TGM and Jews, Jews and TGM
TGM and the Jews, the Jews and TGM MENDEL MUSEUM REFECTATOR Mendlovo nám. 1aTuesday 12 March at 3 pm G. Masaryk is still perceived today, especially as a result of the Hilsner affair, as a politician with a positive attitude towards the Jewish minority. However, Masaryk's attitude towards Jews was not as clear-cut as is often stated. The lecture will focus on the changes in Masaryk's views on Judaism and the events that influenced his attitudes. It will also present the relationship of important Jewish personalities to the founding of Czechoslovakia and its first president. The lecture by historian Táňa Klementová will take place as part of Masaryk Days organised by Masaryk University. For more information on the programme, please visit www.masarykovydny.cz.
Family heritage
Family heritage Monday 11 March at 6 pm Two inspiring women have accepted an invitation to talk about how they deal with the complexity of family heritage in their lives. The first of them, Eva Lustigová, daughter of the writer Arnošt Lustig and Věra Weislitzová, author of the film Your tear, my rain, is coming to Brno to present the book Arnošt's Journey as part of Masaryk Days. We will talk not only about it, but also about other projects through which Eva is developing her father's legacy. We will also recall her mother's poetic work. The second panelist will be Karen Kruger, granddaughter of the Türkle family from Brno, who successfully screened her documentary film Letters from Brno last year. Based on dozens of letters that came to Karen as part of her inheritance, the film traces her journey to understand her family's past and to find her own roots. Moderated by Táňa Klementová. The debate will be in English, simultaneous translation will be provided on site. Admission is voluntary.
Shoah in Czech radio play
Shoah in a Czech radio play Tuesday, February 27 at 6 pm Exactly one month ago we commemorated Holocaust Remembrance Day and the prevention of crimes against humanity. In the wake of it, we present a lecture by radio columnist Mgr. Přemysl Hnilička. He will take us through the history of radio drama and present examples of how and when Czech authors dealt with the topic of the Holocaust - and when this topic was not allowed. There will be excerpts from plays by Ludvík Aškenazy, Arnošt Lustig, Jaromír Ptáček, as well as representatives of the younger generation. It will offer a broader insight into this area with the promise of a possible treatment of "Moravian Jewish stories", which we want to focus on in particular. Admission is voluntary.
Hachshars in Czechoslovakia
Hachšary in Czechoslovakia Monday 26 February at 6 pm Hachšary - agricultural training centres - began to be established in interwar Czechoslovakia in the 1920s. They were intended to provide Jewish youth with training in agri-culture and crafts, as well as practical training for life in collective settlements - kibbutzim. The ideological training of the hachshars was based on the concept of socialist Zionism and aimed to create an agricultural and working class in Palestine. In addition to practical skills, the training camps emphasized the equality of members, and required a sense of responsibility, duty, justice, and a strong sense of solidarity among the members. The lecture by Daniela Bartáková from the Masaryk Institute and the Archives of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic will also attempt to capture the changes in the whole concept in response to the approaching beginning of the war and the need to ensure the eviction of as many Jewish youth as possible. Admission is voluntary.
Brod and us
Brod and us Tuesday, 23 January at 6 p.m. Under the slightly mysterious name of Petr Brod, a journalist and an extraordinary personality of Czech post-war history, who was born in 1951 and lives in Prague. In 1969, however, he legally emigrated with his parents to Bavaria, where he first studied political science, history of Eastern and Southeastern Europe and journalism at the University of Munich, and later went on to study at the London School of Economics and Political Science and Harvard University. His varied work record includes various positions at BBC Radio and Television in London, work for Radio Free Europe and a stint on the editorial staff of the Munich-based Süddeutsche Zeitung. We are delighted that Petr Brod has accepted our invitation to Malý Mehrin to talk about his ancestors, his life and work at home and in exile, his interest in Jewish history and his links with Moravia and Brno. He will also talk about his library, which will become the basis of the library of the new Moravian Jewish Museum Mehrin
OUR Houses - exhibition opening
OUR HOUSES - exhibition opening Thursday 4 January at 6 pm The use of possessive pronouns represents an interesting phenomenon in modern Czech history. MY... YOUR... HER... HIS... OUR... YOUR... THEIR... ALL? On the streets of Brno, as we live in them today, stood over seven hundred houses officially purchased by the Eviction Fund for Bohemia and Moravia during 1941. The original owners of the houses were forced to sell them on the basis of their official designation as Jews, or they lived in marriages with people so designated without wanting to sell THEIR houses. They did not always seek eviction. Some houses were resold by the Fund to private individuals or to the city of Brno, most were kept and rented out. After the end of the war, the owners changed hands again, but only rarely did a house return to the hands of the original ones. In the broadest sense of the word, the designation OURS includes all those who have ever lived in THEIR houses, worked in them, dreamed of something... It also includes us who pass them daily and they form the backdrop of OUR own lives. The exhibition comprehensively presents the theme of the arisation of immovable property by the Eviction Fund in Brno. It takes a closer look at eight selected houses. The presented set of information belongs to the gears of the Holocaust, although OUR interest does not end there. The stories of the individual houses, of course, took different paths after the end of the war. And it is more than likely that they entered your life as well.
