Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Breaking News

Monument to Jewish Industrialist Emil Kolben Unveiled in Prague

A plaque honoring Jewish industrialist Emil Kolben was erected in the Czech capital.

Kolben, who died in the Holocaust, co-founded CKD, one of the most important industrial firms in the former Czechoslovakia.

The monument located in the heart of Prague’s Vysocany district where Emil Kolben’s machinery empire was based, was unveiled by his granddaughter-in-law, Andree Kolbenova, and the district’s mayor, Jan Jarolim.

“We are proud to commemorate Emil Kolben,” Jarolim said. “He played a prominent role in the formation of Czechoslovakia’s industry, and contributed to the country’s rapid development between the wars.”

Born into a poor Jewish family in Strancice, central Bohemia, Kolben graduated from Prague’s Technical University and relocated to the United States where he spent four years working for Thomas Edison’s General Electric Company.

He founded his first company after returning to Prague in 1896. Through a series of mergers some three decades later, he created CKD, a large industrial complex that evolved into the world’s largest manufacture of streetcars and survived until the 1990s.

In 1939, Kolben was transported to the Terezín concentration camp along with his wife, son and grandson. He died there within three weeks at the age of 80.

After the war, Czechoslovakia’s communist authorities played down Kolben’s legacy, labelling him a capitalist who exploited his workers. Today, a metro station and a street in Prague bear his name. Slovakia and the Czech Republic peacefully split in 1993.

The monument in Vysocany takes the form of life-size glass plates showing a photo of Kolben and several of his collaborators.

Emil Kolben’s granddaughter-in-law, Kolbenova, 87, told JTA she liked the monument.

“It’s very unusual, and I could not really picture it when they first told me about it,” Kolbenova said. “But now I’m really excited. It was a great idea and I just hope it does not get vandalized.”

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.

If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

With your support, we’ll be ready for whatever 2025 brings.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.