Former president Edvard Beneš’ villa to open to the public after restoration

The south Bohemian villa in which the second Czechoslovak president Edvard Beneš and his wife Hana spent a large part of their lives has been reconstructed and will open to the public –in accordance with the last wishes of the president’s widow. Following Communist era ravages, a three-year reconstruction has been completed returning the Beneš villa to its original format.

The history of the villa at the south Bohemian town of Sezimovo Ústí is as much a testament to the tumultuous lives of Edvard Beneš and his wife as to twentieth century Czechoslovakia. Beneš had the villa built when he was still at the height of his powers and prowess as foreign minister.

Local Tábor museum historian Jakub Smrčka explains. “The land was bought in 1929. Construction of the villa began in 1930. I think he started to live there very soon afterwards from 1932. After Edvard Beneš became president in 1935, some state visits took place there and he realised that the building would have to be enlarged. That took place between 1936 and 1937.”

The couple has little time to profit from the improvements. Although Edvard Beneš retreated to the villa after giving up the presidency following the Munich Agreement in 1938, he was soon to leave the country and go into exile. With the German occupation of March 1939, the villa’s contents were picked over by the Wehrmacht and Gestapo with the former president’s 12,000 book library sent off to Prague’s German university.

Mirek Topolánek presented the restored villa to the journalists, photo: CTK

After his English exile, the Beneš’ returned although many of the books and documents did not. A sick and dying Edvard Beneš retreated once again to his beloved villa after resigning a second time from the presidency following the Communist takeover in February 1948. He died there a few months later in September.

His widow continued to live at the villa, fighting off Communist attempts to take it away. Just before she died in 1974 she made her last wishes what should be done with it.

“She wrote her will in which there was a bequest of the villa with the wish that it should become a memorial to her husband, president Beneš. At the time of the Communist government and normalisation, that of course was not possible,” Smrčka added.

The villa in fact was turned over to the local authorities who handed it over to the government with some of the furniture put in storage. They used the villa as a recreational facility for top officials making wholesale changes along the way. After three years of restoration and reconstruction costing 20 million crowns, the villa has been returned to how the Beneš’ would remember it. It will be open to the public from May 28.