"Mirek" z Reportáže psané na oprátce - Jaroslav Klecan (1914-1943)

Abstract

This paper focuses on the fate of Jaroslav Klecan, a native from southern Bohemia, a pre-war member of the Communist Party who had left as a volunteer for the Spanish Civil War in late 1937. He fought in the battalion T. G. Masaryk of the 129th interbrigade. After the fall of the Spanish Republic, he was interned in the French camp in Gurs. When the Second World War begun he enrolled to the Czechoslovak Army, albeit he was probably never committed at the front. After the French capitulation, he stayed in the free zone and joined the French resistance movement in the FTP-MOI group led by Ladislav Holdoš. However, the Comintern soon ordered him and few other Czechoslovak Resistance fighters to return to the occupied homeland. Klecan arrived to the Protectorate in 1941 and affiliated the Communist resistance movement in Bohemia immediately. He was arrested by the Nazi secret police on 24 April 1942, together with Julius Fučík and others. After a series of interrogations, the German People’s Court sentenced him to death and he was executed in Berlin-Plötzensee on 8 September 1943. He is known as “Mirek” from Fučík’s Notes from the Gallows.