Kamil Lhoták

* 1941

  • „During WWII, father had a friend, a painter whose name was Lev Šimák. He‘s not known too much. Lev Šimák was in resistance. He had a mimeograph. He asked my father whether he could keep it in his place. As a painter and a printmaker, he could have a mimeograph legally. Father agreed and Lev Šimák offered him to join the Communist party. Šimák was a … Communist until his death in 1989. So that’s how my dad became the Party member. Even though he disagreed with the Stalin’s show trials in the 1930’s. During the WWII, many people changed their mind depending on how it went on the front. In 1941, Hitler attacked Russia and the situation was disastrous. From 1943 on, the Russians were winning against the Germans and the Western front didn’t exist yet, it was launched only on the 6th of June, 1944… so from 1943 until 1944, Russians were the only power which was winning over the Germans. Which is why many people put their hopes in the Soviet Union. And my father, as a husband of a Jew and father of a Jewish child yearned for end of war and held his hopes for the Soviet Union. This is how he forgot about the Stalin’s terror. And he left the Party in that 1947 due to Zhdanov’s deeds and claims. Father’s … for Russia was exacerbated by his love of Prokofiev and before the war, he went to a concert where Prokofiev performed his piano concerto.”

  • “My grandparents on mother’s side were practicing Jews of Jewish nationality and they went to the transport. Grandfather, Rudolf Guth, was a businessman. They had a company called Ofner-Guth which sold electric components. The Ofner family all perished in a concentration camp. My granparents left for Terezín on the 7th May of 1942 and on the 9th further on to a German extermination camp Sobibor-Osowa. Since then, there are no records of them. It’s clear that they died there. The date is unknown, obviously. The last information we have is that on the 9th of May in 1942, they were sent to a transport.”

  • „My mother was exactly in that sort of situation. During the war, she was in her best mental state ever. She was subject to such horrors, such as, she went for a walk with me in a pram and the Hitlerjugend were throwing stones to that pram. It was a horror but she managed it. After the war ended and there was no more stress, she developed a mental illness. Hypochondriac delusions and post-traumatic stress disorder. It was tricky and hard to treat. Mother even spent some time in the internal medicine ward. I used to visit her in various hospital, at Bulovka, at Motol… She was an inpatient under observation for some time but then they released her because they didn’t find any organic illness. Father would go there to visit her and I went with him. Her mental state was deteriorating. It lead to obvious delusions. The delusions… I remember, it was in 1953, I think, she claimed that the brain is leaking out of her head. At that time, she was at the psych ward. First, she was at the neurology ward, then the Bohnice psychiatric hospital. She never improved. So she spent the rest of her life in a nursing home in Brandýs nad Labem. She died when she was 65.“

  • „Jiří Kolář was a certified cabinet maker. The State Security was instructed to approach favourably members of the working class so he got an offer in the sense of ‘You write poetry but you’re a workman, a cabinet maker. We support the working class and you, as a member of the working class, should work on our side. Think about it.’ And then they let him go. As my dad said: ‘Jirka Kolář came to the Slavia café, paler than death. And he said: How am I to decide?’ What could they tell him? He decided that he’d go for death, needed it be. It was during the Stalin times and perfectly innocent people were executed and Jiří was known to be against the ruling regime. My dad was summoned for interrogations. He was not accused of anything, he was there as a witness. He should testify against Václav Černý and Jiří Kolář. They wanted him to talk about them. He did not have any guidelines. About Černý, he said that he was a crazy professor who cared only about his work and ignored the rest of the world. Dunno, but Černý told Kolář after they had released him that he thanked him. He said it had helped him.“

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    Hradec Králové, 18.08.2020

    (audio)
    délka: 02:17:19
    nahrávka pořízena v rámci projektu Příběhy regionu - HRK REG ED
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I was the welcome boy who waved at the Red Army

Kamil Lhoták the younger, far left. Photograph from the 1970's
Kamil Lhoták the younger, far left. Photograph from the 1970's
zdroj: archiv Kamila Lhotáka ml.

Kamil Lhoták was born on the 7th of May in 1941 in Prague. His father was a renowned painter, printmaker and illustrator, Kamil Lhoták. His mother came from a Jewish family, her birth name was Hertha Guthová. She converted to Catholicism and changed her given name to Ludmila. Her marriage saved her from the transport but her parents were transported and died in the concentration camp of Sobibór-Osowa. The closest family of Kamil Lhoták survived the war without repercussions but witness’ mother Ludmila started suffering with major mental issues. Those were, paradoxically, connected with the relief of the vicissitudes of the German occupation. After unsuccessful treatments, she spent the rest of her life in a facility. Witness father, Kamil Lhoták, later divorced her. Kamil Lhoták the Elder was a member of the artists’ group ‘42’ whose members had major clashes with the State Security. Through his father, the witness met many notable artists. He was deeply influenced by musical composer Jan Rychlík. Kamil never participate in art life publicly. For forty years, he worked as a construction engineer in Aerospace Research Centre in Praha – Letňany and later in Aero Vodochody. In 1971, he married his wife and they had two children together. They divorced in 1986. Before his first marriage as well after it ended, he lived with his father, in whose household he was able to closely observe inspiration, work and views of the famous painter and his friends. In 2001, the witness married his childhood love Anna who died in 2013. He helped to create a fictionalised biography of his father, Můj otec Kamil Lhoták [My father Kamil Lhoták]. At the time of recording (2020), he lived in Suchdol near Kutná Hora.