Suitcase of journalist Milena Jesenská discovered after decades acquired by Prague museum

Prague’s Museum of Czech Literature has acquired a suitcase that once belonged to writer, journalist and translator Milena Jesenská, a close friend and translator of Franz Kafka. The item was preserved by the family of a fellow prisoner who shared a cell with her.

Milena Jesenská|Photo: Petr Kotyk, Památník národního písemnictví

Milena Jesenská is often remembered for her relationship with Franz Kafka, but she was also one of the leading figures of Czechoslovakia’s interwar journalism. During World War II, she joined the anti-Nazi resistance. Arrested by the Gestapo, she was deported to the Ravensbrück concentration camp, where she died in 1944.

Prague’s Museum of Czech Literature has now received a suitcase that once belonged to Jesenská. The object was preserved for decades by the family of Božena Paříková, a fellow resistance member who shared a prison cell with her. Last January, Paříková’s son Arno decided to donate it to the museum’s Literary Archive.

Milena Jesenská|Photo: Petr Kotyk, Památník národního písemnictví

Petr Kotyk from the archive explains how the suitcase came into the family’s possession.

“At the turn of 1939–1940, Božena Paříková was imprisoned in Pankrác Prison as a resistance member who collected money for families whose breadwinners had been arrested by the Nazis.”

“In prison she shared a cell with Milena Jesenská. She had been arrested because she helped people escape across the border, both endangered anti-fascists and people of Jewish origin who were at risk.”

Their meeting would later determine the fate of the suitcase, he says:

“When Milena Jesenská was being transported to a trial in Dresden and did not have enough space for the things she had accumulated in prison, Božena Paříková gave her her own large suitcase. She kept Milena Jesenská’s smaller suitcase instead.”

Photo: Petr Kotyk, Památník národního písemnictví

The small leather suitcase, now somewhat worn with age and bearing two old hotel labels, likely dates back to the period when Jesenská lived in Vienna with her husband Ernest Pollak.

“Jesenská likely owned it when she lived in Vienna with Ernest Pollak. Around the same time, in 1919 and 1920, she was corresponding with Franz Kafka, so it is possible she already had the suitcase when the two met,” says Kotyk.

When Božena Paříková was released from prison in 1940, she took the suitcase home with her to Spálená Street in Prague, where it remained for more than eighty years. When the object was eventually offered to the museum, archivists began looking into its history.

“When we investigated the story, we discovered in the National Archive that everything matched: the two women had indeed been imprisoned in Pankrác at the same time. This indirectly confirmed the story that had been passed down orally in the Pařík family,” Kotyk says.”

According to recollections preserved by the Pařík family, Jesenská made a strong impression on the younger prisoners.

Milena Jesenská|Photo: Petr Kotyk, Památník národního písemnictví

“She was already a well-known journalist of the First Czechoslovak Republic, writing for the influential journal Přítomnost edited by Ferdinand Peroutka. She spoke out against social injustice and supported women’s rights. For Božena Paříková, the meeting remained unforgettable.”

One dramatic episode from that time survives only in the memories of the Pařík family, says Mr. Kotyk:

“According to Paříková’s sons, Jesenská once broke her glasses in the cell, swallowed the shards and attempted suicide. A Czech guard later brought her sauerkraut, which wrapped around the glass fragments and allowed them to pass through her body. She survived – but only for a few more years, before dying in a Nazi concentration camp.”

Because Jesenská was arrested during the war, many of her personal belongings were confiscated or destroyed by the Nazis. As a result, relatively few items connected with her life have survived. Even so, archivists still hope that new materials may one day appear.

Milena Jesenská|Photo: Památník národního písemnictví

“Milena Jesenská had relationships with several men, and one of them was Julius Fučík, whom she even hid from the Czechoslovak police when communists were illegal during the First Republic. We still hope that somewhere in archival materials there may be letters from Milena Jesenská to Fučík. That is something we would very much like to find.”

The Museum of Czech Literature plans to display the suitcase in a future exhibition devoted to Prague’s German-language literary scene, to Franz Kafka and Milena Jesenská, or in a show presenting new additions to its collections.