The reconstruction of Oskar Baum's life is not an easy task. Probably the most detailed description of his life is contained in the Tyflopedic lexicon by J. Smýkal. However, this lexicon contains several errors. It is usually stated that Baum was born as the youngest of six children, but according to archival materials he probably had only four siblings when he came to live. The information about Baum's blindness is similarly misleading. Baum was born with a defect in his eyesight. He probably suffered from a detached retina, and he was not able to see with one eye. According to the lexicon, Baum became completely blind when a soldier struck him while breaking up a demonstration. However, this information is questionable. The version with nationalist undertones is far more likely.
The situation is similar in other sources. In Conversations with Kafka, for example, Gustav Janouch (2009: 139) attributed the following sentence to Franz Kafka. “Oskar Baum lost his sight as a German, as someone he never really was and never should have been. Perhaps Oskar Baum is only a sad symbol of the so-called German Jews of Prague." The problem is whether this sentence is authentic and whether Kafka ever said it in this way. The sentence is also interesting because of how Baum's Pilsen origins disappeared from his life, and he became a German-writing Prague Jew. This neglect is typical of Baum's life, and this exhibition sought to correct it.
Text of the Exhibition:
Pål Veiden, Tomáš Kobes
Project Coordination:
Tomáš Kobes
Graphic Design and Website Development:
Lucie Dynterová
Translation of the English Version:
Skyland Václav Kobylak
Translation of the German Version:
Max Williams
Acknowledgements:
Jewish Museum in Prague
Štěpánka Pflegerová, Pilsen City Archive
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