Youngstown Vindicator (June 14, 1945)
Prague residents crucified, Nazis burned in big uprising
By Leo Disher, United Press staff writer
PRAGUE (UP) – On the morning of May 5, 1945, the outside world heard a Czech voice break into a program of German martial music on Radio Prague, shouting: “Send help. We have risen against the Nazis.”
Then for five days there was silence, while the bloodiest uprising of World War II boiled through the streets of the enslaved Czechoslovak capital.
This is the first complete story obtained from eyewitnesses of the revolution in which the men, women and children of Prague fought behind barricades and in their homes against the 200,000 Germans garrisoning their city.
Fanatical Nazi Elite Guards who formed the core of the Prague garrison quartered Czech boys in the city streets. Witnesses said they crucified captured patriots, ran their tanks over helpless women and children and used hostages as a human screen for their own armor.
And some of the Nazi fanatics themselves, who defied their own high command’s unconditional surrender order, were burned alive by the enraged Czechs.
An unofficial estimate made by some of the Czech partisan leaders today said 2,000 Czechs were killed in the fighting and another 2,000 died later of wounds.
The Germans, fighting with trained troops against a mob armed mostly with clubs and captured weapons, lost but 530 dead.