Madrid memorial honors Czech man who hid victims’ ashes from Nazis

In the Madrid Río park, just a few steps from the Puente de Praga, the statue of František Suchý has been standing for a few days now. Suchý was the director of the Strašnice Crematorium, who secretly preserved the identities of more than two thousand people executed during the Nazi occupation. Among them were several Spaniards. Created by Czech sculptor Jakub Vlček, the monument weaves together Czech and Spanish history, acts of personal courage and international efforts to uncover forgotten stories.

František Suchý, director of the Prague-Strašnice crematorium, and his wife in 1950|Photo: František Suchý jr./Paměť národa

František Suchý, originally a landscape architect, was appointed director of Prague’s Strašnice Crematorium during the Nazi occupation. The Nazi authorities ordered him to dispose of the bodies of executed prisoners anonymously — without records, without names, and without any trace of their existence.

Suchý refused to comply. Together with his son, František Suchý Jr., and several trusted colleagues, he secretly kept records of the victims and hid their urns in a remote part of the cemetery so they could one day be returned to their families. In doing so, he risked not only his own life but also the lives of those closest to him, as discovery would have meant immediate execution.

Strašnice crematorium|Photo: Mélanie Vigneau, Radio Prague International

Thanks to his courage, the identities of around 2,200 victims were preserved — among them several Spaniards who died in the Hradištko concentration camp near Prague.

Photo: Embassy of the Czech Republic in Madrid

“It is a story of extraordinary trust in people and in a good cause that, when I think about it rationally, is almost impossible to comprehend, considering how much those people risked and what the consequences would have been if they had been discovered.”

Says Czech sculptor Jakub Vlček, author of the statue of František Suchý. The monumental bronze statue is 2.5 metres tall, and with its pedestal it reaches a total height of 3.5 metres. František Suchý is depicted as a civil servant – just as he truly worked at the time. He stands with his arms outstretched, a gesture that, according to the artist, symbolises openness, integrity, and determination. From his arms flows a relief-like veil with the faces of the victims.

“He preserved the memory of those people. And for me, memory is essentially an imprint that a person leaves in you. That is why all the victims are depicted as portraits that, on one side, protrude into space, representing how these people were seen during their lives, while on the other side there is a kind of negative form — an imprint that sinks inward. And that is exactly the memory these people left behind.”

Photo: Embassy of the Czech Republic in Madrid

The outstretched arms and the vertical lines of the portraits form a shape reminiscent of a cross. According to the artist, however, it is not a religious symbol, but a symbol of an uncompromising moral stance.

“It is about the idea that if we were only rational and did not have some kind of moral code within us, we would behave completely differently. For me, František Suchý is an embodiment of something that far surpasses pure rationality and represents a moral pillar without compromise.”

Photo: Embassy of the Czech Republic in Madrid

With the unveiling of the memorial in a recreational area by the Manzanares River, under the Puente de Praga, a two-year effort by the Czech Embassy, the Madrid City Council, and many others came to an end. All the Spaniards whose remains František Suchý preserved were Republicans who had fought in the Civil War against Franco. After their defeat, they fled to France. There they were later arrested by the Gestapo and, via German concentration camps, were transported to the then Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia. There they were executed, often at the very end of the war. Now, symbolically, they have returned to their homeland.