Miroslav Kárný

Miroslav Kárný (9 September 1919 – 9 May 2001) was a historian and writer from Prague, Czechoslovakia.

Kárný was born into an assimilated Jewish family, his mother ran a shop selling candy and haberdashery. His father, a tradesman, left the Jewish community during the time of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy. After Kárný graduated at the gymnasium, he continued his studies of history and Czech language at the Charles University of Prague between 1937–39. During this time, he became a member of the students' communist organisation Kostufra. Due to his Jewish origin, in November 1941 he was deported to the Theresienstadt ghetto. He was deported on 24 November 1941, with the first transport "Ak". In Theresienstadt he met his future wife, Margita Krausová (1923–1998). Margita and Miroslav were active in the Communist resistance group in Theresienstadt and they collaborated with Josef Taussig, Bruno Zwicker, Valtr Eisinger, Josef Stiassny and Friedl Dicker-Brandeis. In September 1944, they both were deported to Auschwitz. From here, Kárný was deported for slave labour to the auxiliary camp Kaufering of the Dachau concentration camp.

After the war, he became a journalist and then a freelance historian, specializing in the Holocaust and German fascism. He was expelled for the first time from the Communist Party (KSČ) due to condemnation of his brother Jiří in the anti-Semitic Slánský trial (1952), and for the second time in 1969, after the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia. He retired in 1973.

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