Memoirs and diaries

Autobiografie jednoho pařížského domu

Příběhy, osudy a deportace 1942–1944

The Children of 209 Rue Saint-Maur, Paris X^e. The Stories of Deportees 1942–1944. At number 209 rue Saint-Maurus in the 10th arrondissement of Paris there is an apartment building where families of craftsmen and workers, immigrants from Eastern and Southern Europe, have lived since the 1850s. Generations have grown up here, love and friendships have been forged and daily life has been regularly interrupted by the disasters and violence of the 20th century. Among others, nine Jewish children were deported from here in the 1940s. Their fates are the key to the author’s magnificent novel’s testimony about the memory of places and the invisible threads that connect the living and the dead.

Deníky 1945–1948

Václav Polívka

Diaries 1945–1948. Václav Polívka (1927-1971) was born into Czechoslovakia’s elite, roughly eight years after the country emerged from the ruins of Austria-Hungary. In the diaries, that were found in an attic in Oslo, Norway in 2012, the young medical student with a strong interest in classical music describes three crucial years for Europe, which, beginning in 1945, was moving from World War with Nazi occupation to Cold War with Communist dictatorship.

Výpravy na Východ

Fitzroy Maclean

Eastern Approaches. Sir Fitzroy Maclean’s famous account of his diplomatic and military career between 1937 and 1945 is published in Czech for the first time. Maclean’s adventurous narrative, delivered with unmistakable wit and personal charm, served as one of the models for Fleming’s series of James Bond novels.

Agnessa

Zpověď ženy stalinského čekisty

Mira Yakovenko, Agnessa Mironova

Agnessa. The Confession of the Wife of the Member of Stalin’s Secret Police. The recorded oral memories of Agnessa Mironova (1903-1982) is a must book for anybody who wants to know what was a personal life like under Stalinism. For the first time ever, Agnessa’s notes open the secret door into living rooms and boudoirs of Stalin’s “hangmen”, top-ranked Soviet secret police officers during the purges of the 1930-40s.