Firt - One Family in the Gears of Czechoslovak History

What connects Karel Čapek, the Borový publishing house and Lidové noviny with the London parliament in exile, Tobruk and the Czechoslovak struggle? troops in the Middle East during World War II? How does the first successful heart transplant in the Eastern Bloc or Radio Free Europe' s broadcast from behind the Iron Curtain fit into this? A colourful mosaic of stories from the fields of medicine, literature, politics, and military affairs has a common denominator in the trio of bearers of the surname Firt.

General MUDr. Leopold Firt (1894–1968) was a friend and doctor of Karel Čapek. To the later chief physician of the Czechoslovak units in the Middle East could rely on their comrades from Tobruk and patients from the hospital in Hammersmith near London. After the war, Leopold Firt became head of the military hospital in Střešovice, today' s Central Military Hospital.

His younger brother Julius Václav Firt (1897–1979) left the Pilsen grammar school in the fourth grade. However, with his remarkable business talent and selection of high-quality titles of domestic and translated literature, he contributed to the cultivation of the publishing and media scene of the First Republic. During the war, he was a member of the exile parliament, in Prague, like Milada Horáková, a deputy of the National Socialist Party, and after February 1948, one of the co-founders of Radio Free Europe.

Leopold Firt' s medical mission was inherited by his son, prof. MUDr. Pavel Firt, DrSc. (1927-2016). The career of this leading European cardiac surgeon culminated in January 1984 with the first successful heart transplant in the Eastern Bloc, which he performed as an operator with his team at IKEM in Prague. In Czechoslovakia and the then GDR, he also trained a number of experts in the field of vascular surgery and cardiac surgery, and he was also recognized at professional forums in Belgium, Great Britain, Italy and other countries.

The groundbreaking publication is based on previously unpublished materials from the family collection and other archives. It will appeal to lovers of the First Republic, those interested in the military and political history of World War II, the Third Resistance, or the development of medicine in the 20th century – Leopold, Julius and Pavel Firt left a significant mark on everyone there.