Kosova Hora, Central Bohemia, April 19 (CTK) – Brigadier General, military pilot and First Commander of the 311st Czechoslovak bomber squadron of the Royal Air Force (RAF) Karel Mares will have a memorial unveiled in Kosova Hora near Pribram, its Mayor Martin Krames told CTK on Thursday.
The memorial in the shape of a wing made by blacksmith Jaroslav Kriz will be unveiled within a ceremony on Saturday, Krames said.
At the same time, a park in the small town with some 1,300 ihabintants will bear his name.
The park with a little pond of about 2.5 hectares was being built during the past ten years with the help of volunteers. It’s a relaxation area for walks in the town’s centre and it will now bear the pilot’s name, he said.
Mares (1898-1960), who was known under the code name of Karel Toman during the Czech resistance movement against the Communist regime, was demoted to the soldier rank and otherwise persecuted after the WWII. He spent his final days in Kosova Hora.
He was rehabilitated in 1990 and was awarded the title of a general in memoriam.
Mining Museum Pribram director Josef Velfl told CTK that a book about memorials and monuments of world wars will be presented on the 120th anniversary of Mares’s birth on Saturday.
The museum managed to gather an extensive collection of photographs and written records, as well as the general’s diary from Britain, which attests to him taking part in the first air strike on Berlin, Velfl said.
A number of guests from the Czech Republic and abroad, including Dagmar Jungmannova, the daughter of Mares, will attend the commemorative event, he added.
