Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (Spolek pro ochranu zvířat)

Abstract

About the Author: J. R. Pick (1925–1983) came from a Czech-Jewish family, his father was a chemistry engineer. In 1939, after the Nazi occupation, Pick had to interrupt his studies at high school. In 1943 he and his family were transported to the Theresienstadt Ghetto. His father was killed in 1944, Pick, his mother and his sister survived. Returning from the ghetto in 1945, Pick was treated for lung disease. In 1948 his mother and his sister emigrated to Argentina. Later his sister Zuzana Justman (born 1931) gained reputation as a documentary filmmaker and writer also with the topics of the Shoah. After World War II, J. R. Pick studied at the School of Political and Economic Sciences in Prague. In this time he began to write texts for theatre scenes and cabarets. In 1959 he founded the Paravan Theatre in Prague. He was its chief author and artistic director. Due to the suppression of the Prague Spring, during the so-called normalisation in the 1970s, Pick was not allowed to publish again until 1980. At the beginning of 1980s two his plays were staged: A Dream about Distant Lakes and The Unlucky Man in the Yellow Cap. They are set in the Theresienstadt Ghetto and their black humour continues in tragicomic scenes of the novella Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (1969).