The last days of the war

The T. G. M. Museum in Rakovník, a contributory organization established by the Central Bohemian Regional Authority, has collections thematically focused on the Rakovník Region. This region is located a short distance to the west of Prague.

The T. G. M. Museum in Rakovník operates several interesting museums in this region – the Rakovník Museum, the Nové Strašecí Museum, the T.G. Masaryk Museum at Lány, Museum at Jesenice, the Joachim Barrande Museum in Skryje among other facilities. These museums administer a great deal of interesting material in their collections, including photographs and archival materials. They work on various subjects, which range in scope from regional to supraregional.

The period atmosphere of the final days of World War II and the first postwar days in the towns of Rakovník and Nové Strašecí were captured by a number of amateur and professional photographers.

To the west, the Rakovník Region bordered on the Demarcation Line – a zone in the west of the country that divided the spheres of influence exercised by the Allied forces. The Demarcation Line ran between the cities of Karlovy Vary, Pilsen, and České Budějovice, defining how far the American and Soviet armies could advance (the Americans remaining to the west of the line, the Soviets to the east).

Consequently, the towns and communities in the Rakovník Region were, for the most part, liberated by the Red Army. However, in Nové Strašecí we boast a rarity – a photograph of a U.S. Army reconnaissance vehicle.

The relative proximity of the Rakovník Region to Prague also played a role when the local inhabitants set out to help Prague, the capital, on May 5, 1945, the day the Prague Uprising broke out. Some of the people who lived through those days or actually participated directly in those events are still alive today. Reminiscences of these contemporary witnesses and photographs of these events are available in the museum

The Rakovník Region extends all the way into an area close to Prague, where the municipality of Lány is to be found, with the summer residence of the President of the Republic and the T. G. Masaryk Museum. This museum has on display, among other interesting exhibits, several surviving photographs showing President Edvard Beneš’s return to his homeland in 1945.

But the end of the war was bringing other changes as well – especially in the political arena. Gradually, the state came to be dominated by the Communist Party, which was propped up mainly by the Soviet Union. Events came to a head in 1948: the Communists seized power in a coup d’état and established a totalitarian regime that would last fifty long years.