Pražačka

In the spring of 1945, the Na Pražačce school building served as a barracks for the replenishing units of the SA Feldherrnhalle Tank Corps. In the afternoon of 5 May, the rebels encircled the school, blocking any attempts of the German garrison to send sentries to the surrounding area. There rebels were initially commanded by Lieutenant František Vlček, and from the evening of 5 May the command of the Pražačka sub-section was taken by Staff Captain Josef Hradil. The defenders of the Žižkov tram depot were commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Karel Kavena. In the morning of 6 May, the rebels occupied the former Pražačka yard in the area of the Ohrada intersection, breaking the connection between Pražačka and the Liberation Monument. In the afternoon the Germans conquered the yard back by attacking from the tunnel under Vítkov, but their further advance towards the tram depot was repelled by the rebels. Beginning in the morning of 7 May, there were gunfights throughout the sub section, but the situation of the rebels became worse when at 3 p.m. a German battle group with six self-propelled Hetzer guns broke through along the Český Brod road to the Na Pražačce school. Under the protection of human shields from Czech civilians, it penetrated to the Ohrada intersection, where it was stopped. Throughout 8 May, the rebels negotiated with the Germans at Pražačka, and in the evening, after the German capitulation, the German garrison left the school, withdrawing to Karlín. After the occupation of the school, the bodies of thirty-six Czechs murdered during the uprising by SA members were found in the adjoining training trenches, including police officer Antonín Bečvář, who came to the school as a negotiator with a white flag on 7 May. According to the post-war investigation, however, the number of murdered Czechs was higher. Some of the victims were burned by the Germans and some taken to an unknown place.