Everything about Franti Ek Kriegel totally explained
František Kriegel (
10 April 1908 —
3 December 1979) was a
Czechoslovak politician, physician, and a member of the Communist Party reform wing of
Prague Spring (1968). He was the only one of the political leaders kidnapped to
Moscow during the
Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia who declined to sign the
Moscow Protocol.
Early life
František Kriegel was born in Stanislawów (today
Ivano-Frankivsk),
Austria-Hungary (present
Ukraine) to the family of a
Jewish builder. His father died when František was ten, and the family became dependent upon help from František's grandfather. Due to the fierce anti-semitism in
Galicia of that time, young Kriegel left home to study medicine at
Charles University in
Prague (instead of the nearby
Lwów University where there was an unofficial
Jewish quotain place). His mother could only give him a little money and six white shirts.
Prague
Kriegel had to earn a living in a shoemaker's shop or as a theatre figurant (he even sold sausages in football stadiums), but he enjoyed an independent life in the highly tolerant society of 1920s Czechoslovakia. where he witnessed the victory of the
Allies in October 1945.
Back in Czechoslovakia
Kriegel returned to Czechoslovakia in November 1945 and, while continuing to work as a doctor, he involved himself in the political work of the Communist Party. He was a member of the KSČ Regional Committee in Prague and was working as a secretary in
Lidové milice (People's Militias) when the KSČ
siezed control of the country in February 1948. He was appointed as the undersecretary of the Ministry of Health in 1949. During the political purges of the Party in the 1950s, Kriegel had to leave the Ministry and worked as a doctor for the
Tatra company. He resumed his medical career in 1957 and became Chief Physician at the
Vinohrady hospital in Prague. In 1960, he went to
Cuba as an adviser of the
Fidel Castroˈs government on the organisation of medical care – thus he was there at the time of the
Cuban Missile Crisis. When he returned to Czechoslovakia, Kriegel refused a post in the Party organisation but stood as the Member of the
National Assembly and was elected in 1964. He was so distrusted by the Soviets that he wasn't allowed to be present during the negotiations of the two parties, and when he was asked to sign the text of the concluding statement he was the only one of 26 politicians to refuse.
Legacy
The "František Kriegel Award" is granted annually to a person who has fought for human rights. It was founded in
Stockholm in 1987 and is funded by the Charter 77 Fund.
Further Information
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