With Kožíšek through Europe

Collection “301”(Investigation Committee for the National and People’s Court at the Ministry of Interior) contains among other materials also extensive documentation of the investigation of the prominent protectorate journalist Antonín Jaromil Kožíšek. Among these materials, we can find a large collection of photographs under the Inv. No. 301-70-1 to 301-70-5. These photos were probably confiscated as a part of the documentation of his activities during the war.

Antonín Jaromil Kožíšek (1905–1947) was an interesting and quite a negative figure of the Czech, or rather Moravian, journalism. In the interwar period he lived in France for several years and after his return in the 1930s he tried to start a career of a journalist, but not very successfully. He visited Spain several times during the civil war in the area dominated by the Francoists and published two books on that topic. He inclined to the right-wing extremism already before the war, but eventually during the occupation his ideas, ambitions and unscrupulousness enabled the fast growth of his career. He became a chief editor of the newspapers Moravská orlice and Moravské noviny in 1939, in 1943 he went at the same position in Polední list, a Prague-based newspaper. He was a member of the Vlajka (Flag), Česká liga proti bolševismu (Czech League against Bolshevism) and other collaborator organizations. As he was a highly pro-active collaborator and a skilled propagandist, he was often sent by the Nazis abroad to carry out international missions, mostly in the conquered territories. He visited Poland, the Balkans, France, Denmark, Norway and the Ukraine. As one of the prominent and diligent collaborators he was put before the National Court after the war and in March 1947 sentenced to death.

The aforementioned collection of photographs contains more than 900 pieces, a smaller part of which captures his private life, while the majority comes from his reporter missions throughout Europe during WWII. Most of these pictures were taken by Kožíšek himself. It is an interesting collection of period photographs accompanying the life of a prominent Czech collaborator.