Meet Girl On The Stamp! - Film Abt Czech 1938 Masaryk Stamp

A photo of Mrs. Hanka, the little girl on the stamp, from last night's world premier of "In Masaryk's Hands".

It was very enjoyable, and great meeting your mother. A remarkable woman. Too bad your father was only there on film.

She's my mother-in-law, but yes, it was sad that he could not make it. He's 92, so I suppose it's not surprising.

What a story behind the stamps depicting the 78-year-old and still sprightly President Masaryk lifting the 3-year-old little girl Eva in his arms in a gesture of tender love for the young child as well as of his faith in the happy future of the youngest generation.

There is also a Child Welfare Fund souvenir sheet of the same design (see http://www.cpslib.org/aip/1938-335a.htm ) honouring the late president, which was engraved by the master engraver Bohumil Heinz (1894 - 1940), printed in black from flat plates on a diestamping machine and issued on the same date as the stamps.

By the way, Bohumil Heinz also worked for Thomas de la Rue & Co., Ltd., London engraving stamps for such countries as China, New Zealand, Sudan, Western Samoa, Greece, Sweden, etc. ( see http://www.japhila.cz/hof/0749/index0749_054.htm and the following).

President Masaryk (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom%C3...igue_Masaryk ) was also honoured with U.S. stamps issued in the Champion of Liberty series (Scott 1147 - 1148) of 1960.

With my best wishes to Mrs. Eva Neugebauerová-Haòková.

Florián

Very interesting, Florian! I did not know that about Mr. Heinz.

At the discussion after the New York premier of the film Mrs. Hanka discussed the child welfare fund related to the stamp. She confirmed what you say, that souvenir sheets were sold along with the stamps to build a fund for poor children. Indeed, the saying on the bottom of the stamp means "Have respect for the soul of a child" and that was the purpose for the stamps. She said that the stamps, too, were sold at a premium, and that money also went into the fund. She said it was hard to get people to contribute large sums of money, but that getting people to contribute a few extra pennies for every stamp was easy and a great deal of money was collected during the sale.

The German Nazi soldiers took over Czechoslovakia only a few months after the stamp was issued - in fact this was the very last stamp issued by a free Czechoslovakia - and Mrs. Hanka said that, sadly, it is not known what ever happened to that children's fund... it was her belief that the Germans very likely stole the money to pay for their war effort.

Given that they stole almost everything else, that is a very good bet.