A Toothless Revolution [Volume: 7(1988), pp. 427-428]

428
FRANTISEK JANOUCH
Once I recommended that he forget about everything, go into retirement,
and begin writing his memoirs. I even proposed a title: The Toothless Revolution. He nonetheless became increasingly worried. I even found out that
he'd asked some of his old patients, who at the time were in the ghetto
of the persecuted, to try and find another dentist.
Exasperated, nervous, and sweaty, he also asked me during one of
my visits to look for another dentist, since he could no longer take care
of me. He stammered, apologized, and followed me out to the elevator:
"Ladja, please, don't be angry with me...."
I felt sorry for him. I neither wanted to be, nor could be, angry with
him. I could only be angry with the times, which forced people to do such
things. About two weeks later I heard that he had died. When I expressed
my sympathies to his wife at the crematorium in the Strasnice district of
Prague, she burst into tears, hugged me, and said: "You can't imagine
how much he regretted what he said to you. He talked about it constantly.
He wanted to phone you, visit you, he wanted to take it all back-but
he was afraid. He liked you so much...."
After the funeral, I learned that Dr. K6nig had committed suicide.
He couldn't bear to live in the times that the tanks with the red star
had transported us back to. But he had neither the strength nor the courage
to take up the fight against them. So he chose this way out.