Born on December 25, 1901, in Prague, Czechslovakia (modern day Czech Republic). Her father, a salesman, sided with President Masaryk and took an anti-Austria political stance. Both Milada's older sister, Marta and younger brother, Jiří, died from scarlet fever in 1914. Her sister, Věra, was born a year later. Strong-willed, Milada took part in a anti-war protest, when she was in high school and was expelled. She later received a diploma from another school in Prague. Milada joined the Red Cross when she met the president's daughter, Alice Masaryk. In the 1920's she overcame a bout of scarlet fever. Milada graduated from Charles University, in 1926. The following year she married the economist, Bohuslav Horák. The couple had a daughter, Lana, in 1933.
After college, Milada worked with the Prague City Council and Women's National Council, drawing up legislative proposals supporting women's rights including women's role in society, women's work qualifications and ethics, amongst others. In 1929, Milada joined the anti-Nazi Czechslovak National Socialist Party. She also travelled around Europe to England, France and the Soviet Union, where she gave lectures. Milada helped refugees from the German-occupied Sudetenland, move to central Germany, after the Munich Agreement ceded it to the Nazi Party, in 1938.
Just before the German occupation, Milada was forced to leave the Prague City Council. During the occupation, she joined the resistance group, We Remain Faithful, finding safehouses for fugitives and passing on secret information. On August 4, 1940, Milada and her husband, Bohuslav, were arrested. Though she was brutually tortured, Milada refused to divulge any information; she remained in Prague prison for the next few years. After the governor of the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, Reinhard Heydrich, was assassinated in 1942, Milada was transferred to the Terezin concentration camp, in central Bohemia; Bohuslav was also sent to Terezin but the couple weren't allowed to reunite. In October 1944, Milada was tried & sentenced to death, but a court in Dresden, Germany, commuted the sentence to 8 years in prison. When she was liberated by American forces, Milada was in a German concentration camp.
Milada was finally reunited with her husband, in 1945. The Czechslovak president, Edvard Beneš, convinced her to return to the Czechslovak National Socialist Party and she became a member of parliament, in 1946, a position she would hold until the February 1948 Communist coup. After joining the Union of Friends of the Soviet Union, Milada realized that Czechslovakia needed to strengthen relations with the West, in order to fight against the formidable leader of the Soviet Union, Joseph Stalin. She also chaired the Council of Czechslovak Women and served as deputy chairperson for the Union of Liberated Political Prisoners. Milada worked for several publications including, Vlasta, which is still a popular magazine today. When the Communists gained power on February 25, 1948, Milada was expelled from all public organizations.
Although she had the opportunity to escape abroad, Milada chose to remain in Czechslovakia and continue advocating for democracy: she worked with underground political organizations and corresponding with exiled politicians. She was arrested in September 1949, on a trumped-up charge of attempting to overthrow the Communist government. She was beaten and tortured, but she didn't break. Her trial began on May 31, 1950 and Milada, then 48 years old, was one of three people to receive the death penalty, on June 8, 1950. Milada Horáková was the last of the four to be executed on June 27, 1950.
Milada's husband, Bohuslav, went into hiding for two months after her arrest, eventually fleeing the country and moving the US, where he died in 1976. Milada's daughter, Jana, was brought up by her sister, Věra, but she was forbidden to attend school. Jana joined her father in the US, in 1968.
In 1990, Milada was posthumously exonerated. The following year, President Václav Havel awarded her with a 1st Class Order Tomáš G. Masaryk medal. In 2000, Milada, had a "symbolic gravestone" at the Vyšehrad Cemetary, in Prague. The location of her remains however, are unknown, as they were never returned to her family. In 2004, June 27 (the day of her execution) was declared "The Day of Remembrance of Victims of the Communist Regime".
Side notes:
Sudetenland- the northern, southern & western regions of the former Czechslovakia, inhabited mainly by ethnic Germans
Protectorate of Bohemia & Moravia- partially annexed territory of Nazi Germany established in March 1939, following the invasion of Czech lands and dissolved in May 1945.
https://www.private-prague-guide.com/article/milada-horakova/
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