Gutfreund Emil

Collection description

Scope and content:: The fonds contains the diaries of Emil Gutfreund, a Jewish refugee from the Nazi Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, later a member of the Czechoslovak Foreign Army. It also contains personal documents and official materials (mostly from the Second World War period).

Archival history:: A descendant of the Gutfreund family donated the fonds to the archives of the Jewish Museum in Prague in the 1990s.

Administrative/biographical history:: Emil Gutfreund (11 July 1885, Dvůr Králové-1 September 1969, Prague) was a chemist by profession and the elder brother of the sculptor Otto Gutfreund. In 1939 he fled his country via Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, Turkey, Syria and Algiers to Agde in France, where he became a member of the Czechoslovak Foreign Army. In France and later in London he worked for the Office of the President of the Czechoslovak Republic. He kept a diary about his escape from the Nazi Protectorate and his war-time experiences. After the war he was employed at the Czechoslovak Ministry of Foreign Affairs (until 1951). Part of his diary was published in 1997.

Subject terms:: Diaries; Holocaust; Jewish self-defence and resistance; Personal records; Refugees; World War II

Finding aids:: Hanková M: Emil Gutfreund (1885-1969), Inventář, 2014, 7 s., AP č. 334