Julius Fučík
Julius Fučík
First page of the “People's Court” death sentence for Julius Fučík, issued August 25, 1943.
When Czechoslovakia was occupied by German troops in March of 1939, the journalist Julius Fučík went underground in Prague. In February of 1941, he joined the Communist Party‘s outlawed central committee. He was arrested by the Gestapo on April 24, 1942. A prison officer gave Fučík an opportunity to write. During the spring of 1943, Fučík wrote his Notes from the Gallows in Prague's Pankrac prison, a book published in many languages after the war. Julius Fučík was sentenced to death by the “People's Court”on August 25, 1943, and hanged in Plötzensee prison on September 8, 1943.