Prague People’s Court 1947: Two Women and a Nation’s Past (Research Brief)
September 30, 2003
The crime was depressingly familiar: the wartime denunciation of a man (Holubová’s former husband) to the Gestapo for listening to foreign radio broadcasts. The defendants and witnesses were a cross-section of working-class Prague: a concierge, a confectioner, and a corsetier; a train conductor, a seamstress, and a fortune-teller. The sensational nature of the trial stemmed partly from the salacious details that emerged from testimony, in particular the adulterous and abusive relationships among these “ordinary” people. But it was the last-minute inclusion of two additional defendants that made the case so controversial.
Download the pdf at the top of this page for the full brief.
Benjamin Frommer, of Northwestern University, was a 2002-03 Individual Advanced Research Opportunities (IARO) fellow.
