Salus Wolfgang

Collection description

Scope and content:: The fonds contains various correspondence, poems, newspaper cuttings, personal documents and material relating to financial matters and damage to property after the end of the Second World War.

Archival history:: The material was donated to the archives of the Jewish Museum in Prague in 2014–2015.

Administrative/biographical history:: Wolfgang Salus was born on 24 June 1909 in Prague, the son of the acclaimed poet Hugo Salus (1866–1929) and Olga Salusová. He was involved in the Communist movement from an early age, joining the Young Communist League in 1924. His pseudonym was “Krieger” (the warrior). He came into contact with Trotskyists as a delegate at an international congress of the Communist Youth International in Moscow. He later became Trotsky's personal secretary, a position he held until 1930. After returning to Prague he led a local Trotskyist group and edited the journal Jiskra (Spark). He was deported to the Terezín ghetto (Transport Ak) on 24 November 1941. It was in Terezín that he began to write poetry, which he continued after the war. He was deported to Auschwitz (Transport Ek) on 28 September 1944 and was liberated in Buchenwald. He emigrated to Munich after 1948 and died there in 1953.

Subject terms:: Correspondence; Financial matters; Holocaust; Jewish political activity; Literature; Literature--Novels, poetry, and plays; Literature--Writers, poets, and playwrights; Newspaper clippings; Personal records; Plunder; World War II

System of arrangement:: The fonds is arranged as follows: personal documents, correspondence, literary works, photographs, material relating to Hugo Salus, varia.

Finding aids:: Hanková M: Wolfgang Salus (1909-1953), Inventář, 2015, 6 s., AP č. 348