Prague Exhumes Mass Graves Of Communist-Era Victims As Families Seek Closure

by Stefan J. Bos, Worthy News Europe Bureau Chief

PRAGUE (Worthy News) – Archaeologists in the Czech capital have begun exhuming mass graves containing political prisoners executed under Czechoslovakia’s communist regime, in a major effort to identify victims whose resting places have remained unknown for more than seven decades.

At Prague’s sprawling Ďáblice Cemetery, experts opened Mass Grave No. 14, believed to hold the remains of three decorated army officers — Karel Sabela, Vilem Sok-Sieger, and Miloslav Jebavy — executed in the early 1950s after a purported anti-communist uprising known as “Prague–Žatec.”

The plot also contains the bodies of hundreds of others buried anonymously in stacked “social graves.”

“This place is sacred for political prisoners,” said Jiri Linek, head of the Association of Former Political Prisoners, who has spent years lobbying for state-backed exhumations. For the first time since 1989, authorities are overseeing a full forensic recovery of victims of communist repression.

The three officers, once war heroes who fought Nazi Germany, were executed after the communist secret police infiltrated their anti-regime network.

FAMILIES KEEP HOPE, CHRISTIANS REMEMBERED

Families hope DNA analysis will finally allow the men to be identified and reburied with dignity.

Historians note that communist authorities routinely buried executed dissidents, resistance figures, and other prisoners in unmarked graves, denying relatives the right to mourn.

Under communism, evangelical Christians and churches viewed as a threat to the regime were also targeted, with pastors and believers facing surveillance by the secret police, job loss, forced cooperation demands, and imprisonment for unauthorized worship.

Archaeologists say each grave may contain up to 40 coffins stacked in layers — many holding multiple bodies, including infants, destitute citizens, and political prisoners. Extracting individual remains is described as “a task requiring great dignity and care.”

The exhumations may even shed light on one of the country’s deepest historical mysteries — the fate of Jozef Gabcik and Jan Kubis, the British-trained paratroopers who assassinated Nazi official Reinhard Heydrich in 1942.

FROM TOTALITARIANISM TO DEMOCRACY

Their remains were sent to Prague’s Anatomical Institute, but their resting place was never confirmed; some historians believe they may lie within the Dablice cemetery.

Czechoslovakia’s communist regime collapsed peacefully during the Velvet Revolution of 1989, ushering in democratic reforms. The country later underwent a negotiated split, becoming the Czech Republic and Slovakia in 1993.

Both nations eventually joined the European Union and the NATO military alliance, marking a dramatic shift from decades of Soviet-imposed rule toward Western integration.

Authorities say the current exhumations aim to restore dignity to victims of totalitarianism and bring long-awaited closure to families who were denied even the knowledge of where their loved ones were buried.

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