7 May, 1939: The funeral that turned into a demonstration against Nazi occupation
The second funeral of poet Karel Hynek Mácha, whose remains were exhumed from the occupied Sudetenland 85 years ago and taken to Prague for a second ceremonial burial, ended up turning into one of the biggest anti-Nazi protests in the early years of the occupation.
The Czech romantic poet Karel Hynek Mácha died on 6 November 1836 at the age of just 25, after falling ill from overexerting himself while helping to extinguish a fire. He was buried in Litoměřice, tragically on the day that he was supposed to get married.
To many Czechs, Mácha was a symbol of freedom and the Czech national awakening. That is why, when over 100 years later, Nazi Germany occupied the Sudetenland where Litoměřice was located, the head of the Czechoslovak National Bank, Karel Engliš, wanted to prevent Mácha’s remains from getting into German hands.
He arranged for his remains to be exhumed and transported to Prague on October 1, 1938, where they were carefully preserved by Professor Jiří Malý. They were then stored in the Strašnice Crematorium until 6 May 1939, when they were displayed in the National Museum in an oak coffin draped in the national flag.
His second funeral, which took place in the Vyšehrad Cemetery the next day, 7 May 1939, was attended by around 50,000 people. Another 200,000 watched the hearse as it subsequently made its way to the Church of St. Peter and St. Paul at Vyšehrad. And many others from all over the country listened to the ceremony, which lasted two hours, broadcast live on the radio.
The event ended up becoming one of the biggest national demonstrations against the Nazi occupation – but not without consequences. Priest Bohumil Stašek, who delivered the eulogy at the funeral, was arrested in September 1939 and imprisoned in the Dachau concentration camp until the end of the war. Reporter Franta Kocourek, who commentated on the funeral for the radio broadcast, died in Auschwitz.
