Jan Uher

Jan Uher ( January 28, 1891 in Prostějov - October 27, 1942 in Berlin-Plötzensee ) was a Czechoslovak pedagogue who taught at several schools and universities. He joined the Obrana národa resistance group , was arrested for this in 1939 and executed in 1942 in Berlin-Plötzensee .

Life

Jan Uher was the second of four children. His father was a factory worker, his mother a housewife, who increased the family income with sewing work. Jan Uher attended high school in Prostějov until 1910. He then graduated from the Czech Institute for Teacher Education until 1911. He then began teaching at various schools: he was in Vejšovicích until 1914, in 1914 he taught in his hometown Prostějov and from 1918 to 1919 in Kostelci na Hané. He taught Czech, geography, history and German. His teaching activity was interrupted by the outbreak of the First World War, he joined the Austro-Hungarian Army, but was considered physically too weak and was used for administrative tasks. In 1919 he became the personal librarian of the then President Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk . He stayed that way until 1922, when he became a consultant for the Ministry of Education. He also began studying the philosophy of the Czech language at the Charles University in Prague . In 1925 he received his doctorate in Brno. Then he was a teacher at the State Teaching Institute for Women in Prague and at the State Teaching Institute for Men in Prague until 1935. In 1935 he was appointed associate professor for educational sciences at Masaryk University . He also became a professor at the Comenius University (1937 to 1938) and became director of studies at the State Pedagogical Academy in Bratislava.

He was also chairman of the Czech Sokol and from 1936 he was the editor of the magazine Sokolský vzdělavatel .

On December 10, 1921 he married Milada, nee Nedělníková. With her he had two children: Boris Uher (born on May 7, 1923) and Jan Uher (born on March 14, 1928).

Jan Uher joined the resistance group Obrana národa (Defender of the Nation). He was arrested for this on November 20, 1939, first in a prison on Mozart Street in Brno, then in the Špilberk fortress , from there he was transferred to a prison in Wroclaw at the end of January 1940. This is where his last letters came from. In June 1941 he was transferred to a prison in Diez an der Lahn. During his time in prison, Uher trained as a printer and typesetter, worked in the prison library, and wrote poetry. Jan Uher was sentenced to death on June 9, 1942 in Berlin-Moabit. The death sentence was carried out by beheading on October 27, 1942 in Berlin-Plötzensee . Jan Uher's family received an invoice for prison and execution costs of RM 1,035.02, which Uher's family refused to pay.
J. Šmíd, who infiltrated the resistance group and betrayed it to the Gestapo, was convicted and executed by a partisan court in 1944.

Honors

• 1945: Czechoslovak War Cross 1939
• September 25, 1946: Ulice Sturmova was renamed Ulice Jana Uhra (Brno)
• 1947: Member of the Czech Academy of Sciences and Arts
• 1992: Order of Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk

Memorials

Stumbling block for Jan Uher

The following memorials were erected for Jan Uher:

• There is a memorial plaque in Tyršův dům in Prague
• There is a memorial plaque in the gymnasium in Prostějov for the victims of the occupation
• On November 23, 1947, a memorial plaque was unveiled in Sokol Brno I for the victims of the Second World War .
• On November 17, 1949, unveiling of a plaque for the victims of the war at the Faculty of Arts in Masaryk University.
• On September 17, 2014, Gunter Demnig laid a stumbling block in Rudišova 161/6 in Brno.

swell

• Jan Uher , Biography, In: Encyclopedia of the History of the City of Brno (Czech)
• Jana Zemková: Jan Uher (1891–1942) (Czech)