Based in many year's discussion, I have named this syndrome after 4 scholars
who have faced a similar experience throughout the years.
They have done important research work into Jewish history in the Czech
lands. They have found little if any response from the Czech Jewish
Community. They have, in large part, experienced some sort of bitterness by
that ignorance. But they continue, nevertheless, with their work.
Jaroslav Bransky, born 1928, PhD, former teacher of Latin and Czech
at the 'gymnasium' in Boskovice, Moravia, has dedicated a great part of his
life to the history of once so important Jewish Community of Boskovice. Due
to his endless efforts, the ghetto was not completely destroyed by the
communist government before 1989. Today, a yearly summer festival is
bringing life and culture to the city. Bransky published many books, e.g.
about the last transport of the Boskovice Jews to the concentrations camps
in 1942. His 400-pages volume "Dejiny Zidu v Boskovicich" - History of
Boskovice-Jjews - remains unrivalled. Thanks to him, the Jewish past of
Boskovice is fairly well known in the Czech Republik today.
Bohumil Cerny, born 1922, PhD, expert no. 1 on Leopold Hilsner,. He
has written many books on this topic, and they all reflect the political
climate in Prague of the time they appeared: the first one - Vrazda v Polne
(Murder in Polna) - appeared during the Prague Spring of 1968. After the
Soviet occupation, Cerny lost his post at the Historical Institute of the
Czech Academy of Science. The Hungarian translation appeared under the titel
"Gyilkossag Polnan" in budapest already in 1987. Again, as in the period of
the blood libel accusations in the last quarter of 19th century,
Hungarian society shows itself more mature than Czech society. A second,
revised version was published under "Justicni omyl" (Miscarriage of Justice)
after the 'Velvet Revolution' 1990 in Prague. In 1999 Cerny was editor and
co-author of "Hilsneriada 1899-1999", published in Polna, Czech Republic.
The same year he also took part in the three-day-conference about Hilsner
case in Prague. In May 2000 he hold a lecture at the Czech Center in Vienna
and participated in the opening of the Polna synagogue in september the same
year. A second edition of his "Hilsneriada", which has been reviewed by most
of the Czech quality papers in the meantime, came out in late 2000.
Hillel J. Kieval, professor of Jewish History and Thought at
Washington University, St. Louis, may be regarded as the world's leading
expert on Czech Jewry. In fact, his opus magnum of 1988 bears the titel "The
making of Czech Jewry". In 2000. the University of California Press
published his "Languages of Community: The Jewish Experience in the Czech
Lands". By the end of 2001, he itends to publish a comparative study on the
ritual murder accusation of Xanten, Tisza-Eszlar, Konitz and Polna.
Georg R. Schroubek, born 1922, former professor of ethnography at
Munich University, author of the best German study on the Hilsner Case
"Ritualmordwahn und Aberglaube", Berlin 1988. To this topic, Schroubek has
dedicated a great proportion of his research, pointing out how the image of
veneration changed, not only in Anezka Hruzova's case. She, in fact, soon
became the object of a rural antisemitism. One may observe relicts of this
even in the sanctification of St. Agnes, Patron of Bohemia, in October 1989,
shortly before the political changes in Czechoslovakia. Schroubek has
written also about the Tyrolian counterpart and ist cult, which is still
alive in the Alps.
