Jiří Orten (1919–1941) was one of the greatest writers of Czechoslovakia’s “war generation” and arguably one of the finest European poets of the twentieth century. On his twenty-second birthday, while crossing a street in Prague, he was struck by a German ambulance. A friend took him to the General Infirmary in Prague, but as a Jew, Orten could not be treated there and had to be moved to a different hospital. Two days later, he died.

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