Pojkart — Oskar

The most famous story about him dates to the winter of 1938. As Nazi forces occupied the Sudetenland, a Jewish family from a neighboring town—the Goldmanns—fled east. They arrived at Oskar’s door on a moonless night, half-frozen, with a terrified four-year-old girl. Oskar didn’t hesitate. He hid them in his attic for six weeks. During that time, he made a small, palm-sized lantern for the girl, with a blue glass pane instead of clear. “So you can pretend the night is the sea,” he told her.

Oskar Pojkart died in 1965, at age 78, in the same house where he was born. His workshop closed, but not because of disinterest. His last apprentice, a young Roma man named Štefan, continued the trade in a nearby town until the 1990s. And every year, on the winter solstice, a small group of hikers in the White Carpathians carries a single Oskar lantern up the peak of Velká Javořina—lit, faithful, and returning the light. Pojkart Oskar represents the unsung craftsmen of 20th-century rural Europe—people whose technical skill, moral clarity, and quiet courage shaped community survival far more than grand historical events. His lanterns are functional artifacts of resilience, and his motto, “I faithfully return the light,” serves as a metaphor for care, repair, and solidarity in dark times. Pojkart Oskar

In the small, windswept village of Strání, nestled in the foothills of the White Carpathian Mountains, there lived a man named Pojkart Oskar. Born in 1887, Oskar was neither a soldier nor a politician. He was a tinsmith—a craftsman of sheet metal, tin, and patience. But his story is not one of war or wealth; it is a story of light in darkness. The most famous story about him dates to the winter of 1938

When it was safe to move the family to a contact in Uherský Brod, Oskar guided them himself, using one of his double-walled lanterns—its light invisible from more than twenty meters away. The Goldmanns survived the war. The little blue lantern remains in a private collection in Prague, still functional, still bearing Oskar’s star and motto. Oskar didn’t hesitate