František R. Kraus, Date of Birth, Place of Birth, Date of Death

František R. Kraus

Czechoslovak writer

Date of Birth: 14-Oct-1903

Place of Birth: Prague, Czech Republic

Date of Death: 19-May-1967

Profession: writer, journalist

Zodiac Sign: Libra

František R.
Kraus (????? ?? ???? ????? Gideon ben Yitzhak with his Hebrew name) (October 14, 1903, Prague - May 19, 1967, Prague) was a Czechoslovak Jewish anti-fascist writer, journalist and editor, member of the resistance movement and a sportsman. He wrote for the famous Prager Tagblatt, Freie Presse, and others, and was an editor in the Czechoslovak Radio, founder of its Shortwave section and speaker for the Foreign section in Czech, German, French and English. In his literary work, he deals with reflexion of the Holocaust in Czechoslovakia; topics such as human existence, dignity, justice, guilt and hope.
Main theme of his short stories is a pictorial world of weird figures and characters from old Prague. Due to his political prosecution during the Communist regime in Czechoslovakia, vast majority of his work was censored and banned.
One of his disciples, Arnošt Lustig, considered him to be one of the most important modern Czech writers ever and compared him to authors such as Jack London, Egon Erwin Kisch or Primo Levi and taught his legacy in universities in the United States.
However, Kraus still remains to be relatively unknown in the present-day Czech Republic, because most of his books remain unpublished.