art, academic and non-fiction books
publishers’ Eastern and Central European representation

Name your list

Log in / Sign in

ta strona jest nieczynna, ale zapraszamy serdecznie na stronę www.obibook.com /// this website is closed but we cordially invite you to visit www.obibook.com

ISBN: PB: 9788024646534

University of Chicago Press, Karolinum Press

March 2021

200 pp.

22.8x15.2 cm

36 halftones

PB:
£16,00
QTY:

Categories:

Vendulka

Flight to Freedom

Not for sale in the Czech Republic and the Slovak Republic!


So many lives were cut short by the Holocaust, many with no trace to leave behind for future generations to remember. Vendulka tells the story of a single scrap of remembrance – a candid photograph taken in the midst of this unspeakable tragedy – and that artifact's amazing aftermath.

Famed Czech photographer Jan Lukas snapped an offhand portrait of twelve-year-old Vendulka Vogl in March 1943. A friend of the Vogls, Lukas was saying goodbye to the family, who were soon to leave Prague for a concentration camp. The photograph almost didn't see the light of day – Lukas knew that if the Nazis found it on him, he could wind up in the camps as well – but the image was eventually developed and came to symbolize the Holocaust and humanize its victims. Seventy years after this famous picture was taken, investigative journalist Ondّej Kundra discovered that, despite all odds, Vendulka Vogl had survived the camps of Terezin, Auschwitz, and Christianstadt, and was in fact still alive and living in the United States. Kundra persuaded her to tell the remarkable story surrounding the photograph: her survival, her later decision to flee the Communist regime for America, and how she later reconnected with Jan Lukas, maintaining a lifelong friendship.
?
Vogl's thrillingly moving story, Kundra's sharp and engaging writing, and Lukas's striking photography all combine to make Vendulka an inspiring investigation into the horrors of totalitarianism and the redemptive beauty of friendship.

About the Author

Ondrej Kundra is managing editor of the Czech weekly Respekt.