Radio Prague International: Beyond Kafka's letters: 130 years since the birth of journalist and resistance fighter Milena Jesenská
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Milena Jesenská
Milena Jesenská was a Czech journalist, writer, editor and translator. She is noted for her correspondence with the author Franz Kafka and was one of the first to translate his work from the German language. After the Nazi invasion of Czechoslovakia, she joined a resistance movement to help Jews and other refugees. She died in Ravensbrück, a Nazi prison camp.
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culture · Czech journalist, writer, editor and translator · writer · journalist · translator · opinion journalist · editing staff · also Milena Jesenská, Milena Jesenska, Jesenská
Born 10 August 1896 · Died 17 May 1944 · Q234893
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2026· 1 entry
2025· 1 entry
Gwen Strauss write the love story of Milena and Margarete in the Ravensbruck camp
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2024· 1 entry
IJNet: Milena Jesenská Fellowship open [Europe]
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1996· 1 entry
Awarded Order of Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk, 2nd class (1996).
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1994· 2 entries
Yad Vashem recognized Milena Jesenská as Righteous Among the Nations
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Awarded Righteous Among the Nations (1994).
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1969· 1 entry
Her biography of her mother was printed under the title Adresát Milena Jesenská
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1944· 1 entry
Died 1944-05-17.
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1931· 1 entry
Jesenská joined the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia though she was later expelled in the mid-'30s for making critical comments about Stalinism, being deemed a "Trotskyist
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1925· 1 entry
Jesenská divorced Pollak and moved back to Prague, where she later met and married avant-garde Czech architect Jaromír Krejcar, with whom she had a daughter, Jana Černá
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1922· 1 entry
And 1923 (and Kafka turned over to Jesenská his diaries at the end of his life)
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1919· 1 entry
Discovered a short story (The Stoker) by Prague writer Franz Kafka, and wrote to him to ask for permission to translate it from German to Czech
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1918· 1 entry
Married Ernst Pollak, a Jewish intellectual and literary critic whom she met in Prague's literary circles, and moved with him to Vienna
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1917· 1 entry
“The bliss of murder! The relief, the soaring ecstasy from the shedding of another’s blood! Wese, old nightbird, friend, alehouse crony, you are oozing away into the dark earth below the street. Why aren’t you simply a bladder of blood so that I could stamp on you and make you vanish into nothingness? Not all we want comes true, not all the dreams that blossomed have borne fruit, your solid remains lie here, already indifferent to every kick. What’s the good of the dumb question you are asking?”
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1896· 1 entry
Born 1896-08-10.
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