Ladislav Mnacko, the liberal, pro-Israel Czech writer, was reported today to be safe in a “secret hideout” working on a new book on the recent events in Czechoslovakia. According to the Daily Telegraph, the information came from Mr. Mnacko’s Viennese publisher, Fritz Molden. A report last week by the P.E.N., the international writers association, had listed Mr. Mnacko among 11 Czech writers and intellectuals who were seized and beaten unconscious by Soviet secret police in Prague.
Mr. Mnacko’s publisher said, according to a Telegraphic dispatch from Vienna, that the writer left Bratislava at the end of last month. The book he is working on is an analysis of the ideological collapse of international Communism on the Soviet pattern and is scheduled to be published in October. Mr. Mnacko, who is well known in Europe, received international publicity when he went into self-imposed exile in Israel after the June, 1967 Six-Day War to protest the Prague Government’s pro-Arab policies and its break in diplomatic relations with Israel. Mr. Mnacko’s wife, who is Jewish, is in Israel but the writer returned to Czechoslovakia last spring to support the reform measures of Communist Party chief Alexander Dubcek.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
