- Milada Horáková
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Dr. Milada Horáková (25 December 1901, Prague – 27 June 1950) was a Czech politician executed by Communists on charges of conspiracy and treason.
Contents
Biography
She was born as Milada Králová in Prague and then studied law at the Charles University. She graduated in 1926 and then worked at the Prague City Council. In the same year she graduated, she entered the Czechoslovak National Socialist Party, despite the misleading name a strong opponent of the Nazis. After the German occupation of Czechoslovakia in 1939, she joined the underground resistance movement, but was arrested by the Gestapo in 1940. She was initially sentenced to death, but later her punishment was reduced to life imprisonment and Horáková was sent to the concentration camp Terezín and then to various prisons in Germany.
After the liberation in May 1945, she returned to Prague, rejoining her party. She was elected a Member of Parliament, where she remained until the Communist coup in February 1948, when she resigned. Even though she was urged by her friends to leave Czechoslovakia, she remained in the country and was still politically active. On 27 September 1949 she was arrested and eventually accused of being the leader of a supposed plot to overthrow the Communist regime.[1] The StB, a Czechoslovak secret police infamous for brutal interrogation methods, tried to break the group of the alleged plotters and forced them to confess to treason and conspiracy using both physical and psychological torture.
Milada Horáková, tombstone.
The trial of her and her twelve colleagues began on 31 May 1950. It was intended to be a show trial like those of the Soviet Great Purges in the 1930s, broadcast on the radio and even supervised by Soviet advisors. The trial had a script which everyone involved was supposed to follow, but on several occasions both prosecutor Ludmila Brožová-Polednová and the defendant managed to state their true feelings - .[2] Horáková stood firm and defended herself and her ideals even though she knew that such fight could only worsen her conditions and the final result. The State's prosecutor was Dr. Josef Urválek.
She was sentenced to death along with three of her co-defendants on 8 June 1950. Many famous people, notably Albert Einstein, Winston Churchill and Eleanor Roosevelt, petitioned for her life, but in spite of this the sentence was confirmed and she was hanged in Pankrác Prison on 27 June 1950. She was 48 years old.
In 2005 the uncensored original recording of the trial was found by the filmmaker Martin Vadas.
Other defendants
- Jan Buchal (1913–1950), State Security officer (executed)
- Vojtěch Dundr (1879–1957), former Secretary of the Czechoslovak Social Democratic Party (15 years)
- Dr. Jiří Hejda (1895–1985), former factory owner (life imprisonment)
- Dr. Bedřich Hostička (1914–1996), secretary of the Czechoslovak People's Party (28 years)
- Záviš Kalandra (1902–1950), journalist (executed)
- Antonie Kleinerová (1901–1996), former Member of Parliament for the Czechoslovak National Socialist Party (life imprisonment)
- Dr. Jiří Křížek (1895–1970), lawyer (22 years)
- Dr. Josef Nestával (1900–1976), administrator (life imprisonment)
- Dr. Oldřich Pecl (1903–1950), former mine owner (executed)
- Professor Dr. Zdeněk Peška (1900–1970), university professor (25 years)
- František Přeučil (1907–1996), publisher (life imprisonment)
- Františka Zemínová (1882–1962), editor and former Member of Parliament for the Czechoslovak National Socialist Party (20 years)
The verdict was cancelled in June 1968 during the Prague Spring, but because of the Soviet occupation of Czechoslovakia that followed, Horáková's reputation was not fully rehabilitated until after the Velvet Revolution of 1989. 27 June, the day of her execution, was declared "Commemoration day of the victims of the Communist regime" in the Czech Republic as of the year 2004. A major thoroughfare in Prague 6 was re-named in her honor in 1990.
On 11 September 2008, Ludmila Brožová-Polednová, the prosecutor in the Horáková trial, was sentenced to 6 years in prison, 58 years after her crime, at the age of 87.
See also
- Rudolf Slánský
- Slánský trial
- Rudolf Margolius
- László Rajk
- Traicho Kostov
- Heliodor Píka
Notes
- ^ "Miroslav Ivanov: Justiční vražda aneb Smrt Milady Horákové". Český rozhlas. 6 July 2008. http://www.radio.cz/cz/clanek/105826. Retrieved 15 December 2008. (Czech)
- ^ "Milada Horáková". Český rozhlas. http://www.radio.cz/cz/clanek/92617/. Retrieved 15 December 2008. (Czech)
References
- Tazzer, Sergio (2008). Praga Tragica. Milada Horáková. 27 giugno 1950., Editrice Goriziana, Gorizia, 2008
- Margolius, Ivan (2006). Reflections of Prague: Journeys through the 20th century. London: Wiley. ISBN 0470022191.
- Kaplan, Karel (1995). Nevětší politický proces M. Horáková a spol.. Praha: Ústav pro soudobé dějiny AV ČR. ISBN 808527048X.
External links
- Milada Horakova – Czech in history, from archives of Czech Radio with realaudio stream version.
- Brief biography
- Martyr for freedom
Categories:- 1901 births
- 1950 deaths
- People from Prague
- Czech National Social Party politicians
- Executed politicians
- People executed for treason against Czechoslovakia
- People executed by Communist Czechoslovakia
- Executed Czech women
- Executed Czechoslovak women
- Czechoslovak women in politics
- Czech women in politics
- People executed by hanging
- Recipients of the Order of Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk
- Theresienstadt concentration camp survivors
- Nazi concentration camp survivors
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