30. 3. 2026 · News · Recent Exhibition
(Post)war Years
Source: Central Military Archive – Military Historical Archive
From 22 January to 30 March 2026, Kampus Hybernská hosted the exhibition Hand in Hand with Korea: The (Post)war Years. Organised by the Korea and the Eastern Bloc Institute (KoEBI) at the Faculty of Arts, Charles University, it shed light on little-known chapters of the shared history between Czechoslovakia and North Korea during and after the Korean War (1950–1953).
Through photographs, posters, and documents drawn from public archives and private collections, the exhibition traced three interconnected stories: North Korean war orphans who were placed in Czechoslovak children’s homes in 1952 and 1953, the Czechoslovak military and civilian medical mission that operated on North Korean territory from 1952 and later established a hospital in Ch’ŏngjin, and Czechoslovakia’s wider role as a member of the Neutral Nations Supervisory Commission and a significant provider of economic and technical assistance to the DPRK.
The exhibition also documented the human dimension of this history through personal stories that crossed Cold War boundaries. Among them was Marie Koláčková-Bartošová, a Czech caregiver who worked with Korean orphan boys at the children’s homes in Jindřichov and Houšťka, and who lent her personal photograph albums to the exhibition. Another such story was the marriage of Czechoslovak doctor Karel Černý and North Korean surgical nurse Kim Kyŏngsuk, who met at the Ch’ŏngjin hospital in the mid-1950s and settled in Czechoslovakia.
22 January – 30 March 2026 · Kampus Hybernská, Prague
Photos: Anna Löwensteinová, Kateřina Patíková, Anna Šebelová
6 March 2026 · Kampus Hybernská, Prague
On 6 March 2026, KoEBI held a day-long symposium at Kampus Hybernská to accompany the exhibition. The event focused on oral history, setting archival sources alongside personal testimony from witnesses with direct experience of the events documented in the exhibition.
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, and Ludmila Vanclová, who taught Korean orphans at the children’s home in Liběšice. The afternoon, moderated by Prof. Miriam Löwensteinová (KoEBI, FF UK), focused on the Czechoslovak medical mission in Ch’ŏngjin and included testimony from Miran Černý and Tamara Dunkerová, children of Karel Černý and Kim Kyŏngsuk, as well as Marie Vobořilová, partner of the late prominent Koreanist Vladimír Pucek. Visitors also had the opportunity to examine unpublished materials from the KoEBI archives.
6 March 2026 · Kampus Hybernská, Prague
Photos: Anna Šebelová
Interactive exercises on the history of Korean students in Czechoslovakia
The topic of Korean orphans is also explored by the HistoryLab project, which focuses on interactive teaching of twentieth-century history. It provides an environment in which individuals can develop the principles of historical thinking through creative work with historical sources.
Try it yourself: Analyse a period photograph from the 1950s and discover what role the Czechoslovak school played in integrating Korean children and shaping national identity.
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Proč je v československé škole?
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Why Is He in a Czechoslovak School?
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We would like to thank a number of institutions for the research opportunities and for providing photographs and documents, especially the Archive of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Czech Republic, the National Archive, the Archive of the Náprstek Museum of Asian, African and American Cultures, and the Central Military Archive–Military Historical Archive. Materials come from private collections: the Černý family, Vladimír Glomb, Zdena Klöslová, Marie Koláčková-Bartošová, Petr Mentlík and Vladimír Pucek.
Za badatelskou možnost, poskytnutí fotografií a dokumentů děkujeme řadě institucí, zvláště pak archivu Ministerstva zahraničích věcí České republiky, Národnímu archivu, archivu Náprstkova muzea asijských, afrických a amerických kultur a Vojenskému ústřednímu archivu–Vojenskému historickému archivu. Materiály pocházejí ze soukromých sbírek: rodiny Černých, Vladimíra Glomba, Zdeny Klöslové, Marie Koláčkové-Bartošové, Petra Mentlíka a Vladimíra Pucka.
This work was supported by the Strategic Research Institute Program for Korean Studies of the Ministry of Education of the Republic of Korea and the Korean Studies Promotion Service at the Academy of Korean Studies (AKS-2024-SRI-2200001).
Tato práce byla podpořena Programem strategického výzkumného ústavu pro korejská studia Ministerstva školství Korejské republiky a Službou pro podporu korejských studií při Akademii korejských studií (AKS-2024-SRI-2200001).
The research continues. We are collecting materials related to Czechoslovak–Korean encounters in the second half of the 20th century:
