Prague. The city’s uprising against Nazi occupation begins. Prague was the first to be occupied and the last to be liberated. Czech resentment is atavistic and dates back to before the war. Many Germans are beaten, doused in petrol, and burned. Dozens are hanged from streetlamps with swastikas carved into their flesh. At the beginning of the uprising, approximately 200,000 Germans are present in the city, of whom approximately 1,000 are killed during the uprising, according to the Czechoslovakian government, including twenty women and at least eight children. It is impossible to determine the exact number, but this estimate is certainly too low. Mass graves containing up to 300 Germans each will be discovered. The first military division to enter the city will be Brunyachenko’s Russian Liberation Army on May 7, saving the uprising and the city. This division was composed of Russian elements who had fought with the Nazis against the Red Army, but now sided with the Czechs. After fierce fighting in the city streets, hampered by numerous barricades, the Nazis signed a ceasefire on May 8th, and after Eisenhower halted their troops, the Red Army entered the already liberated city on May 9th. For decades, Soviet history books would state that it was the Red Army that liberated the city (a fact also denounced by Solzhenitsyn).
