(1896-1944)
Milena Jesenská, journalist, writer and translator, a friend of Franz Kafka, whose prose she translated into Czech. A prominent figure of the inter-war Czech journalism, restless, temperamental, free-spirited, stubborn, adamant, defiant – that’s how contemporaries spoke of her. She was a key participant in the rescue of Jewish refugees, especially children, from countries threatened by Nazism. When World War II began, she took an active part in the resistance, helping to save Jewish families. The Nazis sent her to the Ravensbrück concentration camp, where she died in 1944. In April 1995, the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial in Jerusalem recognized her by the Righteous Among the Nations award. The Czech-German Journalist Award also bears her name.