Museum building hit in the air raid on Prague (14 February 1945)

The event's scope and record type

R0106 records an event in the wartime history of Prague's Museum of Ukraine's Struggle for Liberation. The museum retains ID R0040, its society R0050 and its founding R0104. Mykola Mushynka's historical and archival study supports the date of the strike. Damage to the premises, subsequent movement of collections and post-war administrative intervention are not merged into a single event. [B106-01; B106-02]

Prague's wartime context

On 14 February 1945, American B-17 aircraft bombed Prague. Radio Prague's Czech service quotes National Technical Museum historian Michal Plavec on the route, navigational conditions and crews' decisions. The popular explanation of simply “mistaking Prague for Dresden” must not be presented as an indisputably established account of particular crews' motives. [B106-04]

The museum building's importance

Interwar Ukrainian emigrants collected documents of the Ukrainian People's Republic and the Ukrainian State, periodicals, personal archives, artworks and records of community life in Prague. Publications mention the museum building in Nusle at the former Horymírova 6; matching it to the present-day Štětkova address requires a separate geographical check. A journalistic address reference does not automatically provide an archival identification of the site. [B106-02; B106-03]

The strike on 14 February

Mushynka describes a heavy bomb exploding in front of the museum's façade and destroying its front wall. Historians and journalists independently identify the Ukrainian museum among the affected institutions. Witness accounts differ on the precise minute of the raid and the explosion's location. Until raid logs are obtained, we therefore use the calendar date and a cautious account of damage to the building. [B106-01; B106-02; B106-04]

Casualties and testimony

Mushynka's study lists people inside, including Symon Narizhnyi's family, and reports the deaths of caretaker Hromas's family and two people seeking shelter. These statements come from a historical study rather than vital or court records inspected here. Istorychna pravda retells Nataliia Narizhna's testimony, but her figures for city-wide casualties must not automatically be entered into a register of deaths. [B106-01; B106-03]

Damage to the collections

The bombing caused destruction and losses in the museum collections. Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty and other surveys also describe rescuing and temporarily storing some books, archives and artworks in Prague institutions. It is therefore incorrect to state that all holdings disappeared on 14 February 1945. Each collection needs its own chain connecting the pre-war inventory, rescue record and post-war location. [B106-02; B106-03]

Post-war transfers and provenance

Surveys connect the collections' subsequent dispersal with changes of government and archival transfers after 1945. These processes are distinct from the bomb strike. Without transfer and accession records, the legal recipient of each object cannot be established. CMS fields collection_transfer_event, repository and provenance_chain must remain separate from R0106. [B106-02; B106-03]

Current historiographical discussion

Sources explain the American raid differently: some emphasise mistaken identification, others fuel shortages and deviation from the route. Radio Prague presents an aviation historian's account of a more complex situation. R0106 does not assign blame to an individual pilot or reproduce unverified numerical totals. [B106-04; B106-05]

Connections with Prague's memory

The museum's catastrophe connects Czech wartime history with Ukrainian emigration. The city lost residents and buildings; the Ukrainian community lost a place preserving archival memory. A future website can tell a “building—people—collections” story in which each component has its own sources, avoiding uncritical dramatisation. [B106-02; B106-04]

Limits of factual verification

Available web pages and an indexed historical text were examined. Specific files containing casualty lists, building plans, collection-evacuation reports and photographic negatives were not obtained. Names, figures and images extending beyond the checked excerpts remain subject to editorial control. [B106-01; B106-03; B106-05]