, and the historical capital of Bohemia. On the Vltava river, Prague is home to about 1.3 million people. The city has a temperate ...

, from which he graduated in 1912. He then attended the faculty of law at

Charles University ) , 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 , undergr ...

. He was employed as a

legal clerk A paralegal, also known as a legal assistant, or paralegal specialist is a professional who performs tasks that require knowledge of legal concepts but not the full expertise of a lawyer with a license to practice law. The market for paralegals i ...

for a short time. During the

First World War World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

he served on the

Serbian Serbian may refer to: * someone or something related to Serbia, a country in Southeastern Europe * someone or something related to the Serbs, a South Slavic people * Serbian language * Serbian names See also

* * * Old Serbian (disambiguat ...

and Galician fronts. After the war he was employed by the Czechoslovak Committee on Import and Export, but lost his job after he ridiculed the office in one of his short stories called ''Kolotoč'' (''The Carousel''); about a family that inherits a carousel but, due to a hyperbureaucratic import/export office, they are not able to sell it abroad.

Josef Čapek Josef Čapek (; 23 March 1887 – April 1945) was a Czech artist who was best known as a painter, but who was also noted as a writer and a poet. He invented the word "robot", which was introduced into literature by his brother, Karel Čapek. ...

offered him support in 1920 and Poláček began contributing to a satirical magazine; ''Nebojsa'' (''Dreadnought''). He then started writing short stories, feature stories and columns using the pseudonym ''Kočkodan'' (''

Guenon The guenons (, ) are Old World monkeys of the genus ''Cercopithecus'' (). Not all members of this genus have the word "guenon" in their common names; also, because of changes in scientific classification, some monkeys in other genera may have co ...

'', or ''

Marmoset The marmosets (), also known as zaris or sagoin, are 22 New World monkey species of the genera ''Callithrix'', ''Cebuella'', ''Callibella'', and ''Mico''. All four genera are part of the biological family Callitrichidae. The term "marmoset" is ...

''). Shortly after that, in 1922, the Čapek brothers introduced him to the editor of

Lidové noviny ''Lidové noviny'' (''People's News'', or ''The People's Newspaper'', ) is a daily newspaper published in Prague, the Czech Republic. It is the oldest Czech daily still in print, and a newspaper of record.Nazi occupation German-occupied Europe refers to the sovereign countries of Europe which were wholly or partly occupied and civil-occupied (including puppet governments) by the military forces and the government of Nazi Germany at various times between 1939 an ...

came and it was forbidden under the

Nuremberg Laws The Nuremberg Laws (german: link=no, Nürnberger Gesetze, ) were antisemitic and racist laws that were enacted in Nazi Germany on 15 September 1935, at a special meeting of the Reichstag convened during the annual Nuremberg Rally of th ...

. He then went to work for the Jewish religious community. On July 5 1943, he was transported to the

Theresienstadt concentration camp Theresienstadt Ghetto was established by the Schutzstaffel, SS during World War II in the fortress town of Terezín, in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia (German occupation of Czechoslovakia, German-occupied Czechoslovakia). Theresienstad ...

and then transferred to

Auschwitz Auschwitz concentration camp ( (); also or ) was a complex of over 40 concentration and extermination camps operated by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland (in a portion annexed into Germany in 1939) during World War II and the Holocaust. It con ...

. He died in the

Gleiwitz Gliwice (; german: Gleiwitz) is a city in Upper Silesia, in southern Poland. The city is located in the Silesian Highlands, on the Kłodnica river (a tributary of the Oder River, Oder). It lies approximately 25 km west from Katowice, the re ...

camp on January 21, 1945.Terezínská pamětní kniha II, Melantrich 1995, p. 1213

Work

His novels represent the most authentic values of Czech interwar prose. He was close to the humanistic credo of his generation of writers such as

Karel Čapek Karel Čapek (; 9 January 1890 – 25 December 1938) was a Czech writer, playwright and critic. He has become best known for his science fiction, including his novel ''War with the Newts'' (1936) and play ''R.U.R.'' (''Rossum's Universal Ro ...

and

František Langer František Langer (3 March 1888 – 2 August 1965) was a Czech-Jewish playwright, screenwriter, essayist, literary critic, publicist and military physician. Life Langer was born and in Prague, Austria-Hungary in a Czech speaking Jewish fam ...

. At the same time he reflects in his "humorous" (but only at first sight) novels the deep tragedy of the petty bourgeois, small-town and suburban world in which hypocrisy, mental smallness, narrow-mindness and spiritual poverty wins. Poláček was able to describe different human types - not only in their variety but also in the art of getting under the mask of their language. At the beginning of his work stand humorous sketches mostly from small-town environments, with caricatured human types, especially from middle-class, often Jewish society. His first novel was ''Dům na předměstí'' (1928, ''A House in the Suburbs'') in which he portrayed the transformation of a "small man" into a dehumanised creature as soon as he is seized with the proprietary instinct to possess. He was widely popular for his humoristic prose such as ''Muži v offsidu'' (1931, ''Men in Offsides'', which was made into a movie that year by director

Svatopluk Innemann Svatopluk Innemann (18 February 1896 – 30 October 1945) was a Czechs, Czech film director, cinematographer, screenwriter, film editor and actor. He was one of the pioneers of Czech cinema. Biography and works Innemann, was a son of the Czech dir ...

, starring

Hugo Haas Hugo Haas (19 February 1901 – 1 December 1968) was a Czech film actor, director and writer. He appeared in more than 60 films between 1926 and 1962, as well as directing 20 films between 1933 and 1962. Life and career Haas was born in B ...

in the role of Mr. Načeradec) or ''Michelup a motocykl'' (1935, ''Michelup and the Motorcycle''). Much of his work was devoted to a cycle in which he portrayed a small town during the years before World War I. The story is centered around the fate of the tradesman, Štědrý, and his sons. It was supposed to be a pentalogy; the fifth part was written but only fragments survived. The books were published in this order: ''Okresní město'' (1936, ''County Town''), ''Hrdinové táhnou do boje'' (1936, ''Heroes go to Battle''), ''Podzemní město'' (1937, ''Underground Town'') and ''Vyprodáno'' (1939, ''Sold Out''). During the Nazi occupation, in 1941, Poláček's humorous novel ''Hostinec U kamenného stolu'' (''Tavern with a Stone Table'') was published under the name of the painter . It was made into a movie in 1949. After the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, a novel about his childhood in

, ''Bylo nás pět'' (''There Were Five Of Us'', however translated in English under the title ''We Were a Handful'') was published.

References

External links

Several works by Karel Poláček available on the website of the Municipal Library in Prague
in Czech) {{DEFAULTSORT:Polacek, Karel 1892 births 1945 deaths People from Rychnov nad Kněžnou Czech Jews Czech short story writers Czech male novelists Czech journalists Charles University alumni Recipients of the Order of Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk Czech people who died in Auschwitz concentration camp 20th-century journalists Czechoslovak civilians killed in World War II