A unique kinetic monument was unveiled on 27 June 2019 in the centre of the Science Park of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic in Prague`s Ládví district. It consists of a nearly seven-meter mast with moving parts of a wind ring object made of stainless steel and a granite block with an inscription:
VÁCLAV DOLEJŠEK
20. 2. 1895 Prague – 3. 1. 1945 Terezín
physicist, professor at Charles University, participant of the National Resistance
He was a world-renowned expert and founder of the
Czechoslovak scientific school in the field of X-ray
spectroscopy.
In 1922 he discovered the spectral series N
in the X-ray spectra of U, Th and Bi atoms.
During the Second World War he joined the national resistance.
He died of the consequences of imprisonment in the Small Fortress of Terezín.
The monument and its architectural design is the work of František Svátek, a sculptor who has been working on the topic of hydrokinetics and movement in general for a long time. The unveiling ceremony in June 2019 was attended by the President of the Czech Academy of Sciences Eva Zažímalová, Dolejšek`s daughter Věra Hauptfeld-Dolejsek and Dolejšek`s son Zdeněk Dolejšek. Mayor of Prague 8 Ondřej Gros and the Director of the Institute of Thermomechanics Jiří Plešek. It was the latter Academy institute that initiated the creation of the memorial and established a public collection in this regard. 28 designs were submitted for the architectural competition.
Dolejšek formed a lifelong friendship with Jaroslav Heyrovský, the discoverer of polarography, whom he nominated for the Nobel Prize in 1939.
In the 1920s, Dolejšek also worked on musical acoustics. His scientific contributions in the field of X-ray spectroscopy began at the Swedish University of Lund and the University of Tübingen. In Lund in 1922 he discovered the long-sought N-series of X-ray spectra of the elements uranium (U), thorium (Th) and bismuth (Bi). After returning from his study trips, Dolejšek began to build an X-ray spectroscopy laboratory on the university campus.
Later he worked at the Institute of Physical Chemistry, and then at the independent Spectroscopic Institute, of which he himself became the director, already as a professor (associated 1928, tenured professor 1935). Dolejšek worked with colleagues and scientific laboratories in Sweden, Germany, France, USA, Poland and Bulgaria. Professor Dolejšek tried to gather his scientific results for the publications on Vacuum Technology and for the Selected Chapters in X-ray Spectroscopy during the first years of the Nazi occupation. Both works have remained unfinished (today under the protection of his family and in the Archives of Charles University).
At a time of worsening economic crisis, Dolejšek also put his efforts into industrial cooperation and a research facility for physicists and engineers was established. In particular, he and his colleague Dr. Vítězslav Havlíček achieved the establishment of the Physical Research Department of the Škoda Works from 1 November 1934. The research facility continued to operate during the war and protected several of Dolejšek`s students from forced labour in nazi Germany.
Himself an active member of the Czech resistance during the Second World War, he was denounced and arrested by the Gestapo on 7 October 1944. On 3 January 1945 he died of dysentery in the Small Fortress in Terezín.
