Prague - Pankrac Prison

In central Prague there is a district called Pankrac and there a prison  in late nineteenth century was built and given the same name. It was a modern prison with a capacity of about 800 prisoners. After the First World War and the dissolution of the monarchy of Austria-Hungary, Prague came under Czech control and the prison was expanded and became Czechoslovakia’s largest prison with a capacity of 1200 prisoners.

When Germany occupied the rest of Czechoslovakia in March 1939, the prison was taken over by the Gestapo. The prison was once again expanded with a capacity for about 2200 prisoners, mainly with Czechs and Slovaks. In April 1943, the prison became a place of execution for people sentenced to death by regional Nazi courts. In front of the prison Prague’s highest court was located and used by Nazi courts to sentence people to death, executed in the prison. Three cells were set up for death row next to the execution room. The executions were carried out with a guillotine. Between 1943 and 1945, 1176 people were executed. Shortly before Prague was captured by the Soviet Red Army, the Germans tried to get rid off the evidence of the executions by throwing the guillotine into the Vltava river. Witnesses saw this and the guillotine could later be picked up from the river.

After the war, several prominent Nazis who had committed crimes against the Czech people and sentenced to death was hanged in Pankrac. Kurt Daluege, head of the German Order Police, who participated in the massacres of civilians in Lidice and Lezaky was one. Karl Hermann Frank, higher SS and police leader in occupied Czechoslovakia, was another hanged in Pankrac. During the communist period between 1948 and 1989, political dissidents were imprisoned in Pankrac.