Dana Němcová became an honorary citizen of Prague
The new honorary citizen of Prague in her speech of thanks recalled the heroism of other people who took part in the anti-communist resistance, and expressed the wish that people and young people should, among other things, make Prague friendly.
Němcová is one of the leading Czech Catholic intellectuals. Together with her husband Jiří Němec, they were one of the initiators of Charter 77. Due to dissident activities, Němcová was monitored and questioned by the State Security. In 1979, she spent half a year in custody and was sentenced to a three-year suspended sentence of five years.
She was also imprisoned in 1989, when she acted as a spokesperson for Charter 77. In 1978, Němcová co-founded the Committee for the Defense of the Unjustly Prosecuted (VONS), an organization that helped victims of communist injustice. After 1989, Němcová briefly met politics and became a member of the Federal Assembly. After the death of the wife of the first post-November president, Václav Havel Olga, Němcová took over the leadership of the Committee of Good Will. She was also involved in helping refugees from the wars in Yugoslavia in the 1990s.
Němcová has already won many other important awards. She holds, for example, the Medal of Merit of the 1st degree from President Havel, the Nation’s Memory Award and the Arnošt Lustig Award. In 2010, she already granted honorary citizenship of the Prague 2 district. In 2013, she received a certificate of participation in the Third Resistance.
Medal for architecture
Architect Martin Rajniš took over the silver medal of the capital. The city management awarded him the award for an important lifelong work in the field of architecture connected with Prague. Rajniš is the author of a number of Czech wooden lookout towers including Doubravka in Černý Most and set out on the project and construction of the Máj department store on Národní třída. The bronze medal was appreciated by the representatives of the metropolis for a significant lifelong work in the field of music choirmaster Vladislav and Zdena Součková, the national career is, among other things, connected with the children’s choir Radost.
Prague values its important inhabitants in several ways. The highest personal award given to the capital is honorary citizenship. Since 1990, the metropolis has awarded it to Jaroslav Foglar, Zdeněk Svěrák, Jiří Bělohlávek, Jiří Suchý, Dana Zátopková and Miloš Forman, among others.
The honorary citizenship of the capital was taken over in Prague by a dissident and one of the first signatories of Charter 77, Dana Němcová, from the hands of the Deputy Mayor of Prague, Petr Hlubuček (STAN). She was awarded for extraordinary deeds associated with personal heroism in the anti-communist resistance. (November 16, 2021)
Author: ČTK / Kamaryt Michal