Jan Florian 1897 - 1942

Born 24.11.1897 in Brno
Died 7.5.1942 in Mauthausen

Biography

Jan Florian attended the First Czech State Grammar School in Brno. After gaining his school leaving certificate he was called up to the Austro-Hungarian army and fought on the Italian front in the First World War. Following his return home he began to study chemistry at the Faculty of Sciences of the Masaryk University in Brno. However, after only a year he transferred to the Faculty of Medicine of the Masaryk University. His talent soon revealed itself and he became the assistant of Professor Karel Studnička (1870–1955) at the Histological Institute. At the same time he was working at the skin clinic with Professor Antonín Trýb (1884–1960). After being awarded his doctorate on 16 December 1925 he stayed in the faculty and completed his habilitation in just two years. Between 1930 and 1933 Jan Florian worked in the department of embryology at University College London under Professor J. P. Hill. He published several scientific studies here and over time became an internationally recognised authority in the fields of histology and embryology.

After his return to Czechoslovakia, Jan Florian was appointed senior lecturer at the Medical Faculty of the Komenský University in Bratislava, where he contributed to the creation of an independent Institute for Histology and Embryology. Three years later he was appointed senior lecturer at the Medical Faculty of the Masaryk University. He was already a leading and internationally recognised figure in his field. On 1 January 1937 he was appointed professor, the high point of his academic career. In total he published 33 original scientific papers, including the monograph Od prvoka k člověku (From Protozoa to Human Being) (1939).

Jan Florian married Helena, née Ondrová, on 27 February 1926. On 21 June 1928 the couple’s only daughter, Helena, was born.

After the Munich Agreement in late September 1938 and the surrender of the Czechoslovakian border region to National Socialist Germany, Professor Florian began to meet regularly with a group of educators at Masaryk University. Political events were discussed in these meetings; they were essentially an opposition movement against the policies of the Second Czechoslovak Republic. The participants in the meetings committed themselves to resistance activities after the occupation of the Bohemian lands on 15 March 1939. Professor Florian cooperated with the resistance organisation Obrana národa and provided funds for the resistance. At the same time, however, he always continued his scientific work. He was elected dean of the Medical Faculty of the Masaryk University for the 1939/40 academic year. He made an official protest against the closure of Czech universities by the National Socialists on 17 November 1939.

The most significant phase of Florian’s involvement in the anti-Nazi resistance was associated with the Moravská pětka (Moravian Five). This was a coordination committee of the Moravian resistance, which emerged during March 1941. Professor Florian was principally involved in intelligence activities, often visiting Prague, where he passed on information gained from resistance members in Moravia. Together with Professor Vladimír Groh (1895–1941), he also manufactured a destructive substance used to cause damage to wheel bearings in railway carriages.

After the start of the war between Germany and the Soviet Union on 22 June 1941, Florian began to set up an illegal organisation that connected university lecturers and other members of the intelligentsia. He was able to make contact with a series of university lecturers from the Masaryk University, the Technical College, the Veterinary College and the Agricultural College in Brno, and include them in the activities. This also involved teachers working in grammar and primary schools, and some doctors. In the literature, this group has been dubbed the ‘Illegal University Lecturer Group’ or ‘Trumpeš-Florian Group’.

The arrival of Reinhard Heydrich as Acting Reich Protector on 27 September 1941 led to an extensive programme of arrests, and on 1 October Professor Florian fell into the hands of the Gestapo. Initially he was held in the Brno camp Pod kaštany (Under the Chestnuts). After rejecting an offer to collaborate with German scientists, the agents began to subject him to physical torture. He was then transferred to the Gestapo’s police prison in the Kounice student hall of residence, and on 13 January 1942 the Brno summary court sentenced him to death, along with a series of other important educators from the Masaryk University. Florian was subsequently transported to Mauthausen on 21 January and, as a condemned man, forced into an overcrowded prison cell.

On 7 May 1942 Jan Florian died on the execution site at Mauthausen, together with 71 other members of the Moravian resistance. These included three other professors from the Masaryk University, Karel Hora, František Koláček and Antonín Šimek. Today a street in the Královo Pole district of Brno bears the name Jan Florian.

Vladimír Černý

 

 

Translation into English: Joanna White

 

Sources:

Archiv Masarykovy univerzity, Brno, fonds A1 Rector of the Masaryk University, box 40/898, personal files of Jan Florian.

References:

Svatopluk Čech: Sedmdesát let od popravy profesora Jana Floriana [70th anniversary of the execution of Professor Jan Florian]. In: Universitas. Revue Masarykovy univerzity v Brně, no. 2 (2012), pp. 61–63.

 

Helena Pinterová/Zdeněk Štěpánek: Univerzitní profesor MUDr. Jan Florian (1897–1942) [Professor Dr. med. Jan Florian (1897–1942)]. In: Vlastivědný věstník moravský, vol. 51 (1999), no. 3, pp. 260–267.

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