World War memorial in Poděbrady

The World War Memorial in Poděbrady stands on the grounds of Poděbrady Castle and honors the townspeople who died during the German occupation of 1939–1945. It's one of the town's most significant memorial sites, combining a tribute to anonymous victims of Nazi terror with the memory of a specific figure tied to local anti-Nazi resistance.

Where is the memorial located?

The monument stands right against the walls of Poděbrady Castle, in the historic center of this spa town on the Elbe river. The castle, today one of Poděbrady's main tourist attractions, became a natural site for the town's war memorial in the postwar years — accessible to residents and visible to anyone exploring the historic core.

When was it built and who designed it?

The memorial was solemnly unveiled in May 1947, less than two years after the war ended. Its artistic centerpiece is a granite sculpture of a Pietà, carved by academic sculptor Karel Lidický. The overall composition was designed by Poděbrady architect Vojtěch Kerhart, who gave the memorial a form that blends with the surrounding castle walls.

What exactly does it commemorate?

The core of the memorial is an open granite "book" bearing more than a hundred names of Poděbrady residents who died during the occupation. These were ordinary townspeople — anonymous to most passers-by today — who paid with their lives during Czechoslovakia's occupation by Nazi Germany.

Beside the book stands a plaque dedicated to General Josef Mašín. Mašín, a lieutenant colonel of artillery in the Czechoslovak army, was one of three founders of the famous intelligence and sabotage resistance group known as the "Three Kings" (Tři králové), operating alongside Josef Balabán and Václav Morávek from the earliest months of the occupation. Arrested by the Gestapo in May 1941, he was executed by firing squad at the Kobylisy shooting range in Prague on 30 June 1942, after thirteen months of interrogation and torture. He was posthumously promoted to brigadier general for his resistance activity. The plaque also names his wife, Zdena Mašínová, who died in Prague's Pankrác Prison in 1956, during the communist era.

Why the Mašín family specifically?

Josef Mašín was the father of Josef and Ctirad Mašín, who later, under the communist regime, formed their own resistance group and in 1953 carried out a dramatic, weeks-long escape across Czechoslovakia and East Germany's occupation zone to West Berlin. The story of a father — a hero of anti-Nazi resistance executed by the Germans — and the later fate of his sons, who went on to fight the communist regime, has made the Mašín family a figure of particular, if still debated, remembrance in Poděbrady and across the Czech Republic; the sons' postwar actions remain a subject of historical discussion to this day.

What does the memorial look like today?

The composition combines three elements: the Pietà sculpture as a symbolic expression of mourning, the open book of names as testimony to the scale of civilian losses in the town, and the plaque dedicated to specific resistance figures. The memorial remains a site where the town marks the anniversary of the war's end and remembers the victims of the occupation each year.

Frequently asked questions

Where exactly is the war memorial in Poděbrady? It stands by the walls of Poděbrady Castle, in the town's historic center.

When was the memorial unveiled? It was solemnly unveiled in May 1947.

Who created the memorial? The Pietà sculpture was carved by academic sculptor Karel Lidický; the composition was designed by architect Vojtěch Kerhart.

Who does the memorial commemorate? More than a hundred Poděbrady residents who died during the German occupation of 1939–1945, as well as General Josef Mašín, executed by the Gestapo in 1942, and his wife Zdena Mašínová.

Who was General Josef Mašín? A lieutenant colonel of Czechoslovak artillery and a member of the resistance group "Tři králové" (Three Kings), arrested by the Gestapo in 1941 and executed at Kobylisy in 1942.