LADISLAV SITENSKÝ — THE ROAD TO FREEDOM
“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good people to do nothing.” On the occasion of the 80th anniversary of the end of the Second World War, the 85th anniversary of the formation of the Czechoslovak squadrons of the British Royal Air Force and the Battle of Britain, we want to commemorate those who did not simply keep their hands folded on their laps, but fought against Nazism, whether with a gun, an aeroplane yoke or a camera in their hands
When the name of one of the most prominent Czech (Czechoslovak) photographers, Ladislav Sitenský comes up, most people recall his pictures of the heroic Czechoslovak airmen of the Second World War. But this is simply not the case, nor has it ever been. Ladislav Sitenský photographed everything, from snapshots and portraits, to architecture, to landscapes and beloved mountains. He also devoted his attention to the Scout movement. He is one of the most famous photographers of the Second World War from Czechoslovakia, and his work is still highly regarded today. The idea that Sitenský only took photographs during World War II is false. He was less than twenty years old at the time of the occupation of Bohemia and Moravia in March 1939, but his work had already been printed in many magazines for the general public, but also for Scouts and the community of professional photographers, which were published in Czechoslovakia. His photographs not only documented his native Prague, especially the changes in its architecture, but also what he observed on trips abroad. None of the themes were foreign to him. Several crucial sets of his photographs come from the Second World War: the occupation of Prague by the Nazi army in March 1939, Czechoslovak soldiers participating in the ground forces in France from autumn 1939 to spring 1940; perhaps the most famous Czechoslovak airmen in Great Britain; as well no less important though less well known to the broader public, pictures of the siege of Dunkirk Fortress in France by the Czechoslovak Armoured Brigade in February and March 1945. The final section on the Czechoslovak soldiers’ fight for freedom is captured by a set of pictures from the arrival of Czechoslovak airmen from Great Britain to Prague in August 1945.