LIFE HISTORY OF JULIUS FUCIK

Julius Fucik was a Czechoslovak journalist , an active member of Communist Party of Czechoslovakia and part of the forefront of the anti-Nazi resistance. He was imprisoned, tortured and executed by the Nazis.

Born : 23rd February , 1903 ( Prague, Austria-Hungary)
Died : 8th September , 1943 ( Berlin, Nazi Germany)
Occupation : Journalist
Ethnicity : Czech
Citizenship : Austrian , Czechoslovak
Notable Work : Reportáž psaná na oprátce
 EARLY LIFE:

Julius Fučík was born into a working-class family in Prague. His father was a steelworker, and he was the nephew and namesake of the composer Julius Fučík. In 1913, Fučík moved with his family from Prague to Plzeň (Pilsen) where he attended the state vocational high school. Already as a twelve-year-old boy he was planning to establish a newspaper named "Slovan" ("The Slav"). He showed himself to be interested in both politics and literature. As a teenager he frequently acted in local amateur theatre.

                                                   HOUSE IN PILSEN WHERE FUCIK LIVED IN 1913-1937

NOTES FROM THE GALLOWS:

First, Fučík was detained in Pankrác Prison in Prague where he was also interrogated and tortured. In this time arose Fučík's Notes from the Gallows(Czech: Reportáž psaná na oprátce, literally Reports Written Under the Noose), which was written on pieces of cigarette paper and smuggled out by sympathetic prison warders named Kolínský and Hora. The book describes events in the prison since Fučík's arrest and is filled with hope for a better, Communist future. In later years its authenticity was contested. The book was published in a more "acceptable" version, from which the less pleasant passages, which did not quite fit into everyone's picture of heroic resistance fighters, had been stricken.

JULIUS FUCIK'S " NOTES FROM THE GALLOWS"

(FIRST UNCENSORED Czech EDITION, 1995)

DEATH:

Fucik succumbed to death under the tortures of Nazis on 8th September, 1943.

JULIUS FUCIK

A note by Julius Fucik ( TRANSLATED)

Sitting in the house of ex-Petschek bank with hands on the knee and looking towards the fading wall it is never possible to be lost in one's self. But who is having the stamina to tame the mind and sit like this for hours?
I don't know who named this room " Picture House". Germans called it "Informal Gaol" but I must appreciate the name - Picture House. Those who are brought for investigation are sitting motionless on the chairs in this big room. It seems as if the fading wall in front of them is the curtain ; the curtain that portrays their fate.Waiting for death they are throwing consecutive scenes on the curtain - so many scenes must not be in any film, so far.Someone's whole life's image or images of some short memories, mother, wife, children, ransacked home or a traitor. The image of the man whom I gave Anti-Nazi manifesto, the blood , the hand that clutched mine in eternal faith - that image. Everyday we were dying in front of each other.But everyone didn't achieve a second birth.
I have observed hundreds of such life's movies.Thousand incidences. Now I shall sit to write.
If before conclusion those executioners stop my breath, then crores of people will write its "sweet conclusion".
                                                                                                                     J.F