125TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE BIRTH OF FRANTIŠEK SUCHY

From 19 to 21 June 2024, we are planning to hold a festival in Strašnice Park Fr. Suchý, a joint celebration of the important personality after whom the park is named. It commemorates not only the fate of the garden architect and crematorium director František Suchý Sr. and his family and their fight against totalitarianism, but also the courage of all those who faced or are still facing violence.

Every year since 2019, we commemorate the memory of the Suchy family in the park. The intention has expanded over time to include responsible stewardship of the landscape, art in public spaces, and neighborhood gatherings and stories. The three-day event will take place in František Suchý Park and in the adjacent Olga's space.

On the occasion of the 125th anniversary of the birth of František Suchý Sr., we welcome the neighborhood and the surrounding community to pay their respects, take responsible care of the park, talk or tour the crematorium. We are fine-tuning the cultural and artistic programme and if you would like to get involved, please contact us at lucie@bubahof.com. Or visit us in Olg spaceand during opening hours on Wednesdays and Thursdays from 2 to 6 p.m., from June from 3 to 7 p.m.

Check out the poster for the event.

More about the event and programme.

Two stories of the struggle against totalitarianism

The originally nameless park in Prague's Strašnice, although according to memorials it was called the Partisans' Park after the war until the 1980s, got its name in 2015. Thanks to the Memory of the Nation and the Prague 10 municipality, the name commemorates the memory of the director of the Strašnice crematorium, František Suchý. The sign in the park was also attended by the then 88-year-old František Suchý Jr., the son of Olga and František, a participant in the resistance, for which he served 12 years in a communist prison. Both fates intertwined against the background of the resistance against the Nazi and Communist regimes.

František Suchý (* 21 June 1899 † 23 January 1982)

From 1932 he was the director of the Strašnický Crematorium. During the Protectorate, victims of political murders from Pankrác and Kobylis were burned in the crematorium. František Suchý, together with his son, wrote down the names of the executed and preserved their ashes. They thus saved the remains of 2,200 victims of Nazism who would otherwise have ended up in the compost heap. When after the war the bodies of the executed began to be brought back, he again kept the ashes of the victims of the totalitarian regime, this time the communist one. For this courage he received the Order of T. G. M. in 2011.

Communist persecution affected the whole family, including the wife and mother Olga Sucha (nee Havel). The parents were first arrested in 1949 for helping another family to emigrate, and the final sentence was 4 and 4.5 years in 1952.

František Suchý Jr. (* 17 April 1927 † 7 June 2018)

František was only 16 years old when he helped his father write down the names of people who had been executed by the Nazis a few hours earlier. When after the war the bodies of those executed began to be brought back, he decided to join the resistance. Although the relatives of the victims were informed about the cremation, they were not allowed to see the body or be present at the ceremony. Young František was also holding the urn of Milada Horáková. Like his parents, he was arrested in 1952 and given 25 years in Mírov. He was released in the autumn of 1964 after serving half of his sentence. In 2017, he received Memory of the Nation Award.