Painting: The day when Prague seized death. 77 years ago, the city was ravaged by a raid
In terms of the number of civilian casualties, it was the most tragic day in the history of Prague. Seven hundred people died in a second Allied bomber raid on February 14, 1945. “It was a day full of horror and sacrifice. How many hundreds of people lost their lives and many others lost everything and they were left with nothing but what they were wearing,” teacher Marie Dutnarová wrote in her diary. The victims’ bodies were in the cellars for decades later.
Prague was bombed by the US Air Force three times in the last months of World War II. “The first, more or less accidental dropping of bombs on the power plant in Holešovice on November 15, 1944 had only an episodic character,” he describes. VHÚ historian Jiří Rajlich.
The second raid, on February 14, 1945, was about something completely different. Residential districts such as Nové Město, Vinohrady, Nusle, Podolí, Vršovice, Vyšehrad, Radlice and Smíchov were severely affected. In terms of civilian casualties, it was the most tragic day in the city’s history. 701 people died. Almost 1,200 people were injured. For example, in 1971, workers discovered twenty-three bodies of hitherto missing people in the basement of a house on Vinohradská třída, who suffocated in a buried shelter.
It was a day of horror and sacrifice, the teacher wrote in her diary
Horror hard to imagine. How can you feel from the diary of the 54-year-old teacher Marie Dutnarová, who lived at the Rašín embankment at the time). Exactly in those places through which the carpet raid took place in February 1945.
“Sirens sound, I looked out of the room window and saw a plane above Smíchov connected with a black rounded line of bombs falling. A bang and a deafening bang will sound overhead. Our house will fall on our heads. Wonder wild, he endured. “
“When the sirens blew the end of the raid, we ventured out. We froze in terror. All around burned, paving stones scattered like rubbish and all around craters full of craters carved by blasting bombs in the ground. People terrified, ran here and there, guards couldn’t so they closed the whole precinct. “
“Emmaus, Faust House, Bio Slavs, German Children’s Hospital, General Hospital, Military Hospital next to St. Ignatius, shelter on Charles Square, Half Morana, embankment, Palacky Bridge, maternity hospital were burned and hit Vino Vinohrady and Pankrác also became a stage of horror And all because of those damned Germans who, in their pride and arrogance, do not want to endure the enemy. “
“It was a day of horror and sacrifice. How many hundreds of people lost their lives and many more lost everything and they were left with nothing but what they wore. We thanked God for a direct miraculous salvation in the midst of the worst of rage. the terrible bloodshed has already been stopped. “
Less than three months remain until the end of the largest war in human history. At that moment, Marie Dutnarová still has no idea that the capital will experience the bloody battle of the Prague Uprising. And more attacks from heaven, this time the German Luftwaffe.
Thousands of houses were destroyed or damaged
More bombs destroyed factories and killed on March 25, 1945. Thirteen minutes before noon, the first of four hundred American bombers that attacked the capital of torn Czechoslovakia that day appeared in the sky. The bombs hit mainly the industrial area in the northeast.
According to Jiří Rajlich, the Allies dropped 753 heavy 1000-pound (almost half-ton) bombs on factory complexes in Liben and Vysočany, namely the Liben plants of the CKD, which produced German Jagdpanzer 38 Hetzer tanks, or the Aero in Vysočina, which was manufactured for the Germans Si 204D.
A few minutes after noon, the Allies also attacked Kbely Airport, where they dropped 53,851 20-pound bombs. The last target was the airport in Letňany, where 20,670 20-pound bombs were aimed.
The American Liberator and Flying Fortress bombers were responsible for almost 1,600 destroyed or damaged houses. And only in residential areas that then belonged to Prague.
“At that time, other bombs were also devastating in Letňany, Kbely, Čakovice, Satalice, Kyje, Vinoř, Ďáblice, Horní Počernice, Chvaly, Radonice, Svémyslice and many other localities outside Prague,” says Rajlich. In total, around 3,360 houses were damaged or completely destroyed to varying degrees.
The death toll was appalling. According to research in recent years, 562 people have died and more than a thousand more have been injured.