The labyrinth of normalization in us
The Labyrinth of Normalization in Us Tuesday, December 19, 5 p.m. Martin Šmok, author of the exhibition Labyrinth of Normalization and the book of the same name at the Jewish Museum in Prague, will discuss the lasting reverberations of the normalization of anti-Jewish propaganda and its new life in the countries west of our borders. The lecture is coupled with a call to Brno historians and scholars to explore the difficult role that Brno-born Bedřich Bass took on during this period. Admission is voluntary.
E+I correspondence
Correspondence E+I Thursday, December 14 at 6 p.m. You may have already written to your Jesuits about the new audiobook of the correspondence of Voskovec and Werich, which was recently released. We take inspiration from the notorious phrase to invite you to an evening of letters exchanged across the ocean between Princeton and Brno by Messrs. Albert Einstein and Hugo Iltis. Based on correspondence from members of the Iltis family, historian Tania Klementova's lecture will recall the life story of botanist, geneticist and gifted educator Hugo Iltis (1882 Brno - Fredericksburg 1952), who made a major contribution to the rediscovery of the personality and work of Johann Gregor Mendel. At the same time, he tirelessly opposed the Nazi idea of the superiority and inferiority of the human races as its popularity grew in the second half of the 1930s. He also confirmed his belief in the dangers of the spread of racism after the war, when he demanded at the Nuremberg tribunal that scientific proponents of Nazi racial ideology be tried as war criminals. Admission is voluntary. Photo source: Albert Einstein : in his study in Princeton, New Jersey, Leo Baeck Institute, F 84514.
Jewish cemeteries and burial rituals
Jewish Cemeteries and Funeral Rituals Thursday, November 16 at 7 p.m. at Café Kaprál; Údolní 17; Brno Jaroslav Achab Haidler has written a beautiful, fascinating book Jewish Cemeteries and Burials, published in 2019 by Grada. The book was long awaited because many people knew what Achab has been intensely involved in for at least fifteen years: translating tombstones in Jewish cemeteries in Bohemia and Moravia. There are almost three hundred and fifty of these preserved cemeteries. About one hundred and fifty thousand tombstones! And we invited Ahab to talk about his passion on November 16th in the beautiful setting of Café Kapral. Achab himself calls such meetings with the audience lectures, but anyone who has ever experienced such a "lecture" knows that it is a completely original performance (Achab is, after all, an actor and long-time director of the theatre in Ústí nad Labem), during which we will learn much more than the title suggests. Moreover, Achab does not just impart information, although there is no shortage of that either: his "teaching" reaches people's hearts, as if he knew exactly where each of us has them. Admission is voluntary.
Israel and Gaza in context
Israel and Gaza in Context Wednesday, November 1 at 6 p.m. In the second half of the month of Tishri on the Jewish calendar, the annual cycle of reading the Five Books of Moses traditionally concludes. In synagogues around the world, the scrolls are danced merrily on shoulders and a new cycle begins. On the eve of this year's Simchat Torah holiday, instead of joy, Israel is plunged into emotions of shock, fear and sadness. After fifty years, martial law has been declared in circumstances that feel like déjà vu in 1973, combined with a sense of the greatest failure in Israeli history. On Saturday 7 October, Israel was attacked by the armed wing of the Palestinian radical movement Hamas. The terrorist attack, dubbed the 'Storm of al-Aqsa', was hugely surprising in its execution, especially in its bestial brutality against Israeli civilians. The war between Hamas and Israel is becoming a global issue. Historian Eva Taterová (Institute for Contemporary History of the Czech Academy of Sciences and Faculty of Regional Development and International Studies of Mendel University in Brno) together with Libor Kutej, Director of the Institute of Intelligence Studies of the University of Defence in Brno and Vice-Rector of the University, accepted the invitation to discuss the current context of the war conflict. Admission is voluntary
