Story of the Week

Ota Pavel (1930–1973) was a Czech writer, journalist, and sports reporter, born to Jewish farmers. After World War II, in which his father and brother survived concentration camps, Pavel began writing sports pieces. He covered the Innsbruck Olympics in 1964, when he suffered an attack of the bipolar disorder that would dog him the rest of his life. His memoirs, short stories, and works on sports, including Golden Eels and How I Came to Know Fish, were published to acclaim—even as he endured sixteen hospitalizations. Pavel died in Prague.

Carp for the Wehrmacht

A Story

by Ota Pavel

At the beginning of the occupation they confiscated Papa’s pond in Bustehrad.

“How can a Jew breed carp?” the mayor asked.

Papa had loved the lower Bustehrad pond for a long time, as a man loves a young woman (now and then, he had loved young women, too!), even though it did not show itself off like so many ponds in southern Bohemia. No steam rose from it, no reeds flapped in the breeze and no gulls shrieked, but it was decent enough for a pond in the middle of town, with a brewery on one side, poplars on the other, and houses and cottages scattered here and there.

Papa had drifted on the pond in a washtub in his boyhood; his father had also manned a washtub on it, as had his grandfather and great-grandfather, too. It was a matter of blood, Papa’s link to that pond. It helped, too, that the carp were delicious.

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