The book tells the life story of Vendulka Vogelová, a girl who survived the Holocaust and escaped the Communist regime by emigration to USA. Her biography is available internationally now. In case anti-pandemic restrictions loosen, the travelling exhibition will be presented in Chicago, Washington D.C. and in New York in the second half of the year.
Her story would probably never have made it into written form without the existence of photographs by the Czech photographer Jan Lukas, who photographed the Vogel family only a few hours before their deportation to the Terezín/Theresienstadt ghetto. The photographs remained unknown for a long time. Eighty years later, Vendulka Vogelová talked about her eventful life and friendship with the photographer Jan Lukas to the author of the book, Ondřej Kundra, who had searched for her in the USA on the basis of the photographs taken by Jan Lukas.
Jan Lukas
Jan Lukas (1915–2006), a legend in the world of Czech photographers, lived through two periods of totalitarianism. In the 1930s, his photos captured large and small events in Czech life and he is famous for his stylized images as well as portraits of important personalities. By the mid 1960’s, he made it to the United States of America, where he continued to apply his distinctive talents to also photograph everyday life. Karla and Šimon Vogel's friendship with the young photographer Jan Lukas began many years before the war. At that time, Vendulka's family still lived in Karlovy Vary, from where they moved to Prague after the violent activities of Sudeten German activists.
<p> <br></p>Ondřej Kundra
Ondřej Kundra (*1980) is a journalist who, since 1999, has been working for Respekt, where he is a deputy editor-in-chief. He has won numerous journalism awards for political analysis and investigative reporting, including the prestigious Ferdinand Peroutka Prize. He is the author of Meda Mládková’s biography My Amazing Life (2014), a book about Russian spies; Putin’s Agents (2016), which was turned by Czech Radio into a radio book, and for which he received a nomination for the Magnesia Litera award. Together with Tomáš Lindner, he wrote the documentary book My Son the Terrorist (2017).
Book available in USA.
Book available internationally.
