Prof. PhDr. Koloman Gajan, DrSc.

The historian, a participant in the domestic anti-fascist resistance, Prof. Koloman Gajan (original name Koloman Edelmann), was born on 7 November 1918 in the eastern Slovak village of Hamborek into an orthodox Jewish family. He graduated from a high school in Brno in the school year of 1939/1940. In the spring of 1942, he escaped to Slovakia before being transported to Terezín. In the beginning of 1943, he accepted a position in Prešov under the code name Ján Gajan as an accountant and correspondent at the company Sväz východoslovenské drevopriemyslu, družstvo s.r.o., whose director was Karol Miklánek, one of the co-founders of the partisan group Čapajev. After a short stint at Sväz, he became involved in the activities of an illegal resistance group. His activity consisted mainly in procuring weapons, clothing and medicines for the members of the partisan group Čapajev, and in procuring identity cards for illegal workers. He saved the lives of many people, and on 21 December 1944, he was arrested in Prešov on a tip-off from a Gestapo confidant, J. Wintner. He was in six concentration camps, namely, Sachsehausen, Bergen-Belsen, Kaufering, Landsberg, Lauingen, and Allach. His parents and six siblings did not survive the war, and he repeatedly saved himself by using the false identity of Gajan. As a reminder, he kept this surname after the end of the war. After the war, he settled in Prague, joined the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia (1945-1969), studied history and Romance studies at the Faculty of Arts of Charles University, and worked as a researcher at the Faculty of Arts of Charles University. He was interested in modern Central European and French political history and Czech-German relations. After the Soviet occupation, he was expelled from the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia and for the next twenty years he, like his wife, was forbidden to pursue an academic career. He published works under the names of his colleagues and taught foreign languages. After 1989, he returned to the Faculty of Arts and focused on the personality and work of T. G. Masaryk. He also participated in the revival of the Masaryk Society. He died on 27 December 2011 in Prague.

The personal archive of Prof. PhDr. Koloman Gajan, DrSc. was handed over to the National Archives in 2013 by his family. The staff of the 6th Department of the National Archives have been in close contact with the originator since 1999, when negotiations were initiated to transfer the papers of the originator and his wife, PhDr. Alena Gajanová to the National Archives. Prof. Gajan informed the staff of the National Archives that after 1970, when he and his wife no longer hoped to be able to return to scientific work, they destroyed the vast majority of the documents. In spite of this fact, the fonds is an important source documenting the scientific activities and life of a leading Czechoslovak historian and his wife.