Prague, Nov 1 (CTK) – Jindrich Forejt, head of the Czech presidential protocol, confirmed he twice phoned Holocaust survivor Jiri Brady and always informed him that he was only proposed for a state award, Forejt wrote in a statement posted on the Prague Castle’s web page on Tuesday.
Brady and his family recently repeatedly said Forejt told them by phone that Brady will be presented with the T.G. Masaryk Order on the occasion of the October 28 national holiday.
Eventually, Brady did not receive any award from President Milos Zeman. This was explained by the fact that his relative Culture Minister Daniel Herman (Christian Democrats, KDU-CSL) met the Tibetan Dalai Lama in Prague in September.
The Presidential Office dismissed this connection.
At a later press conference, Forejt refused to say whether he called Brady. He said he cannot gíve any details on the list of people to be awarded before October 28.
In his statement on Tuesday, Forejt wrote that he twice spoke to Brady by phone.
“In reaction to the direct question of whether he will receive the state award, it was said that the president studies the proposals, the people to be decorated will be informed of this and that the prime minister must countersign the decision. Nothing else was confirmed,” Forejt wrote.
He said he did not even want Brady’s address at which he could contact him, which he asked from those who were to be awarded.
The other time Brady himself briefly contacted Forejt. “The subject of the talk was the same as in the first case, the reaction was also the same. The Presidential Office never informed Mr Brady that the process of lending/awarding a state decoration was successfully completed in his case,” Forejt wrote.
He said he always only talked to Brady, not to anyone of his family.
Brady’s wife, however, claims that she once spoke with Forejt by phone.
Brady, 88, eventually received a number of other awards in the Czech Republic, including ones from Prime Minister Bohuslav Sobotka, the Chamber of Deputies, the City of Prague, Brno and Palacky University.
Brady survived Nazi concentration camps and a death march. After the war, he emigrated to Canada, partly devoting his life to lecturing on the Holocaust and helping immigrants coming from Czechoslovakia.
He attended an alternative celebration of the October 28 national holiday in Prague’s Old Town Square.
