Published by Romarin, Meylan 2023
Bilingual edition in French and Czech.
Translated from French by Dagmar Halasová, František Halas, Petr Řezníček.
Notes, chronologies, bibliographies.
Color illustrations: drawings and etchings by Bohuslav Reynek.
Black and white illustrations within the text: photographs by Daniel Reynek.
Edition established by Annick Auzimour and Magdalena Hrozínková.
Published with support from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs
and the Ministry of Culture of the Czech Republic
and the Renaud-Reynek Endowment Fund (France).

Format: 15 x 21 cm.
372 pages. Softbound, illustrated cover.
ISBN : 2–910544–21–4

Excerpts

You can count on us. Consider our house your home if terrible events force you to leave your lovely town of Znojmo. It is true that we are living in nerve-wracking times. We are overwhelmed by a sense of danger and even more by the horror of seeing hypocritical brutality triumph and crudely humiliate a proud people and an ancient culture. (Suzanne Renaud to Zdeněk Řezníček, Petrkov, September 10, 1938).

My husband has been in Petrkov for 15 days. He found the house and garden intact (the Krauts wanted to blow it up, but they didn’t have the time!). The property was returned to us without any problems, but it was a lot of trouble and work to get everything back in order. Romanian workers and soldiers were housed everywhere, bombs were set off and so on. (Suzanne Renaud to Jaroslav Pojer, Stará Říše, June 11, 1945).

I think of you while admiring our old trees, which I’d like to show you in their frosty robes, golden mantles and turbans of pearls, solemn and kind like the Wise Men. Sometimes a squirrel scampers by like a flame streaking through clouds of white. Sometimes the setting sun suddenly falls on our forest like the bloody head of a martyr in a silver reliquary. (Suzanne Renaud to Eva Florianová, Petrkov, December 21, 1952).