- now demolished, 2660/141 Hartigova Street
Na Pražačce I
The massacre, which took place at Na Pražačce Grammar School, is one of the annually commemorated events of the Prague Uprising. In May 1945, a young SA unit occupied the local grammar school and began to terrorise its surroundings on the first day of the uprising. On 5 May, the insurgents surrounded the entire building. Still, after a few unsuccessful attempts to conquer the fortified edifice, the SA members launched a strong counterattack and dragged about 80 hostages inside the school. For the several following days, it became a place of torture and massacre against the insurgents and unarmed civilians.
On 6 May, the insurgents successfully occupied the former Pražačka Homestead for several hours. However, the Nazis regained control on the same day. They continued with executions until the next day, when the German battle group ‘Reimann’ arrived, which used Czech civilians as human shields. The slaughtering lasted until the evening of 8 May 1845 when the German troops began to retreat.
After the liberation, 44 insurgent and civilian victims were identified. Their bodies were initially buried in a mass grave in the school garden and two training trenches in the plain behind the school. A memorial plaque on the school building commemorates these events.
The marching SA unit in front of the barracks for the additional units of the SA Feldherrnhalle tank corps, now the Na Pražačce Grammar School building (2825/23 Nad Ohradou Street, Prague 3). Museum of Prague, unknown photographer, 1943.
