Koloman Gajan, Professor, PhD

Historian Koloman Gajan was born as Koloman Edelmann in 1918. He was the seventh of nine children. He came from an orthodox Jewish family from Hambork, a little village in Šariš in East Slovakia. He graduated from the Jewish Reform Real Grammar School in Brno in the school year 1939/1940. He was arrested by the Gestapo shortly after. Luckily he was released and left Brno for a training camp of the Zionistic Youth for emigration to Palestine. It took place in the Křivoklát area. He stayed in the Czech country until March 1942. When there was threat of his transportation, he illegally left for Slovakia. He lived at his sister's first, and then obtained false documents with the name Jan Gajan. He joined the domestic resistance movement and after he was informed that he would be arrested in December 1944. He went through six different concentration camps - Sachsenhausen, Bergen-Belsen, Kaufering, Landsberg, Lauingen, and Allach - in the period from January to May 1945. He settled down in Prague after 1945 and studied History at the Philosophical Faculty, Charles University. (He received his PhDr. degree in 1952). He was professionally engaged with the history of the working-class movement, and later with international relations of the 20th century. He taught at the Philosophical Faculty, Charles University until 1969. He was a Czech Communist Party member in 1945-1969. After 1969 he was prohibited to publish and teach his subject. Subsequently, he worked as a language teacher in a Conference Center, (The Park of Julius Fučík), in Prague. After 1990 he came back to his lecturing activities at the Philosophical Faculty, Charles University. He presently lives in Prague-Dejvice.

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