My Top Three Books — Francis Harris
Francis Harris is Managing Editor at the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA) and oversees Europe’s Edge. He was a foreign correspondent and Deputy Foreign Editor with the Daily Telegraph, and served in Prague, London, New York, and Washington.
Prague Farewell (Gollancz) Heda Margolius Kovály
This is a beautiful work by a woman who came so close to many of the 20th century’s horrors that she was able to smell the dog breath of Nazi and communist evil.
Jewish and sent to the Łódź ghetto and then Auschwitz, she finally returned to Prague, marries a bright young revolutionary, and prospers until he is arrested and executed as a result of Czechoslovakia’s viciously antisemitic Slánský “plot” in 1952.
Despite the bleakness of this story, it’s actually wonderfully and humorously told. It will make you cry, as it should.
I Served the King of England (Pan Books) Bohumil Hrabal
Hrabal is perhaps the greatest of all Czech novelists and is a knowing and humorous guide to the eye-watering big dipper ride of Central European history, and the dilemmas of the everyman.
This is the rambunctious tale of a waiter’s journey through democracy and two flavors of murderous authoritarianism. The message? The impossibility of moral cleanliness in debased political systems. Those who play the game are compromised; only the non-decency is achieved by withdrawal from the system.
Master of Spies (Doubleday, 1975) General Frantisek Moravec
A ripping read by the interwar and wartime head of Czechoslovak military intelligence, which casts a fascinating light on his country — which hired German-run companies to build Czech military fortifications to signal its ethnic diversity, and battled German-speaking schoolchildren spying for the Nazis.
The successful joint plot with MI6 to fly out all the organization’s papers and many of its staff to London one day before the German entry into Prague, and Nazi rage when they reached the empty building, are a particular joy.
Europe’s Edge is CEPA’s online journal covering critical topics on the foreign policy docket across Europe and North America. All opinions are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the position or views of the institutions they represent or the Center for European Policy Analysis.
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