The Underground Reporters

In Budejovice, a quiet village in Czechoslovakia, laws and rules were introduced to restrict the freedom of Jewish people during the dark days of World War II. A small shack became the community center - a place to escape from persecution and discrimination. It was here that some brave young people decided to create a newspaper, a magazine that would prove to themselves and their community that they were still creative, energetic, and adventurous. The magazine, Klepy (which means Gossip), was born on August 30, 1940, and over the following two years, twenty-two issues were created and circulated. John Freund was one of the young "reporters" who contributed to the magazine. In April 1942, John and the other one thousand Jews of Budejovice were deported to the Terezin ghetto. Most of these deportees were immediately sent on to Auschwitz and to their deaths. John was among a handful of Budejovic Jews who survived the war. He currently lives in Toronto. Remarkably, copies of Klepy also survived. The Underground Reporters chronicles the lives of the young people who contributed to the newspaper.