Milada Horáková

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article or section does not cite its references or sources.
You can help Wikipedia by introducing appropriate citations.

Milada Horáková (December 25, 1901 - June 27, 1950) was a Czechoslovak politician executed by Communists on trumped-up charges of conspiracy and treason. As a one of few women ever executed in Czechoslovakia she is regarded as a symbol of anti-Communist resistance for her firm and courageous stance during her trial.

She was born 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. After the occupation of Czechoslovakia by Nazi Germany 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 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 September 27, 1949 she was arrested and eventually accused of being the leader of a supposed plot to overthrow the Communist regime.

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.

The trial of her and her twelve colleagues began on May 31, 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 screenplay which the accused had to follow, but on several occasions they managed to get out of their role. Horáková, in particular, stood firm and defended herself and her ideals even though she knew that such fight could only worsen her conditions and the final result. In 2005 the uncensored original recordings of the process was found by the filmmaker Martin Vadas. This recording confirms M.H. as a strong woman defending her rights and civil liberties for all and also its comparison with the official version clearly shows how the communist censorsip worked.

She was sentenced to death along with three of her co-defendants on June 8, 1950. Many famous people, notably Albert Einstein, Winston Churchill or Eleanor Roosevelt, petitioned for her life, but in spite of this the sentence was confirmed and she was hanged on June 27, 1950.

The verdict was cancelled in June 1968 during the Prague Spring but because of the following Soviet occupation of Czechoslovakia, the rehabilitation of Milada Horakova was made only after the Velvet revolution in 1990. The day of execution of Milada Horakova became state holiday of Czech Republic in 2004 as the "commemoration day of the victims of the communist regime". Her symbollic grave at Slavin cemetery in Prague was desacrated in 2005 by persons unknown.