Other heroes of the Heydrich have their own street in Prague’s Vysočany
Thanks to Initiative A, the city district of Prague 9 and the Skanska company, the newly created street on the site of the former premises of the ČKD company was named after the Pechman family, which is prominently displayed with the help of the paratroopers from the Anthropoid parachute, who attacked the representative of the Reich Protector Reinhard in May 1942.
In addition to representatives of Initiative A, the city district and the developer, members of the Nazdar Company, the Czech Legionary and the Česká Sokolská communities took part in the official naming ceremony of Pechmanových Street, as the Pechmans belonged to active Falcons. Marie Miloslav Hrubý, husband and Jaroslava Pechmanových Milena attended on behalf of the family.
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Jaroslav Pechman was born on May 1, 1900, and at the age of 19 he became an employee of the state post office in Prague. In 1923, he married Maria Bohuslavová, who was born on April 6, 1902. The couple settled in Hanusova Street in Michla, Prague. Exactly on Jaroslav’s birthday in 1925, a son was born to them, who was named after his father. Daughter Milena joined the family on December 6, 1929. They all belonged to the Czech Brethren Church and were also active Falcons.
Their home unit was Sokol Michle, where Jaroslav Pechman even became the mayor and, among other things, was also responsible for building a new falconry in 1937.
Already before the war, he knew the head teacher Jan Zelenko, who worked under the cover of Hajský in the resistance. Together with other Falcons, they founded the resistance organization Řijen in 1941. Their group was focused on sabotage and diversionary actions.
, when paratroopers from the Anthropoid group came to the homeland at the end of 1941, Jaroslav Pechman and his wife actively participated in their support. They provided not only accommodation, but also food and false documents.
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The Pechmans were not arrested immediately after the betrayal of Karel Čurda in June 1942, like other parachute helpers, but only in October, when they were betrayed by the arrested Sokol resistance fighter Ladislav Vaněk, called Jindra, who in exchange for his life began to cooperate with the Gestapo. Because Jaroslav Pechman suspected, based on the arrests of other resistance fighters, that the Gestapo would soon track him down, he carried a gelatin capsule with one. And on October 5, during his arrest, he used this ampoule so that he would not fall into the clutches of the Gestapo alive and thus possibly endanger other collaborators if he did not endure the expected torture.
On the same day, Marie Pechmanová and her son Jaroslav were arrested at home during classes at the business school. Daughter Milena was not at home, but at a piano lesson, so she escaped arrest that day. The Gestapo came for her two days later, and since she was already thirteen years old, they took her to a special Gestapo prison in a castle on Jeneráleka, later to a camp in Svatobořice and then to a labor camp in Planá nad Lužnicí, where she lived out the end of the war.
All others were sentenced to death by court-martial in absentia on January 8, 1943. They were deported to the Mauthausen concentration camp and murdered on January 26, 1943. Marie and other women were suffocated in the gas chamber at 4:13 p.m., Jaroslav and his son were shot.