Petschke Palace

The Petschke Palace (in the Czech Petschkův palác or Pečkárna) is a neoclassicist building in Prague. It was built between 1923 and 1929 by the architect Max Spielmann upon a request from a merchant banker dr. Julius Petschek and was originally called "The Bank House Petschek and Co." Despite its historicizing look, the building was then a very modern one, being made of reinforced concrete and being fully air-conditioned. It also had tube post, phone switch-board, printing office, a paternoster lift (which is still functioning), and massive safes in the sublevel floor. The building was sold by the Petschek family before the occupation of Czechoslovakia, and the family left the country.

It was during the war years that the place gained its notoriety, as it immediately became the headquarters of Gestapo for the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia. It was here where the interrogations and torturing of the Czech resistance members took place, as well as the courts martial established by R. Heydrich which were sending most of the prisoners to death or to concentration camps. Many people died in the building itself too. A plaque that commemorates the spirit of these heroes of the war was unveiled to them on the corner of the building.

In 1948 the building was given to the Ministry of Foreign Trade; now it is the residence of a part of the Ministry of Industry and Trade. In 1989 the building became "Národní kulturní památka" (National Cultural Monument).

External links

* [http://www.pis.cz/cz/praha/pamatky/petschkuv_palac Petschkův palác - Prague Information Service, in Czech]
* [http://paternoster.archii.cz/pn-peckuv-palac.html Technical info, in Czech]
* [http://www.cs-magazin.com/2006-06/view.php?article=articles/cs060644.htm Info about the founding family, in Czech]