Famed Czech Avant-garde photographer Jan Lukas snapped an offhand portrait of
twelve-year-old Vendulka Vogl in March 1943. A friend of the Vogls, Lukas was saying
goodbye to the family, who were soon to leave Prague for a concentration camp. The
photograph almost didn’t see the light of day—Lukas knew that if the Nazis found it on
him, he could wind up in the camps as well—but the image was eventually developed
and came to symbolize the Holocaust and humanize its victims. Seventy years after this
famous picture was taken, investigative journalist Ondřej Kundra discovered that,
despite all odds, Vendulka Vogl had survived the camps of Terezín, Auschwitz, and
Christianstadt, and was in fact still alive and living in the United States. Kundra
persuaded her to tell the remarkable story surrounding the photograph: her survival, her
later decision to flee the Communist regime for America, and how she later reconnected
with Jan Lukas, maintaining a lifelong friendship.
Vogl’s thrillingly moving story, Kundra’s sharp and engaging writing, and Lukas’s
striking photography all combine to make Vendulka an inspiring investigation into the
horrors of totalitarianism and the redemptive beauty of friendship.
