The Cowards
Page 45
Prague, October 1948 – Karlovy Vary,
September 1949
Notes
CZECH LEGION: Units of volunteers who fought against the Axis Powers on the Eastern and Western Fronts during the First World War.
P. L. DORUZKA: One of the most important writers and historians of jazz in Czechoslovakia; a principal organizer of the annual International Prague Jazz Festival.
ALOIS JIRASEK (1851–1930): Author of romantic novels with strong Czech nationalistic tendencies.
DR KRAMAR: One of the leading figures, together with Masaryk, in the Czech and Slovak independence movement during World War I. He subsequently became Czechoslovakia’s first prime minister. Kramar represented the interests of the industrial capitalists and later joined the coalition formed by the Agrarian and Social Democratic parties.
EMIL LUDVIK: Founder and leader, in 1939, of the first really swinging band in Czechoslovakia; founder and secretary of the Czechoslovak Society for Human Rights (1968–9), dissolved by the Czech Government during the post-Dubcek ‘reforms’.
MORAVEC: Minister of Education and Culture in the puppet government formed under the German Protectorate.
BOZENA NEMCOVA (1820–62): Novelist and short story writer closely associated with the nineteenth century Czech national renaissance movement. Her most widely read work is Granny.
OCTOBER 28TH: Czechoslovak independence day, commemorating the establishment of the republic and celebrated as a national holiday prior to February 1948.
SOKOL: A nationalistic physical culture organization.
LUDVIK SVAB: Guitarist of the Prague Dixieland Band founded in 1948 and still performing.
FRITZ WEISS: Jewish trumpet player and arranger for Emil Ludvik’s band incarcerated in Terezin where he formed a jazz band called ‘The Concentration Camp Swingers’. He died there.