On March 6, 2026, the Korea and the Eastern Bloc Institute (KoEBI) held a symposium at the Hybernská Campus in Prague to accompany the exhibition “Hand in Hand with Korea: The (Post)war Years.” The event focused on oral history, confronting archival sources with personal testimonies.
The morning session, moderated by Kateřina Vondráčková (National Heritage Institute), examined the institutional care of North Korean children in Czechoslovakia, featuring testimonies from Marie Koláčková-Bartošová, a former caregiver at the Korean children’s home in Houšťka, and Ludmila Vanclová, who taught Korean orphans at the children’s home in Liběšice.
The afternoon session, moderated by Prof. Miriam Löwensteinová (KoEBI), focused on the Czechoslovak medical mission in Ch’ŏngjin. The panel brought together Marie Vobořilová, the partner of the late prominent Czech Koreanist Docent Vladimír Pucek, with Miran Černý and his sister Tamara Dunkerová –children of the mixed marriage between Czechoslovak doctor Karel Černý and his North Korean wife Kim Kjŏngsuk, offering a rare transnational perspective on this chapter of the exhibition.
In addition to the panel discussions, visitors had the opportunity to view the exhibition and examine unpublished materials from the KoEBI archives.