Karel Hiršl

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Karel Hiršl (born December 27, 1922 - † May 2, 1945 in Small Fortress Theresienstadt ) was a Czechoslovak student and resistance fighter. He was one of the founders and the leadership of the resistance organization Předvoj , which operated as part of the resistance against German occupation of the country. Because of this activity he was arrested and executed in Theresienstadt in 1945, just a few days before the end of the war.

Life

Hiršl attended a high school in Prague, which he graduated from high school in 1941. Because the German occupying power had closed all universities in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia , he attended a course at the commercial academy in Prague and then worked in a film studio. From 1943 onwards, the Předvoj resistance group was formed with Hiršl's participation and then his leadership . Apart from activists from similar groups who were recruited from students or young workers in Prague, it was especially left-wing Marxist students from various Prague universities who knew each other from the parish of the Evangelical Church of the Bohemian Brethren in Prague-Smíchov. In addition to Karel Hiršl, it was his friends Václav Dobiáš and Jiří Staněk who were then included in the group's core leadership. In the summer of 1943 Karel Hiršl got in touch with Rudolf Vetiška, a member of the illegal central committee of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia . In autumn 1943 he initiated the establishment of the group's illegal cells outside of Prague. Hiršl played a key role in the publication of the Předvoj magazine and in drafting the group's programmatic declaration.

After Václav Dobiáš was arrested in the spring of 1944, in October 1944 the Prague Gestapo arrested the entire leadership of Předvoj, including Hiršl. All seven people were interrogated in the Pankrác prison in Prague and then taken to the Terezin Small Fortress . Karel Hiršl was proclaimed there on May 2, 1945, along with 49 other resistance fighters from the Předvoj group and the illegal Communist Party, and three women and immediately shot at the place of execution. It was the last execution ever in the Little Fortress.

Honors

Karel Hiršl later received several honors:

  • In 1972 a new street in Prague 6 was named after Karel Hiršl - Hiršlova ulice.
  • In 1968 the documentary Pět dopisů Karla Hiršla was shot in Prague . The film is based on the content of five letters that Hiršl sent his friends during the war who were posted to Germany to do forced labor under the Nazis . Alena Wagnerová wrote the script .
  • On a school in Drtinova ulice 498/3 in Prague 5 there is a memorial plaque for the victims of the war with the name Karel Hiršl on it (author: Josef Kareš, May 16, 2011).
  • In Prague 5 on the Kříženeckého náměstí square there is a memorial to the victims of the National Socialist occupation, on which the name Karel Hiršl can also be found.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Historické osobnosti v názvech ulic Prahy 6 , in: Veleslavín, monthly magazine for the Veleslavín district (Prague 6) 4/2018, page 13, online at: veleslavin39.cz / ...
  2. ↑ Alena Wagnerová: Ještě o Karlu Kosíkovi , in: Listy 4/2006, online at: listy.cz / ...
  3. ↑ a b Předvoj organizace , short keyword of the online encyclopedia Vševěd, online at: encyklopedie.vseved.cz / ...
  4. ↑ Z kroniky smíchovského sboru - odboj , chronicle of the parish in the Prague-Smíchov district about the resistance groups Předvoj and Zpravodajská brigáda , material from the parish of the Evangelical Church of the Bohemian Brothers (about the history of the district), online at: ccesmichov.cz/ .. .
  5. ↑ Executions , research by Jürgen Winkel about the execution on May 2, 1942, information from the portal ghetto-theresienstadt (operated by Kulturverein Schwarzer Hahn eV), online at: ghetto-theresienstadt.info / ...
  6. ↑ Pět dopisů Karla Hiršla , information on the Czech film database FDb, online at: fdb.cz / ...
  7. ↑ Pamětní deska Obětem 2. světové války , information from the association Spolek pro vojenská pietní místa , online at: vets.cz/.../Drtinova/
  8. ↑ Pomník obětem okupace , information from the Spolek pro vojenská pietní místa association , online at: vets.estranky.cz/...strana-24-
personal data
SURNAME Hiršl, Karel
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Czechoslovak student and resistance fighter
DATE OF BIRTH December 27, 1922
DATE OF DEATH May 2, 1945
Place of death Small fortress Theresienstadt