Padlým ze světových válek

The Memorial to the Fallen of the World Wars stands in a small park next to the church in Měděnec, a hilltop village in the Ore Mountains (Krušné hory) in the Ústí nad Labem Region. It is a modest but telling memorial – one of two commemorative objects in the village centre, standing a few dozen metres from the separate monument to Julius Fučík.

Where exactly is the memorial located?

The memorial stands in the park next to the church in Měděnec, at coordinates N50°25'17.5'' E13°6'54.5''. It sits right in the middle of the village, easily reached on foot by anyone visiting the church or walking through the main square.

What does the inscription say?

The inscription is bilingual, Czech and German. The Czech text reads: "V upomínku padlým ze světových válek 1914–18, 1938–45" (In memory of those who fell in the world wars). The German line adds: "Zum Gedenken der Kriegsopfer" (In memory of the war victims). The memorial therefore covers two distinct periods: the First World War (1914–1918) and the Second World War, here dated from 1938.

Why is the inscription bilingual, and why 1938–45 instead of 1939–45?

Měděnec lay in the historic Sudetenland, an area with a German-speaking majority before the Second World War. 1938 marks the annexation of this territory by Nazi Germany under the Munich Agreement – for the local population, wartime losses effectively began earlier than the formal outbreak of war in September 1939. The bilingual inscription reflects this: it honours war victims among the region's residents regardless of which side of the ethnic divide they belonged to.

How does it differ from the nearby Julius Fučík monument?

In the same park, only a short walk away, stands a second memorial dedicated to Julius Fučík, a Czech journalist and communist activist executed by the Germans in 1943. Both objects relate to the war, but they serve different purposes: this memorial is a general commemoration of the village's and region's dead, while the Fučík monument focuses on a single historical figure. Visiting both gives a fuller picture of how Měděnec keeps the memory of the war alive.

How do we know how long the memorial has stood here?

The memorial is documented in the database of the Spolek pro vojenská pietní místa (Association for Military Memorial Sites). The earliest available photograph of it dates from 7 October 2007 (photographer: Michal Lukášek), confirming it has stood in the park in its current form for at least close to two decades.

Frequently asked questions

Where is the memorial in Měděnec located? In the park next to the church, in the centre of the village, at coordinates N50°25'17.5'' E13°6'54.5''.

Who is the memorial dedicated to? To those who fell and to war victims from both world wars – the periods 1914–1918 and 1938–1945.

What language is the inscription in? It is bilingual, Czech and German, reflecting the pre-war, largely German-speaking population of this Sudeten region.

Is this the same monument as the Julius Fučík memorial? No – they are two separate objects in the same park. The Fučík monument commemorates one specific historical figure, while this memorial refers generally to the victims of both world wars.

Is the exact date the memorial was erected known? No documented date has survived; the earliest confirmed evidence of the memorial is a photograph from 2007.