70 years since the execution of Milada Horáková

27 June 2020 marks 70 years since the execution of Milada Horáková, the Czechoslovak democratic politician who became a victim of judicial murder committed by the communist party. After graduating from law school at Charles University in 1926, she was employed in the social welfare department of the Prague city authority. In addition to focusing on issues of social justice, Horáková also became a prominent campaigner for the equal status of women.

Milada Horáková was sentenced to death, along with three co-defendants, on 8 June 1950. Many prominent figures in the West, notably Albert Einstein, Winston Churchill and Eleanor Roosevelt, petitioned for her life, but the sentences were confirmed. The verdict of her trial was annulled in 1968, and she was fully rehabilitated in the 1990s and posthumously received the Order of Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk and the Order of the White Double Cross.

A new book on Horáková's tragic fate is coming out on the 70th anniversary of her death. The title of the publication "I'm going with my head held high" is a quote from the last letter that the Czech lawyer and politician addressed to her family.