Polozapomenutý sociální demokrat. Životní osudy JUDr. Jaroslava Profouse ve světle jeho pamětí
Half-forgotten social democrat. JUDr. Jaroslav Profous’s life story in light of his memories

Summary/Abstract: JUDr. Jaroslav Profous was an important member of the Czechoslovak Social Democratic Party. In the period from 1933 to 1938, his service for the Republic led him to the District Financial Directorate in Cheb, where he witnessed the onset of Henlein supporters and escalation of nationalist sentiments. He tried to alleviate them by organizing joint meetings and demonstrations with the Sudeten German socialists, but the fight for the continuation of the democratic multi-ethnic Czechoslovakia was impossible to win. Profous left Cheb and found a job at the Financial Directorate in Hradec Králové, where, after the occupation of the rest of Czechoslovakia, he joined the anti-German resistance in March 1939, as one of the leaders of the “We Shall Remain Faithful” Petition Committee (Petiční výbor “Věrni zůstaneme”) organization for the entire East Bohemia. He was arrested for his resistance activities and spent nearly five years in German prisons. After the war, he served as General Secretary of the National Renewal Fund – Resettlement Office, responsible for managing the property of Germans, traitors and collaborators, seized on the basis of presidential decrees. As a supporter of the right wing within Social Democracy, he was not happy to see the onset of the Communist power. After 1948, he was removed from his offices and, subsequently, decided to go abroad. He gained extensive experience within the exile community in Austria, Switzerland and Belgium, and then he moved to the United States of America. From the wide range of Profous’s activities, we should mention his work in the Free International Federation of Deportees and Resistance Internees (FILDIR) and the Czech National Building in New York. If it wasn’t for the recently discovered unique source, i.e. his personal memories intended for his family, most parts of the remarkable chapters of Jaroslav Profous’s life would probably remain unknown to the professional public.

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