Political Echoes of Buchenwald Cover Image

Political Echoes of Buchenwald
Political Echoes of Buchenwald

Author(s): Jakub Šlouf
Subject(s): Political history, Recent History (1900 till today), History of Communism, Fascism, Nazism and WW II, Book-Review
Published by: AV ČR - Akademie věd České republiky - Ústav pro soudobé dějiny
Keywords: Czechoslovakia; Communist Party of Czechoslovakia; Buchenwald concentration camp; Czech historiography;

Summary/Abstract: The book From my Memories of the Czech historian, journalist, and publicist Miloslav Moulis (1921–2010) are a sequel of his previous book of memoirs, Vlaky do neznáma (Trains Heading for the Unknown) (Třebíč, Akcent 2011), which depicts the era of the fi rst Czechoslovak Republic and the Nazi occupation during which the author, a member of the resistance movement, was imprisoned. The loose sequel starts with his return from the Buchenwald concentration camp and describes his life in post-war Czechoslovakia. As a Communist activist, he first held various administrative jobs and started studying history in the 1960s. In the reviewer s opinion, Moulis’s memoirs may be beneficial for three aspects of historical studies: the evolution of political attitudes of low- and middle-level Communist officials in the 1950s and 1960s, the creation of post-war networks of personal relations within the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, in which alliances established during the Nazi internment were playing an important role, and the mutual union of reformist politicians and historiographers in the 1960s.

  • Issue Year: VIII/2020
  • Issue No: 8
  • Page Range: 163-167
  • Page Count: 5
  • Language: English