Notes from the Gallows

On 24 April 1942, Czechoslovak journalist and active CPC member Julius Fucik was detained in Pankrác Prison in Prague, where he was subsequently interrogated and tortured, before being sent to Germany to stand trial for high treason. It was during this time that Fucik's Notes from the Gallows (Czech: Reportáž psaná na oprátce, literally Reports Written Under the Noose) arose-written on pieces of cigarette paper and smuggled out by two sympathetic prison warders named Kolinsky and Hora. The notes were treated as great literary works after his death in 1943 and translated into many languages worldwide, resulting in this book, which was first published in English in 1948. It describes events in the prison since Fucik's arrest and is filled with hope for a better, Communist future.