Life and Education
Jan Urban was born on 8 June 1921 in Třebíč. During his youth his family moved to Berlin, where he attended grammar school and graduated in 1940. Afterwards he worked as an official at the Berlin city hall.
In 1943 he was arrested by the Gestapo and imprisoned in Jihlava, Bautzen and Ebrach. In January 1945 he was forced to join a death march from Ebrach through Ellwangen to Amberg near Munich, where he was eventually liberated by the American army.
After the war he studied sociology between 1945 and 1949 at the Faculty of Arts of Masaryk University in Brno. At the same time he attended the Faculty of Journalism and studied law at Charles University in Prague.
Work in Jáchymov
In 1954 he joined a work brigade in the Jáchymov mines and later became the administrator of the company archive. The town fascinated him so deeply that he began to study its history systematically.
After the end of mining operations he took over the municipal museum and arranged its relocation to the building of the former royal mint, which had previously been used by the Jáchymov mines.
Besides his museum work he founded and edited the municipal newsletter and actively participated in public life. He was the main organiser of the celebrations marking the 450th anniversary of the town in 1966. In 1968 he also publicly addressed the issue of labour camps in the Jáchymov region during the period of uranium mining.
Emigration and Life in Berlin
After the invasion of Czechoslovakia by Warsaw Pact armies in 1968 he was declared a counter-revolutionary in 1970 and removed from all public positions. In 1979 he was forced to emigrate and settled in West Berlin.
Even in exile he continued to work on topics related to Jáchymov. He translated Mathesius’s work Sarepta oder Bergpostill from 1562 and published studies and articles about the town. In his Berlin apartment he even created a small private museum devoted to Jáchymov.
Honours
On 7 February 1991 Jan Urban was awarded honorary citizenship of the town of Jáchymov. His lifelong wish was to exhibit his collections in the town he considered his true home.
Jan Urban died on 10 May 2003 in his apartment in Berlin.
Works and Collections
Jan Urban authored hundreds of articles and scholarly studies about the history of Jáchymov, mining and the cultural life of the town. One of his most important works is the book Jáchymov – kolébka atomového věku published in 1965.
He also participated in the translation of Mathesius’s work Sarepta oder Bergpostill from 1562, published in 1981 by the National Technical Museum in Prague.
Urban was also an enthusiastic collector. He assembled a large collection of postage stamps from around the world connected with Jáchymov. Another collection consisted of dollar coins from many countries, reflecting the fact that the Jáchymov thaler gave its name to the later dollar. His legacy also included an extensive library focused on mining, the history of Jáchymov and regional history. He also served as the main advisor during the creation of the mining museum in Kongsberg, Norway.
