Josef Josten, Czech Heritage Papers

Born in Prague, Bohemia, on March 25, 1913, Josef Josten was a life-long journalist, starting his career as a sports reporter and as a writer for Lidove noviny, a Prague newspaper. When the Germans marched into Prague in March 1939, Josten joined the Czech underground movement. In the same year he was forced out of the country and fled to France where he joined a Czechoslovak brigade.

When Czechoslovak units were evacuated to Britain, Josten participated in the Allied invasion of Europe in 1944. He served with the Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force (SHAEF) in Luxembourg as a news broadcaster. Returning to Prague, Josten worked in the Press Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs under Jan Masaryk, the son of the founder of the Czechoslovak Republic. After refusing to joing the Communist Party, Josten set up the Free Czechoslovak Information (FCI) Service in England. The FCI circulated its newsletter "Features and News from behind the Iron Curtain" to subscribers in over fifty countries.

In 1980 Josten's concern for imprisoned intellectuals led him to form the Committee for the Defense of the Unjustly Prosecuted and the Human Rights Charity. For this effort Josten was appointed a Member of the British Empire in 1985. Josef Josten died in London on November 29, 1985.