The Twelve Little Cakes (2004) is a memoir by Czech author Dominika Dery. It tells stories from Dery's life that take place from before her conception up until her late childhood, as well as detailing life in an Eastern bloc country. The story includes holidays to Semily in northern Czechoslovakia and to Miedzyzdroje on Poland's Baltic coast.
Dery was born in 1975 in Černošice, a village just outside Prague in then-Czechoslovakia. Her mother Jana had decided to conceive another child after dreaming about a little girl. Dery's parents were dissidents who had taken part in the failed Prague Spring of 1968, causing them to live under suspicion: Jana's parents, who were among the Communist elite, disowned her, Jarda had difficulty finding or keeping a job, and the family always had to be wary of informers. However, the couple managed to raise their two daughters in a loving, even adventurous household despite their troubles. Dery's enrollment and progress in ballet school comes to the fore later in the story, culminating in performances at the Smetana and National Theatre in Prague.
Jaroslav Hašek was a Czech writer, humorist, satirist, journalist, bohemian, first anarchist and then communist, and commissar of the Red Army against the Czechoslovak Legion. He is best known for his novel The Fate of the Good Soldier Švejk during the World War, an unfinished collection of farcical incidents about a soldier in World War I and a satire on the ineptitude of authority figures. The novel has been translated into about 60 languages, making it the most translated novel in Czech literature.
Madeleine Jana Korbel Albright was an American diplomat and political scientist who served as the 64th United States secretary of state from 1997 to 2001. A member of the Democratic Party, she was the first woman to hold that post.
The Velvet Revolution or Gentle Revolution was a non-violent transition of power in what was then Czechoslovakia, occurring from 17 November to 28 November 1989. Popular demonstrations against the one-party government of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia included students and older dissidents. The result was the end of 41 years of one-party rule in Czechoslovakia, and the subsequent dismantling of the command economy and conversion to a parliamentary republic.
Jan Garrigue Masaryk was a Czech diplomat and politician who served as the Foreign Minister of Czechoslovakia from 1940 to 1948. American journalist John Gunther described Masaryk as "a brave, honest, turbulent, and impulsive man".
The Kindertransport was an organised rescue effort of children from Nazi-controlled territory that took place in 1938–1939 during the nine months prior to the outbreak of the Second World War. The United Kingdom took in nearly 10,000 children, most of them Jewish, from Germany, Austria, Czechoslovakia, Poland, and the Free City of Danzig. The children were placed in British foster homes, hostels, schools, and farms. Often they were the only members of their families who survived the Holocaust that was to come. The programme was supported, publicised, and encouraged by the British government, which waived the visa immigration requirements that were not within the ability of the British Jewish community to fulfil. The British government placed no numerical limit on the programme; it was the start of the Second World War that brought it to an end, by which time about 10,000 kindertransport children had been brought to the country.
Shirley Temple Black was an American actress, singer, dancer, and diplomat, who was Hollywood's number-one box-office draw as a child actress from 1934 to 1938. Later, she was named United States Ambassador to Ghana and Czechoslovakia, and also served as Chief of Protocol of the United States.
Milena Jesenská was a Czech journalist, writer, editor and translator.
Milada Horáková was a Czech politician and a member of the underground resistance movement during World War II. She was a victim of judicial murder, convicted and executed by the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia on fabricated charges of conspiracy and treason. Many prominent figures in the West, including Albert Einstein, Vincent Auriol, Eleanor Roosevelt and Winston Churchill, petitioned for her life.
Sir Nicholas George Winton was a British stockbroker and humanitarian who helped to rescue Jewish children who were at risk of being murdered by Nazi Germany during the Holocaust. Born to German-Jewish parents who had immigrated to Britain at the beginning of the 20th century, Winton assisted in the rescue of 669 children, most of them Jewish, from Czechoslovakia on the eve of World War II. On a brief visit to Czechoslovakia, he helped compile a list of children needing rescue and, returning to Britain, he worked to fulfill the legal requirements of bringing the children to Britain and finding homes and sponsors for them. This operation was later known as the Czech Kindertransport.
Hanička "Hana" Brady was a Czechoslovak Jewish girl murdered in the gas chambers at German concentration camp at Auschwitz, located in the occupied territory of Poland, during the Holocaust. She is the subject of the 2002 non-fiction children's book Hana's Suitcase, written by Karen Levine.
Loves of a Blonde, also known as A Blonde in Love, is a 1965 Czechoslovak romantic comedy-drama film directed by Miloš Forman that follows a young woman, Andula, who has a routine job in a shoe factory in provincial Czechoslovakia, and her attempts at forging a romantic relationship.
Jan Drda was a Czech journalist, politician, playwright, screenwriter and author of modern fairytales. He was the Czech State Prize Laureate in 1949 and 1953, and was a nominated again for the same prize in 1965.
The history of the Jews in the Czech lands, historically the Lands of the Bohemian Crown, including the modern Czech Republic, goes back many centuries. There is evidence that Jews have lived in Moravia and Bohemia since as early as the 10th century. Jewish communities flourished here specifically in the 16th and 17th centuries, and again in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Local Jews were mostly murdered in the Holocaust, or exiled at various points. As of 2021, there were only about 2,300 Jews estimated to be living in the Czech Republic.
Olga Hepnarová was a Czechoslovak rampage killer, who on 10 July 1973, killed eight people with a truck in Prague. Hepnarová was convicted and sentenced to death, and was executed in 1975, the last woman executed in Czechoslovakia.
Heda Margolius Kovály was a Czech writer and translator. She survived the Łódź ghetto and Auschwitz where her parents died. She later escaped whilst being marched to Bergen-Belsen to find that no one would take her in. Her husband was made a deputy minister in Czechoslovakia and he was then hanged as a traitor. As the wife of a disgraced man she married again and she and her husband were treated badly. They left for the US in 1968 when the country was invaded by the Warsaw Pact countries. She published her biography in 1973. She and her husband did not return to her homeland until 1996.
The Sun in a Net is a 1963 film that became a key film in the development of Slovak and Czechoslovak cinema from the mandated Socialist-Realist filmmaking of the repressive 1950s towards the Czechoslovak/Czech New Wave and socially critical or experimental films of the 1960s marked by a gradual relaxation of communist control. The Sun in a Net received multiple votes in a wide survey of Czech and Slovak film academics and critics in the late 1990s asking them for their lists of the 10 best films in the history of filmmaking in the former Czechoslovakia.
Ondrej Rigo was a Slovak serial killer and necrophile who targeted women in Bratislava, Munich and Amsterdam from 1990 to 1992. He served a life sentence until his death for nine murders and one attempted murder in Leopoldov Prison in Slovakia. Rigo was diagnosed with a schizoid personality disorder and an antisocial personality disorder as well as necrophilia, finding pleasure in having intercourse with women with mutilated heads. Rigo remains the Slovak murderer with the highest number of victims and he is also the most prolific serial killer in modern Slovak history.
Milena Jelinek was a Czech American screenwriter, playwright and teacher. She wrote the screenplay for the film Forgotten Light, which was awarded three Czech Lions in 1997. Her name is associated with the golden generation of Czech filmmakers, known as Czech New Wave. She was married to the late researcher Frederick Jelinek.
Anna Hyndráková was a Czech holocaust survivor and historian. She worked at the Jewish Museum in Prague. During World War II, she survived both forced labour and concentration camps including the Theresienstadt, Auschwitz, Christianstadt, Niesky and Görlitz.
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