Bohuslav Hubálek (1903−1949)
Bohuslav Hubálek was born at Vysoké Mýto (Ústí nad Orlice District, Pardubice Region) on October 11, 1903. He was the son of a decorative painter, and he learned the trade from his father after finishing elementary school. In 1924 he left for Paris where he did his trade and also attended a three-month commercial course. He returned to Czechoslovakia four years later, got married and opened a shop selling dyes and painting goods at Prague-Dejvice. He later expanded his business to a wholesale facility. He was a member of the Agrarian Party until 1938, but he never held any major function.
At the time of the German occupation he joined the underground movement and actively participated in the Prague Uprising of May 1945. After the war he built a house on the plot of the Dejvice railway station and lived there with his wife and three children.
After the communist takeover in February 1948, Bohuslav Hubálek fell victim to persecution based on his class profile and his business was nationalized. In March 1949 he was arrested by State Security (StB) and accused of subversive activity which, according to communist investigators, was directed towards a military putsch (Action Norbert). He was assigned the role of the chief weapons provider and creator of an illegal network.
The State Court in Prague sentenced him to death in a fabricated trial on charges of high treason and espionage on June 9, 1949. He was executed together with four other convicts, Miloslav Jebavý, Karel Sabela, Vilém Sok and Josef Gonic, at Prague’s Pankrác Prison on July 18, 1949.
Based on the judgement, Hubálek’s flat was confiscated and given to an StB member, which, however, was not an end to repression of his family: Hubálek’s wife was sent to a labour camp and his children were expelled from studies and had to work in a factory.