Overview
- The Czech National Archive scheduled the unsealing for September 19 under a 20-year embargo set when the document was donated in 2005.
- The letter is described as Masaryk’s final message to his son from 1937, preserved unread since shortly before his death.
- Jan Masaryk carried the document through London, Scotland and France during wartime exile before returning with it to Czechoslovakia.
- After Jan’s 1948 death days after the communist coup, officially ruled a suicide, his secretary Antonín Sum smuggled the letter out and later survived imprisonment.
- Scholars note the contents remain unknown, with speculation ranging from prophetic warnings to ordinary farewell remarks.