Weil Jiří, PhDr.

Collection description

Scope and content:: The fonds contains abstracts from specialist literature, a proposal for arranging the archives of the Jewish Religious Community of Prague, guidelines for supervising museum work and an obituary. The material relates to Jiří Weil's activities as an employee of the Jewish Museum in Prague.

Administrative/biographical history:: Jiří Weil (born 6 August 1900, Praskolesy, Bohemia, died 13 December 1959, Prague) was a writer, journalist, translator and employee of the Jewish Museum in Prague. He studied Slavic philology and comparative history of literature at the Philosophy Faculty of Charles University, Prague. A communist by conviction, he visited the Soviet Union several times, working there as a translator in 1933–1935. His 1937 novel Moskva–hranice (Moscow to the Border) revealed the workings of Stalinism. During the Second World War he lived in a so-called mixed marriage, which protected him from deportation. From the summer of 1943 until January 1945 he worked at the Central Jewish Museum in Prague, where he was involved in the cataloguing of collections. In February 1945 he faked his own suicide, spending the rest of the war in hiding. After the war he worked as a publishing editor. In 1950 he was employed as a specialist by the State Jewish Museum in Prague. In addition to books, he also published material in a number of newspapers and journals.

Subject terms:: Literature; Literature--Writers, poets, and playwrights; Museums; Professions; Professions--Journalists; Professions--Scholars (secular), scientists, and academics

Finding aids:: Dolista K, Heřman J: Weil Jiří, Dr., Prozatímní inventární seznam, 1972, 1 s., AP č. 296.