Prague, June 26 (CTK) – Representatives of parties in parliament, former political prisoners and other people commemorated Czech democratic politician Milada Horakova (1901-1950), executed by the Communist regime for political reasons, at her symbolic grave at the Vysehrad cemetery today.
The event was staged on the occasion of the day in memory of the victims of communism on June 27, the anniversary of Horakova’s death.
It is not known where Horakova’s body was buried.
“A woman of a genuine character with extraordinary spiritual richness and mental strength,” said Frantisek Sedivy, chairman of the Milada Horakova Club and deputy head of the Confederation of Political Prisoners.
He called for the return to Horakova’s legacy at the times when citizens’ trust in politics was falling.
“She stands for the national moral legacy,” he said.
Slovak Ambassador to Prague Peter Weiss called the execution of Horakova by the communist power a judicial murder.
He pointed out that similar show trials had taken place in Slovakia after the 1948 communist coup as well.
The Czech Republic and Slovakia formed one state, Czechoslovakia, from 1918 until its split in 1993.
“We must never forget these political murders and moreover, we must not allow for them being trivialised,” he said.
On behalf of the upper and lower houses of parliament, Senate deputy chairmans Jiri Sestak (Mayors, STAN) and MP Frantisek Laudat (TOP 09) laid wreaths to Horakova’s grave, along with Prague councillor Jan Wolf (Christian Democrats (KDU-CSL)/STAN) who represented the City Hall. The Presidential Office sent a wreath there.
Horakova, a lawyer by profession, gave up her mandate of Czechoslovak parliament deputy in protest against the Communist takeover in 1948. Later she unsuccessfully initiated a concerted effort of non-Communist parties in this respect.
She was sentenced to death on trumped-up charges of treason and espionage, along with Jan Buchal, Zavis Kalandra and Oldrich Pecl, and executed on June 27, 1950 at the age of 48 years as the only woman to have been executed for political reasons in the country.
Her trial, in which a total of 12 people were charged, was exceptional in terms of its extent and severe sentences. It was also the first trial staged on the basis of a “scenario” applied in the Soviet Union in the 1930s.
The Supreme Court annulled the verdicts in her case in 1968. After the collapse of the communist regime, the Czech general state attorney halted the prosecution of all defendants in the trial of Horakova and rehabilitated them in 1990.
The anniversary of her execution in the Prague-Pankrac prison, June 27, has been declared a significant day of the Czech Republic, marking the victims of the communist regime.
On this day, the Milada Horakova Club organises a meeting at her symbolic grave in the Vysehrad cemetery as her actual burial place is unknown. This grave consists of a tombstone with a roll of barbed wire designed by sculptor Karel Horinek and a bronze bust by Jaroslava Lukesova.
Horakova and other victims of communism are remembered within a one-week campaign that will culminate with an art event in Prague-Kampa on Tuesday.
People can participate in it by wearing a commemorative ribbon, a hemp rope symbolising the hangman’s rope, wrapped with a tricolour in red, blue and white, the colours of the Czech flag, on June 27, the 67th anniversary Horakova’s execution.
